Religious Conservatives Look to the Next Supreme Court Rulings on Religious Liberty

(RNS) — Religious conservatives lost the culture war over gay and transgender rights in the workplace this week.

In a 6-3 ruling Monday (June 15), the Supreme Court said the rights of gay and transgender people are protected from workplace discrimination. The ruling was a defeat to religious conservatives who have been waging a decades-long battle to hold on to traditional definitions of sexuality.

Worse yet, two conservative justices — Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the opinion, and Chief Justice John Roberts, who joined him – played a key role in the ruling.

The reaction was swift and it was harsh. Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called it “an injustice.” James Dobson, an evangelical social commentator, said it was “an affront to God.”

But others have turned their focus to other pending Supreme Court rulings on religious liberty this term, where they still hope to carve out significant wins.

Chief among them are two cases — Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel — that involve a “ministerial exemption” to civil rights protections such as the one in Monday’s ruling, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Right Act.

The ministerial exception is a legal doctrine arising from the First Amendment that bars the government from interfering with religious institutions’…