Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos

In Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos (1987) 483 U.S. 327, the religious exemption from a statute prohibiting employment discrimination extended to all employment, of both a religious and a non-religious nature. The exemption in Amos concerned section 702 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (78 Stat. 255, as amended, 41 U.S.C. 2000e-1), which provided: "This subchapter . . . shall not apply . . . to a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association,educational institution, or society of its activities." ( Amos, supra, 483 U.S. at pp. 329-330, fn. 1.) Amos states: "It is a significant burden on a religious organization to require it, on pain of substantial liability, to predict which of its activities a secular court will consider religious. The line is hardly a bright one, and an organization might understandably be concerned that a judge would not understand its religious tenets and . . . the way an organization carried out what it understood to be its religious mission." (Id. at p. 336, ) Amos concluded that a statute relieving a religious organization of this burden had the secular purpose of minimizing governmental interference with the decision-making process in religions. (Amos, supra, 483 U.S. at p. 336.) The Supreme Court recognized that a religious organization as a whole "might understandably be concerned that a judge would not understand its religious tenets and sense of mission. Fear of potential liability might affect the way an organization carried out what it understood to be its religious mission." Id. As such, the Court acknowledged that the government had no place in interfering with the decision-making process of religions. Id.