Suit Challenging Tax Exemption for Church Dismissed

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a long-running suit challenging the tax exemption of the Roman Catholic Church because of its anti-abortion activities.

The lawsuit, filed nearly a decade ago by a series of abortion rights advocates, leaves the key issue undecided. The lower courts simply ruled that abortion rights advocates had suffered no actual injury, and, therefore, had no legal standing to raise the issue in court.

A coalition of abortion rights groups had charged that the Internal Revenue Service was deliberately refusing to enforce the tax code against anti-abortion activists. Under the code, tax-exempt groups are forbidden from using their funds “to influence legislation” or “to participate in . . . any political campaign.”

The suit contended that the Catholic Church did both in supporting its long-held position that abortion is immoral.

“By exempting the Catholic Church from the tax code, the IRS has granted the church the equivalent of a cash subsidy for partisan political activity,” they contended. At the same time, the abortion rights groups had to pay taxes on contributions they received. They charged the result not only favored a religion--in violation of the First Amendment--but also “distorted” the political process.

The contentions ran up against past Supreme Court rulings which have made it difficult for taxpayers to challenge actions of the government. For example, the court has ruled that black schoolchildren cannot challenge a tax exemption given to segregated private schools and that taxpayers could not contest the secrecy accorded the budget of the Central Intelligence Agency. It also ruled that supporters of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) could not challenge executive branch spending in 1980--spending the Kennedy supporters believed was designed to aid the reelection campaign of then-President Jimmy Carter.

Relying on those precedents, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled, 2 to 1, last year that the abortion rights advocates were not true “players in the political arena” and, therefore, were not harmed by the tax exemption accorded the church. If they were, the court said, anyone who took a public stand on a public issue would be entitled to challenge a government policy in federal court.

However, its opinion left open the possibility that a political candidate who favors abortion rights may suffer a “cognizable injury” that would entitle him or her to challenge the tax exemption given the church.

Without comment Monday, the justices refused to hear an appeal of the 2nd Circuit ruling. (Abortion Rights Mobilization vs. U.S. Catholic Conference, 89-1242.)

In other decisions Monday, the court:

--Permitted the Transportation Department to go ahead with random drug testing of about 30,000 employees whose jobs affect public health or safety. Those affected include air traffic controllers, inspectors and other safety specialists.

Last year, the court ruled that the government’s interest in combatting drug use among employees whose jobs affected safety outweighed their interests in privacy. Since then, the court has refused to hear an array of challenges to random drug testing. Only Justice Thurgood Marshall voted to hear an appeal filed by the employees’ union. (AFGE vs. Skinner, 89-1272.)

--Let stand a ruling that the public has no constitutional right to know the names of jurors. The Gannett Co., publishers of the Wilmington, Del., News Journal, asked a judge to reveal the names of jurors in a highly publicized murder trial there.