9th Circuit: Oregon Right to Life Group Is a Religious Organization

In Oregon Right to Life v. Stolfi, (9th Cir., Oct. 31, 2025), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, remanded the case to the district court for it to re-evaluate whether requiring Oregon Right to Life to furnish its employees with health insurance covering abortion and contraception violates its First Amendment rights. The majority said in part:

We agree with ORTL that its beliefs are religious and sincerely held.  In light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, 605 U.S. 238 (2025), which reiterated the constitutional significance of exemptions granted to some religiously motivated organizations but not others, we return this case to the district court to reevaluate whether RHEA’s application to ORTL violates the First Amendment....

ORTL’s religious motivations and beliefs are overt and long-established.  They are announced throughout ORTL’s governing documents, shared by ORTL’s board, and have been publicly declared by ORTL since before this litigation....

Judge VanDyke filed a concurring opinion saying that he would also order the district court to enter a preliminary injunction because ORTL has shown a strong likelihood of success on its First Amendment claim.

Judge Schroeder filed a dissenting opinion, saying in part:

The majority appears to suggest that the plaintiff, Oregon Right to Life, may have been wrongfully denied an exemption as a religious employer under Oregon’s Reproductive Health Equity Act (RHEA).  Yet Oregon Right to Life never asked to be considered a religious employer.  The case is thus unlike the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission.... 

Courthouse News Service reports on the decision.

Recent Articles of Interest

From SSRN:

• Matthew Bolton, Anti-Zionism as 'Protected Belief': The Case of David Miller, (Forthcoming in Industrial Law Journal).
• Leo E. Strine, Jr., Confronting AI’s Ethical Mirror Test, 49 J. Corp. L. Digit. 101 (2025).
• Drew Taylor, Marriage Equality and the First Amendment: A Pluralism Argument, (October 08, 2025).
• S, Agnes Sachitha, Women’s Rights vs. Fetal Rights: A Clinically, Consciously and Grounded Analysis, (September 15, 2025).
• Amos N. Guiora, Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the Politics of Criticism, (Unadorned Conversations on Antisemitism, Scott Douglas Jacobsen, In Sight Publishing. (2025)).
• Ezra Young, Skrmetti's Mistake, (August 01, 2025).
• Catherine E. Smith, Tanya Washington, Jeremiah Chin & Sara Hildebrand, Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars for the Advancement of Children's Constitutional Rights in Support of Defendants-Appellants in Roy v. Darren Patterson Christian Academy, (September 15, 2025).
• David B. Cruz, Invisible Bastards: Nonmarital Children, Transgender People, And Equal Protection, (USC Law Legal Studies Paper No. 2526 (2025)).
• Stephen E. Sachs, Zionism and Title VI, (Harvard Law Review Forum, Volume 139 (forthcoming 2025)).
• Eric Steven Smith, Abortion and State Taxes: Unexpected Parallelism, (Forthcoming, Oklahoma Law Review).
• Nicholas Serafin, Obergefell After Dobbs and the Future of Substantive Due Process, (Santa Clara Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 5620630 (2025).

From SSRN (Non-U.S. Law):

• William Jones, The Transmission of Sacred Offices: Royal Bloodlines, Priesthood, and the Continuity of Divine Stewardship, (September 28, 2025).
• Mohd Mudassir M.Ae.S.I, Is the Fluid/Sea/Murky Water Mentiond in Quran Refers to Spacetime? A Scientific Perspective on Quranic Verses, (April 08, 2025).
• Muhammad Munir, The Role of Shari'ah in Pakistani Legal System: An Introduction, (September 30, 2025).
• Michael Quinlan, The Untethering of Law from Faith and Reason: NSW Anti-Discrimination Law Reform, Voluntary Assisted Dying and Surrogacy, (September 12, 2025).
• Michael Quinlan, Religious Freedom in Contemporary Australia, (February 22, 2025).
• Ahmer Bilal Soofi, TAYYAB and Statutory Law of Pakistan, (October 20, 2025).
• Malik Muhammad Aqdus, Ombudsman Institutions: A Study in the Light of Shariah and Pakistani Law, (August 11, 2025).
• Fathimath Sheema Zahir, Anupama Roy, Citizenship Regimes, Law, And Belonging: The CAA And The NRC (July 23, 2025).
• Wajid Kumar, Comparative Legal Studies of Divorce: Insights from Islamic and Secular Jurisdictions, (December 01, 2023).
• Wajid Kumar, Sati as Custom and Crime: A Socio-Legal Examination of Widow Burning Practices, (December 01, 2024).
• George Henry, Triple Talaq and Women's Rights: Human Rights Concerns in Islamic Legal Systems, (December 01, 2024).

