Judge blocks state from enforcing hiring law against religious organization

As many as 14 job positions lay vacant when Scott Thielen came on board as CEO of Washington state’s Yakima Union Gospel Mission in July. Since 2021, the ministry—which provides a homeless shelter, addiction-recovery program, outreach efforts, meal services, and medical and dental clinics—has been unable to fill open positions because of threats by state regulators to enforce a state anti-discrimination law.

The Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) would have required the 87-year-old mission to hire anyone, including those who do not subscribe to its Biblical beliefs. The ministry sued the state over the law in 2023, and a Nov. 1 ruling by a federal district court has temporarily blocked the state from enforcing the law against the ministry while the lawsuit continues. A federal judge concluded that the state could not enforce the anti-discrimination law against the ministry because it would likely violate the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

Up until 2021, courts interpreted the state law’s religious exemption as extending to all the employees of a religious organization. But in a ruling that year, the Washington Supreme Court limited the exemption to those employees covered by the “ministerial exception.” The First Amendment-based judicial doctrine protects religious organizations from courts’ second-guessing of their employment decisions as to employees who serve vital religious functions. But while the judicial doctrine clearly covers pastors and Christian school teachers, it’s less clear if it also covers the church custodian or a ministry’s systems manager.

Therein lies the problem, said Ryan Tucker, the Alliance Defending Freedom attorney who represented the ministry. “Our case is not about whether these are ministerial employees,” he said. “Our problem is, what do you do with the folks that aren’t ministerial in nature, at least according to the courts?”

According to U.S. District Judge Mary Dimke, the First Amendment does not allow the state—or its highest court—to limit its religious exemption to ministerial employees.

Dimke agreed with mission attorneys who argued that the state’s application of the anti-discrimination law was subject to strict scrutiny because it was not neutral or generally applied, instead treating comparable secular activities more favorably. As an example, Dimke noted that the state exempted businesses with fewer than eight employees but did not exempt religious organizations.

“That certain secular employers are shielded from WLAD enforcement and religious organizations are not—except with respect to ministerial positions—likely undermines the statute’s stated interest in ‘eliminat[ing]’ and ‘prevent[ing]’ discrimination,” wrote the judge.

“As Plaintiff correctly observes, ‘[f]or over 70 years Washington advanced its interests while exempting nonprofit religious organizations,’” Dimke added, agreeing that the state’s interest in preventing discrimination was not compelling enough to overcome the ministry’s right to hire co-religionists.

Last week’s ruling came after the mission’s 18-month battle to vindicate its right to only hire those who subscribe to its beliefs. Yakima Union Gospel Mission filed its lawsuit in March 2023, but the suit was barely out of the gate when Dimke dismissed it in September 2023 after she found that the ministry lacked standing to sue—that is, it had failed to show a “credible threat of prosecution.” A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling in August 2024 and sent it back to Dimke to revisit.

Tucker said the case is far from over. Early indications are that the state will appeal the ruling, he said, and current Attorney General Bob Ferguson—now the governor-elect—is committed to broad enforcement of the anti-discrimination law.

“Pretty much … every single religious organization, to the extent they have non-ministers on staff, are directly in harm’s way,” Tucker said.

But the appeal could lead to a ruling that affects a broader segment of the population. A ruling by the 9th Circuit is binding across seven western states, as well as in Hawaii and Alaska.

In 2022, the high court declined to review a similar case involving Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission because the lower court had not yet entered a final ruling. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas agreed with the majority that the court should not review the case.

But Alito warned that “the day may soon come when we must decide whether the autonomy guaranteed by the First Amendment protects religious organizations’ freedom to hire co-religionists without state or judicial interference.”

Tucker said that the Yakima case, if it reaches the Supreme Court, could force the justices to consider this question.

For now, Thielen at Yakima Union Gospel Mission is thankful for a significant legal victory. “Our employees are our hands, feet, and mouthpiece, which is why every employee needs to share and live out the mission’s religious beliefs,” Thielen said in a statement provided to WORLD. “Every religious organization should be able to hire people who agree with the work they do and the beliefs that motivate them to do it.”