NOM co-founder Maggie Gallagher's syndicated column in Human Events on this week's Supreme Court decision:

Lost in the political shuffle in New Hampshire was an epic U.S. Supreme Court decision this week in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

By an astounding, unanimous 9-0 margin, the usually ideologically divided Supreme Court slapped down President Obama's radical doctrine that the federal government can tell a church who it must employ as a minister if the church violates anti-discrimination employment provisions.

The Obama administration's claim that there is no special protection for clergy in our Constitution, the majority ruled, "is hard to square with the text of the First Amendment itself, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations. We cannot accept the remarkable view that the Religion Clauses have nothing to say about a religious organization's freedom to select its own ministers."

Professor Douglas Laycock argued the case for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which defended the little Michigan church in court. Laycock is a longtime advisory board member of the organization (becketfund.org), which defends the religious liberty of all religions.

"This is a huge win for religious liberty," he said via a press release. "The Court has unanimously confirmed the right of churches to select their own ministers and religious leaders."