Justices Grant Leeway to Churches in Job Bias Laws

[ladyliberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/u...ption-to-job-discrimination-laws.html?_r=1&hp

WASHINGTON — In what may be its most significant religious liberty decision in two decades, the Supreme Court on Wednesday for the first time recognized a “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws, saying that churches and other religious groups must be free to choose and dismiss their leaders without government interference.

What do people think? The justices basically said unanimously (there were concurrences, but no dissents) that religious organizations were allowed to discriminate against their ministers. In this case, the organization was allowed to dismiss a minister because she sued them, arguing that it was against their religion to sue the church.

I recognize that there must be some "ministerial exception". I don't think the government should force the Catholic church, for example to accept female priests (I somewhat wish they would, but I don't want them to be forced to do so).

That being said, I think this ruling went too far. This ruling seems to shift the power not from the secular to the religious, but from the employee to the employer (much like the recent Walmart discrimination case). Why should religious liberty dictate that the minister cannot sue the church, when the reverse (a church suing one of their ministers) is presumably not disallowed?