In something of a preview of the church-state case the Supreme Court will hear later this year, a North Carolina judge has rejected the "ministerial exception" in an employment dispute involving Global Ministries. Faced with a racial discrimination claim for terminating what the court decided was a clerical employee, Global Ministries argued that Title VII's ministerial exception insulates them as a religious organization. The judge disagreed but seemed to recognize the difficulty of the path ahead. (excerpt via Religion Clause):
Although the Court holds that Plaintiff was not in a ministerial role… McCallum's claim, is likely to pose the very type of entanglement issue that the Church Autonomy Doctrine and ministerial exception seek to avoid…. [It will] necessarily call into question BGEA's outreach decisions…. As a practical matter, the Court contemplates that as the case proceeds there will be certain doctrinal topics that will, in fact, remain "off-limits."
