Gorsuch balks at rejection of religious tax exemption case

WASHINGTON (CN) — A church fighting the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, for a property tax exemption was denied a Supreme Court audience but found a receptive audience Monday in a dissent from Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Saying he would have reversed for the New Life in Christ Church, Gorsuch was emphatic that “bureaucratic efforts to ‘subject’ religious beliefs to ‘verification’ have no place in a free country.”

“The Framers of our Constitution were acutely aware how governments in Europe had sought to control and manipulate religious practices and churches,” Gorsuch said. “They resolved that America would be different. In this country, we would not subscribe to the ‘arrogant pretension’ that secular officials may serve as ‘competent Judge[s] of Religious truth.’”

Represented by the Gibson Dunn attorney Allyson Ho, the church had asked the court to intervene after the city of Fredericksburg denied property tax exemptions for a home owned by the church and inhabited by two youth ministers, Josh and Anacari Storms, conduct spiritual outreach and host Bible studies for college students in the area.

After the city prevailed before the state trial court, and the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed, the church argued that Fredericksburg was not applying its property exemption requirements equally. The petition from Ho asked the justices in Washington to draw Fulton v. City of Philadelphia — a unanimous decision from June that found Philadelphia committed religious discrimination when it refused to place foster children through a Catholic foster care agency that does not work with gay couples.

Representing the city, attorney Steven Minor said that the minister couple is not classified as ordained clergy by the rules of Presbyterian Church in America and were not publicly listed as pastors on the church’s website. 

Ho pushed back, however, that the PCA’s Book of Church Order gives each church the authority to govern its own affairs, including hiring various ministers.

Gorsuch wrote Tuesday that government officials and judges cannot subject religious beliefs to verification.

“Absent proof of insincerity or fraud, a church’s decisions ‘on matters purely ecclesiastical, although affecting civil rights, are accepted in litigation before the secular courts as conclusive,’" Gorsuch wrote, quoting 1929 high court precedent established in Gonzalez v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila.

Neither Minor nor Ho immediately responded to a request for comment on the denial of a writ of certiorari Tuesday.

The case was one of dozens that the court turned away in its Monday list of orders, which contained no grants.

Follow @@lexandrajones

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Email *

Submit