It’s more like if FTB had an atheist blogger that they were also paying to do tech support, and the blogger got sick and they decided to fire her, and the blogger tried to sue to get her job back, and FTB said, “Mumble mumble, that doesn’t count!”

Let’s be clear here, the question here is not whether the ministerial exemption is appropriate. The question is on the limits of the ministerial exemption. Randy Owens describes one possible limit to the ministerial exemption that would likely save Perich’s case. But we don’t even need to get that far, because Hosanna-Tabor didn’t fire her because of her beliefs, they fired her because of something completely unrelated, and then tried to use the ministerial exemption as legal cover. That’s fucked up, and frankly, religious people should be a lot more pissed off about it than atheists, because it is making a complete mockery of the ministerial exemption.

Even if you think, for example, Catholic schools should be able to discriminate on the basis of their dumb beliefs in hiring any employee — even insisting that the janitor cannot be gay, for instance — even if you think that, Hosanna-Tabor’s actions are still fucked up.

That’s not the point of this decision, though.