Attorney General Alan Wilson joins multistate effort defending religious liberty

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced today that he joined a multistate coalition defending the constitutional right of religious organizations to determine their own missions and employment practices without interference from secular courts. He joined a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

At issue is a Maryland law prohibiting employment discrimination, which includes an exemption for religious organizations. The Maryland Supreme Court recently narrowed this exemption, holding that it applies only to employees who “directly further” a religious organization’s “core mission.” That interpretation forces secular courts—not churches, synagogues, mosques, or temples themselves—to decide what a faith’s “core mission” is and which employees count as essential to it.

“I will always protect religious liberty, and the courts have no place telling church leaders who they can and cannot hire based on judges’ interpretation of who’s following the church’s mission closely enough,” Attorney General Wilson said.

The case arose when the General Conference of Seventh Day Adventists and Adventist Risk Management, Inc. challenged Maryland’s restrictive interpretation. The organizations require all employees to be members of the Church in good standing, reflecting their belief that every employee plays a role in advancing their religious mission. Under Maryland’s new rule, however, that practice is threatened by judges second-guessing which employees are “close enough” to the church’s mission.

The amicus brief argues that this intrusion violates the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, which together safeguard the autonomy of religious organizations. The Free Exercise Clause protects the right of religious groups to shape their own faith and mission, while the Establishment Clause bars government from inserting itself into ecclesiastical matters. The brief stresses that even the threat of litigation can chill religious exercise by pressuring organizations to make decisions based on legal risk instead of religious conviction.

Attorney General Wilson joined Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia in filing the brief.

Read the brief here.