CINCINNATI – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys submitted their opening briefs for filing Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on behalf of a faith-based medical nonprofit, a Catholic school run by a Michigan parish, and four parents.
Christian Healthcare Centers, Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, and several of the school’s parents are asking the court to uphold the ministries’ constitutionally protected freedom to operate as religious organizations consistent with their beliefs in two separate cases.
“Religious organizations should be free to serve their communities according to their beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel Chris Schandevel. “Christian Healthcare provides quality primary care to all members of the community, while Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish’s school provides children with a classical, Catholic education. Michigan officials threatened to punish them for living out their faith and for hiring people who share their beliefs. The Constitution requires Michigan officials to respect religious organizations’ freedom to follow the very faith that has motivated them to serve others.”
Michigan’s civil rights law threatens to force Christian Healthcare to hire people who do not share its faith, to prescribe cross-sex hormones, and to use pronouns that do not accord with a person’s sex. The law also prohibits the ministry from explaining its religious reasons for these choices to the public. This violates the ministry’s religious beliefs, burdens its ability to advance its religious mission, and undermines its ability to provide safe healthcare to its community.
The same law requires Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish and its school, Sacred Heart Academy, to hire faculty and staff who lead lives in opposition to the Catholic faith, speak messages that violate Church doctrine, and refrain from articulating Catholic beliefs in teaching its students and when advertising the school to prospective students or job applicants. The law also threatens the rights of parents—including the families who have joined the lawsuit—who specifically chose to send their children to Sacred Heart Academy because the school aligns with their values and religious beliefs.
The district court wrongly concluded that the First Amendment does not protect the ministries’ choice to hire fellow believers, and despite finding that other aspects of the law likely violate the ministries’ First Amendment rights, the court refused to give them any sort of protection. The ministries are now asking the appeals court to review the lower court’s decisions and allow them to serve their communities according to their faith, as ministries have been free to do in America since its founding.
The brief filed in Christian Healthcare Centers v. Nessel states that Christian Healthcare Centers “is a non-profit healthcare ministry whose employees express its faith every day. Forcing it to hire those who reject its faith would alter the message it exists to share. The First Amendment forbids Michigan from imposing that burden.”
The brief filed in Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish v. Nessel notes that the “First Amendment authorizes a religious school to govern itself, including by requiring every employee, not just ministers, to share its faith. That is a religious judgment the government may not second-guess. Federal law and most states respect it. But Michigan does not.”
- Pronunciation guide: Schandevel (SHAN’-deh-vell)
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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Chris Schandevel
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