SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A Ninth Circuit panel found Monday that a Christian ministry in Washington state had standing on its claims that the state’s anti-discrimination law may potentially unconstitutionally restrict its decisions on hiring employees.
The three-judge panel determined a federal judge in 2023 improperly dismissed a Christian ministry’s lawsuit against Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and other state representatives and reverses that ruling. The panel held that the Union Gospel Mission of Yakima, a Christian organization in central Washington, had standing for its claims under Article III, in a case questioning the constitutionality of the Washington Law Against Discrimination.
The Washington Law Against Discrimination prohibits religious organizations from exclusively hiring employees of a certain faith unless the position is ministerial.
"Not only did the State repeatedly refuse to disavow enforcement to the extent that YUGM seeks to hire non-ministerial employees, but the state is only one enforcer of the WLAD," the judges wrote in their nine-page opinion, explaining that in a pre-enforcement First Amendment challenge, a plaintiff only needs to demonstrate it is influenced by the threat of enforcement.
"YUGM has sufficiently alleged that the WLAD has forced it to self-censor its conduct and its speech," the judges added.
The Ninth Circuit panel — which included U.S. Circuit Judge Milan Smith, a George W. Bush appointee, Donald Trump appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Mark Bennett and Joe Biden appointee U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony Johnstone — previously grilled the Washington assistant attorney general in July about whether the state would disavow enforcement of an anti-discrimination law against the mission.
The judges determined Monday that the government failed to disavow enforcement of the law, which is required under a three-prong test established in the 2000 Ninth Circuit decision in Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rights Commission. That test helps determine if the state proved a plaintiff had a plan to violate discrimination law and if officials demonstrated a history of enforcement.
The organization provides meal services to those in need and also operates a homeless shelter, recovery program and thrift store. It argued it faced the threat of enforcement after Ferguson’s office opened an investigation into Seattle Pacific University, a religious entity it said had similar hiring practices.
It thus urged the Ninth Circuit to find it had standing for an appeal against the state, arguing authorities had not disavowed enforcing the anti-discrimination law against the mission.
“We need not decide whether the AGO’s letter to SPU constitutes a history of past enforcement under the third Thomas factor because this factor 'carries ‘little weight’ when the challenged law is ‘relatively new’ and the record contains little information as to enforcement," the panel said.
The organization in its opening brief to the appellate court filed last November said it was imperative to hire employees who agreed with its beliefs and expect staff to “abstain from sexual immorality, including adultery, non-married cohabitation and homosexual conduct."
Attorneys for the state did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling Monday. Ryan Tucker, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom representing the plaintiff, said that the decision was correct to allow the ministry to pursue protection of its constitutional claims.
“The Constitution gives religious organizations the freedom to hire employees who are aligned with and live out their religious beliefs," Tucker said. "But (YUGM) faces substantial penalties under Washington state law for simply engaging in its freedom to hire fellow believers who share the mission’s calling to spread the gospel and care for vulnerable people in the Yakima community."
The panel also said that the federal judge erred in finding that the ministry's claims are not redressable, and therefore did not properly address the state’s argument on prudential ripeness. The judges remanded the case for the federal judge to consider the claims’ ripeness, as well as to decide the ministry's motion for a preliminary injunction.
U.S. District Judge Mary K. Dimke, a Joe Biden appointee, in 2023 dismissed the Yakima mission’s case in lower court, agreeing with the Washington attorney general that the case was a “veiled attempt to seek appellate review” of 2021's Woods v. Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, where the state Supreme Court found that a Christian organization had improperly denied a man a staff attorney position after learning he was in a same-sex relationship.
The court did not have the authority to overturn the decision in that case, Dimke wrote in her decision. Only the United States Supreme Court has the jurisdiction to hear direct appeals from state courts — and the Supreme Court denied the Seattle mission’s petition for writ of certiorari in March 2022.
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