US Supreme Court to hear cases involving religious freedom of hospitals
The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday to take up a set of cases involving the religious freedom of hospitals—specifically, whether the government has the constitutional authority to determine how religious they are for the purpose of whether their pension plans qualify as tax-exempt church plans under federal law:“The government shouldn’t attempt to go into the theology business by assuming it has the ability or expertise to decide whether a faith-based ministry is religious enough to be a ministry. Religiously affiliated hospitals were developed and have long been regarded as the very essence of faith-motivated outreach and service to the community and world. To say that they are not ‘religious enough’ to be recognized for what they clearly are makes no sense. We are pleased the Supreme Court has agreed to hear these cases because it now has the opportunity to rule, as we encouraged in our friend-of-the-court brief, that the government has no authority to second-guess the religious standing of faith-based ministries.”
ADF filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court that encouraged it to take up two of the cases, Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton and St. Peter’s Healthcare System v. Kaplan.
Legal Documents
Related Resources
SCOTUSblog case page: Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton
ABOUT Jordan Lorence
Jordan Lorence serves as senior counsel and director of strategic engagement with Alliance Defending Freedom where he plays a key role with the Strategic Relations and Training Team. His work encompasses a broad range of litigation, with a primary focus on religious liberty, freedom of speech, student privacy, conscience rights of creative professionals, and the First Amendment freedoms of public university students and professors. Since 1984, he has represented litigation clients across the nation. Lorence earned a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1980. He is admitted to the bar in Minnesota, Virginia, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Supreme Court, and multiple federal appellate and district courts.