Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church is a church and school in Redford, Michigan affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. All its schoolteachers there lead weekly chapel services, teach religion classes, lead prayer, and teach a morning devotional. As such, most teachers are considered ministerial employees. 

After dismissing one of its teachers, the school was sued for discrimination. The former teacher, who the school considered to be a minister, claimed she was unlawfully terminated because of a disability. A trial court ruled in favor of the school, stating that the ministerial exception applied in the case. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed however, and ruled in favor of the former teacher. But in a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court held that the teacher was a minister and that the ministerial exception prohibits the government from getting involved in the relationship between a religious organization and its ministers, thereby upholding the right of the church and school to terminate the teacher.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed this principle in its Our Lady of Guadalupe opinion in the summer of 2020. That case resulted from two Catholic schools in California being sued after they chose not to renew the contracts of two teachers, both of whom had many religious duties. The schools asserted their constitutionally protected freedom to determine who could teach the Catholic faith at their institutions. Thankfully, the Court recognized that religious organizations have autonomy to make employment decisions about their ministers. It also provided clarity on who is considered a “minister.” The Court rightly concluded that any definition of a minister should be primarily based on the religious functions an employee is asked to perform as defined by those qualified to make that judgment: the religious groups who know their faith best.

In 2016, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law adding gender identity to the state’s public accommodations law. While churches were considered exempt from this law, some misconstrued it to apply to churches and subjected their facilities to public accommodations requirements that violated their deeply held religious convictions.
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This impacted people like Pastor Esteban Carrasco and House of Destiny Ministries. Esteban and his church wanted to open a women’s shelter for survivors of domestic violence. But according to this interpretation of the law, they would be forced to allow men who identify as female to use the same changing rooms, restrooms, and living facilities as these vulnerable women.

Thankfully, in response to an ADF lawsuit, state officials reversed course and admitted that the First Amendment protects a church’s freedom to operate consistent with its faith – even when it hosts community outreach events. Massachusetts officials revised their official Gender Identity Guidance and website language, which now protects the freedom of churches to express views consistent with their faith and operate their facilities in a manner that doesn’t violate their core religious beliefs.