Last August, the First Liberty Institute, Christian Legal Society and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLC filed a petition to the Supreme Court on behalf of New Life in Christ Church after the Virginia Supreme Court refused to hear the complaint against the city for denying the tax exemption status.

A pair of ministers seeking a tax-exempt status shouldn’t be subject to a government “verification” process, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch argued Tuesday.

The Supreme Court denied a request for oral argument in the case of New Life in Christ Church v. City of Fredericksburg, which centered on whether Josh and Anacari Storms can claim a tax exemption for their residence.

The couple are college ministers who minister to students at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and host Bible studies and worship events.

City officials had concluded that they could not claim tax-exempt status for a parsonage, contending that the Storms family does not fit the exact classification of a minister according to the Presbyterian Church in America, which includes a requirement to be ordained and a prohibition on female ordination.

Gorsuch took exception to the nation’s high court denying the appeal in a written dissent, arguing that the Storms should have been eligible for the tax-exempt residence.

“The church tried to explain that the City misunderstood its traditions and practices. The church responded that, yes, women can and do serve as ministers,” wrote Gorsuch.

“It acknowledged that ‘in order to deliver sermons’ a minister in its tradition must be ordained but nothing in its rules or the Book of Church Order ‘prohibits a particular church from hiring ministers to serve as messengers and teachers of the faith’ without ordination.”

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