From SmartCILP and elsewhere:

• Dheepa Sundaram, An Academic Conference, a Bomb Threat, and a Title VI Complaint: U.S. Hindu Nationalist Groups' Litigious Assault on Academic Freedom, 16 Drexel Law Review 837-890 (2024).
•  Australian Journal of Law & Religion, Volume 6 (2025).

Court Cannot Require Congregational Vote on Disaffiliation from Methodist Parent Body

In Ex parte Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, Inc., (AL Sup. Ct., Oct. 31, 2025), the Alabama Supreme Court issued a writ of mandamus ordering the trial court to dismiss a suit brought by certain members of the Auburn United Methodist Church (AUMC) who wanted to disaffiliate from its parent body, the United Methodist Church, because of disagreement with the UMC's position on human sexuality. Those members sought a court order to require a vote of all the members of AUMC on whether the congregation should disaffiliate and a declaration that the parent Conference lacked any interest in the congregation's property. The Court held in part:

Under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, Alabama courts may not adjudicate disputes that are ecclesiastical in nature, including matters of church doctrine, polity, or internal governance.... Generally, the process of disaffiliation is governed by ecclesiastical rule.... Thus, a dispute concerning disaffiliation is typically considered an ecclesiastical matter -- not a civil one.

The Court went on to hold that an Alabama statute on church control of its real property does not require a congregational vote on denominational disaffiliation. AL.com reports on the decision. [Thanks to Thomas Rutledge for the lead.]

FDA Restrictions on Abortion Drug Held to Be Arbitrary and Capricious

 In Purcell v. Kennedy, (D HI, Oct. 30, 2025), a Hawaii federal district court, in a 79-page opinion, held that the FDA must re-evaluate the "Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy" which it has imposed for the use of mifepristone. The court said in part:

... [T]he court concludes that the Agency violated the APA by failing to provide a reasoned explanation for its restrictive treatment of the drug, which was compounded by its decision to limit the scope of information it considered when evaluating the REMS. More specifically, the Agency neglected to consider certain required statutory factors and generally failed to sufficiently explain the logic behind any reasoning it did provide, rendering the 2023 REMS Decision arbitrary and capricious.

The court ordered the FDA to reconsider its restrictions. ACLU issued a press release announcing the decision.  [Thanks to Thomas Rutledge for the lead.]

Christian Opposition to Halloween Surfaces Again

Today is Halloween. The Wild Hunt this week reported on growing Christian religious opposition to Halloween celebrations. The report says in part:

Beginning early this month and, frankly, on cue, a surge of conservative Christian messaging has renewed the annual calls to avoid Halloween celebrations — and, in some cases, to confront or disrupt them. While many faith groups simply discourage participation, others have taken a more aggressive approach, framing Halloween and related Pagan observances like Samhain as manifestations of evil that must be “spiritually opposed.”...

Across social media, Christian influencers and ministries have once again amplified warnings that Halloween is “anti-Christian,” not merely secular or non-religious. Some claim that its roots in Samhain and ancestor veneration make it inherently pagan and demonic, even citing biblical passages as prohibitions against its observance....

While these ideas are not new, their intensity this year appears to have coincided with organized actions intended to “reclaim” public spaces from what these groups see as darkness. In Salem, often called “the Witch City,” that rhetoric has turned into direct confrontation....

Broad Religious Statements Did Not Support Title VII Discrimination Claim

 In Castaneda v. State of California Department of Motor Vehicles, (ED CA, Oct. 28, 2025), a DMV employee brought several federal and state claims challenging her firing. She had raised religious objections to the Covid vaccine and also objected to the alternative of testing by DMV's third-party contractor instead of her own doctor. Dismissing, with leave to amend, plaintiff's Title VII religious discrimination claim, a California federal magistrate judge said in part:

... Plaintiff does not explain the religious basis for her objection to the vaccine, beyond saying that “her body is sacred and God-given” and she cannot be compelled to have her DNA “harvested” and “tested on” because it is “the code of life given by God.”... The Ninth Circuit recently held that “[i]nvocations of broad, religious tenets cannot, on their own, convert a secular preference into a religious conviction” for purposes of a discrimination claim....  To allow Plaintiff’s claim simply because she invokes the concepts of bodily autonomy and God in the same sentence “would destroy the pleading standard for religious discrimination claims, allowing complainants to invoke magic words and survive a dismissal without stating a prima facie case.” ... 

Battle Over Congregations' Disaffiliations Dismissed on Ecclesiastical Abstention Grounds

 In United Methodist Rio Conference Board of Trustees v. Alice First Methodist Church, (TX App., Oct. 29, 2025), a Texas state appeals court affirmed the dismissal of a suit by the United Methodist Church parent body challenging attempts by some two dozen local Texas congregations to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church. The disaffiliation attempts were triggered by the General Conference's decision to allow ordination of gay and lesbian pastors. Plaintiff claimed that the local congregations did not comply with the proper procedures in their attempts to disaffiliate. The court said in part:

... [T]he Conference contends the trial court has jurisdiction over this lawsuit because the questions of whether the local churches are bound by the Discipline’s disaffiliation provisions and properly disaffiliated from the UMC can be determined by interpreting the Discipline using neutral principles of law. We disagree....

