2017 Victories: Big Wins for Religious Liberty at the U.S. Supreme Court

This is the latest installment in a year-end series looking back at a few of the numerous victories by the ACLJ in 2017.

Every year, opponents to religious freedom continue their assault on our First Freedom. This year, the ACLJ successfully helped defend religious liberty in two landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

In Advocate Health Care Network v. Stapleton, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and ACLU tried to strangle church healthcare plans with burdensome government bureaucracy. These radical groups tried to prevent Christian hospitals from invoking a religious exemption to the onerous burdens, claiming that only Churches and not Christian groups could receive a “religious” exemption. We did not let them.

In Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, the State denied funding to help better protect children who play on a church playground for the sole reason they were a church. We did let that discrimination go unanswered.

The ACLJ filed friend-of-the court briefs in both cases, supporting the religious liberty of the Christian hospital system and church respectively. With these two cases, the Supreme Court has again made it clear that people of faith cannot be treated as second-class citizens. At the ACLJ, we fight to make sure they never are.

While these rulings represent major victories for religious freedom, we face many other impending challeges. With your support, we can continue to help deliver resounding victories for religious liberty in the years to come.

To help the ACLJ continue to have the resources we need to make these victories possible and continue these fights, please consider making a Tax-Deductible donation to the ACLJ through our year-end Matching Challenge. Your gift will be DOUBLED dollar-for-dollar through the end of the year.

You can read more in the ACLJ’s 2017 Victories series here.