Closed captioning of: SCOTUS rules 9-0 in religious freedom case
>>
we have breaking news out of the
supreme court
in a
unanimous decision
. a teacher fired for a disability from a
religious school
cannot sue. let's go to
pete williams
. pete, what was the ruling?
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this is a surprising decision, chris. first of all, it is unanimous, 9-0 with liberals joining the conservatives. none of them wrote separately to say a peep about it. they agreed so much. the second thing is, this is the first time the court ever addressed this issue. is there something different about the way a church manages its employees that the government can't touch. today, the
supreme court
said yes. here are the facts. a woman was a teacher at a
lutheran school
in michigan. two kinds of teachers, called or lay. called led students in prayer. she was a called teacher. she developed a disease known as narcolepsy that caused her to fall into deep sleep. she left for treatment. when she came back, they said we have no open positions. she threatened to sue. it would normally be tree in any normal workplace. then the church fired her. the
federal government
sued saying they were retaliating against her. today, they said this cannot be brought into court. it is barred by an exception that it would interfere with the church's ability to decide who will teach the message and who will be the ministers. they wrote the opinion for you nan mus court. he says the interest of society of enforcing discrimination laws is undoubtedly important but so, too, is the importance of
religious groups
who teach their faith and carry out their mission. it's historic. it's a very strong
freedom of religion
decision. and surprising because it's unanimous.
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