The Justice Department argued that the same First Amendment analysis should apply to churches as to social clubs. The Court called that argument “hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations. We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization’s freedom to select its own ministers.” Ouch.

It was a banner day for religious freedom yesterday as the Supreme Court ruled that government can’t tell religious institutions whom they can hire and fire as “ministers.” The unanimous decision was a crushing rebuke to the Obama Administration, which had taken the radical position that churches are little different from any other employer in job disputes.

In the High Court’s latest support for the First Amendment, all nine Justices upheld what’s known as the “ministerial exception” in employment disputes, recognizing a healthy degree of autonomy for churches, synagogues and other houses of worship.

In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Cheryl Perich had worked as a religiously affiliated or “called” teacher at the Lutheran school, teaching math and music as well as leading students in prayer. In 2004, she took a medical leave for narcolepsy, a sleep disorder.

When she sought to return, the school declined, and she was eventually voted out by the church congregation. Ms. Perich and the federal EEOC sued for backpay, reinstatement and damages.

Writing for the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that the Constitution’s Free Exercise and Establishment clauses both bar the government from interfering with a church’s decision to fire a minister. To do so, he writes, “intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs” as well as “the right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.”

The Court rejected the EEOC’s argument that in order to qualify as a minister, an employee should have to spend a certain amount of her time on religious duties. Under such a system, church employees would presumably be required to clock in and out of different responsibilities within their jobs, lending an artificial and secular overlay on the nature of their work.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on online.wsj.com – however, the original URL is no longer available.]