Supreme Court Sides With Postal Carrier Who Refused to Work on Sabbath
The decision could affect countless workplaces and could require many employers to make substantial changes to accommodate religious workers.
The ruling is the latest in a series by the court that have focused on expanding the role of religion in public life, sometimes at the expense of other values, like gay rights and access to contraception.
In the past few years, the Supreme Court has ruled that a high school football coach had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games, that state programs supporting private schools in Maine and Montana must include religious ones, that a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia could defy city rules and refuse to work with same-sex couples who apply to take in foster children and that the Trump administration could allow employers with religious objections to deny contraception coverage to female workers.
The latest decision may be less divisive than some of the court’s recent rulings on religion, in part because protecting observance of the Sabbath may not split Americans along the usual lines. Indeed, liberal justices have tried in the past to shield workers from discipline and termination for following their faith, and all three on the court signed onto the decision.
The case was brought by Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian and former missionary who worked as a substitute mail carrier. After the Postal Service made a deal with Amazon in 2013 to deliver packages on Sundays, Mr. Groff said he had to choose between his faith and his livelihood, opting to quit after being disciplined for missing work.
Source: The New York Times
