Justice Samuel Alito wrote the following in his concurrence in the recently-decided Hosanna-Tabor case (you can read the slip opinion here):
“a religious body’s right to self-governance must include the ability to select, and to be selective about, those who will serve as the very ’embodiment of its message’ and ‘its voice to the faithful.'”
I’m not a lawyer so I cannot speak to the string of precedent that undergirds an assertion (or even to whether or not such precedent exists).
As a thinking person I can, however, laud this an important consideration in the way the Courts deal with religious groups and their employment relationships with those they select to lead them. I hope the courts will continue to be very reticent to intervene in the self-governance of religious groups generally, and especially so where it relates to belief and its relationship to leadership.
Jeff Gissing 