I had hoped that the Supreme Court would rule on behalf of religious liberty in the Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC case, but I did not expect a unanimous decision!:

In what may be its most significant religious liberty decision in two decades, the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the first time recognized a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, saying that churches and other religious groups must be free to choose and dismiss their leaders without government interference.

“The interest of society in the enforcement of employment discrimination statutes is undoubtedly important,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.wrote in a decision that was surprising in both its sweep and its unanimity. “But so, too, is the interest of religious groups in choosing who will preach their beliefs, teach their faith and carry out their mission.”

The decision gave only limited guidance about how courts should decide who counts as a minister, saying the court was “reluctant to adopt a rigid formula.” Two concurring opinions offered contrasting proposals.

Whatever its precise scope, the ruling will have concrete consequences for countless people employed by religious groups to perform religious work. In addition to ministers, priests, rabbis and other religious leaders, the decision appears to encompass, for instance, at least those teachers in religious schools with formal religious training who are charged with instructing students about religious matters.

This is a stunning rebuke to the Obama administration. Which deserved it. Matthew Franck looks forward:

One question now is whether Hosanna-Tabor can be squared with the 1990Employment Division v. Smith decision, in which the Court held that the First Amendment does not mandate that religious exceptions be made to generally applicable laws. The chief justice said that the Americans With Disabilities Act, at issue here, “like Oregon’s prohibition on peyote use [at issue in Smith], is a valid and neutral law of general applicability.” He went on:

But a church’s selection of its ministers is unlike an individual’s ingestion of peyote. Smith involved government regulation of only outward physical acts. The present case, in contrast, concerns government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself. . . . The contention that Smithforecloses recognition of a ministerial exception rooted in the Religion Clauses has no merit.What Roberts suggests here is an important qualification of Smith. Quoting a nineteenth century ruling, Justice Scalia (who silently joined yesterday’s ruling) said in Smith that a blanket rule that religious claims nearly always trigger exemptions to generally applicable laws would “in effect permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.” Yesterday, in Hosanna-Tabor, Chief Justice Roberts said, in effect, that when it comes to the right to govern themselves in the choice of their clergy, ministers, leaders, and others whose functions and duties are distinctly religious, churches and other religious organizations are indeed a law unto themselves. This is an important recognition of the communal nature of religious life, but it does leaveSmith largely intact in the context that gave rise to it two decades ago.