... This suit does not involve a dispute over who owns the real property currently occupied by the local churches. This is a dispute over whether the local churches are bound to follow the Discipline and the specific provisions providing for disaffiliation from the UMC. Although our supreme court has held courts may apply neutral principles of law to issues “such as . . . corporate formation, governance, and dissolution” when a religious entity has chosen to establish itself under Texas corporations law, ... it has rejected parties attempts to have the courts resolve disputes under church governing documents and regulations because such an inquiry would “intrude upon internal affairs of church governance and autonomy.”...  As such, ... the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine— and broader church autonomy doctrine— precludes courts from interpreting religious documents that dictate church governance....

In its second issue, the Conference contends that even if the trial court is divested of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, the court nevertheless has jurisdiction to enforce the Conferences’ position because it is the higher ecclesiastical authority.  It appears the Conference contends we look to neutral principles of law to resolve issues involving religious entities when possible but must defer to the higher ecclesiastical authority if the court determines it does not have jurisdiction to adjudicate the dispute.

In Southern Methodist University, the supreme court recently rejected this argument from a regional conference within the UMC.  See S. Methodist Univ., 716 S.W.3d at 483.  The supreme court held that “if courts could not decide the case without resolving a religious question or impeding the church’s authority to manage its own affairs, the result would be dismissal for lack of jurisdiction, not rendition of judgment granting the Conference (or any other party) affirmative relief.”

Texas Judicial Conduct Rules Changed To Allow Judges To Refuse To Perform Same-Sex Marriages

On Oct.24, the Texas Supreme Court added a Comment (full text) to Canon 4 of the Texas Code of Judical Conduct. The New Comment reads:

It is not a violation of these canons for a judge to publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.

Canon 4, among other things, requires that judges conduct their extra-judicial activities in a manner that does not cast reasonable doubt on the judge's capacity to act impartially as a judge. See prior related posting.

KERA News reports on these developments.

RELIGION CLAUSE BLOG IS ON A ONE-WEEK PUBLICATION BREAK FROM OCT. 24 TO OCT. 30

Wisconsin Argues for Eliminating Religious Nonprofit Exemption from Unemployment Tax

 As previously reported, in June in Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court, held that Wisconsin engaged in unconstitutional theological discrimination when its Supreme Court held that Catholic Charities Bureau does not qualify for the exemption from unemployment compensation tax that is granted by state statute to nonprofits "operated primarily for religious purposes."  The Court remanded the case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court for it to issue a remedial order.  In a Remedial Brief (full text) filed on October 20 in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the state argued that the unconstitutional discrimination can be remedied by either expanding the exemption to cover organizations like Catholic Charities, or by eliminating the exemption for all religious organizations. The brief argues in part:

Two sources indicate a strong legislative preference for restoring equal treatment by eliminating this discriminatory exemption. First, the Legislature prefers that courts sever invalid statutory provisions, a presumption that applies here given how the unemployment insurance system would function just as well without this exemption. Second, striking the exemption would better advance the Legislature’s express desire for broad unemployment insurance coverage.

Also on October 20, Catholic Charities filed a Supplemental Brief (full text) arguing that:

Wisconsin’s immodest proposal is wrong for at least ten reasons, each of which separately requires the Court to extend the religious exemption to Catholic Charities....

... Catholic Charities did not bring an Equal Protection Clause case, it brought a Religion Clauses case. Catholic Charities’ injury is not mere unequal treatment; it is having to pay a tax despite a statutory entitlement to an exemption from that tax. Indeed, Catholic Charities has sought its own relief from the tax—not to force other groups to pay the tax, too....

Nullifying the Legislature’s religious purposes exemption would create a church autonomy violation by dividing Catholic Charities from the Diocese of Superior....

 Christian Post reports on these developments.

9th Circuit: Prison Not Required to Furnish Organic Food to Messianic Jewish Inmate

In Ruiz v. Nevada Department of Corrections, (9th Cir., Oct. 20, 2025), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court's decision denying a request by a Messianic Jewish inmate that the prison furnish him a diet of organic meats, vegetables, and fruit, instead of the common fare religious diet generally provided to Jewish inmates. The court said in part:

The district court acted within its discretion by denying Ruiz’s request.... The free exercise claim failed because the defendant established that denial of the organic diet was reasonably related to legitimate interests of keeping the costs of meals within budget and simplifying the administrative process of meal service.... For the RLUIPA claim, defendants established that they used the least restrictive means of furthering compelling interests of providing cost-efficient, simplified food service for all religions within the budget provided by the legislature.