Attorney General Miyares Leads Multistate Effort Defending Religious Liberty

RICHMOND, Va. – Attorney General Jason Miyares today announced that Virginia is leading a 21-state coalition in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit defending the constitutional right of religious organizations to determine their own missions and employment practices without interference from secular courts.

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.

“The First Amendment guarantees every faith the right to define its mission and hire accordingly. Maryland’s scheme forces courts into theological judgments they are ill-equipped to make, and that intrusion threatens the religious liberty of every Virginian and every American,” said Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares. “This is bigger than one denomination or one state. If Maryland’s interpretation stands, every religious organization across the country is at risk of having its faith redefined by a secular court. That is exactly what the First Amendment was written to prevent.”

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

Read the brief here.

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