In a stunning reversal of a lower court decision Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with religious liberty, ruling unanimously that a Kansas woman does indeed have the right to pray in her own home.
The case, Sause v. Bauer, centers on Mary Anne Sause, a devout Catholic who was playing her radio in her home when, according to her attorneys, police were called to investigate “a minor noise complaint.”
Sause says the cops harassed her and threatened to take her to jail when she asked why she would be arrested. Sause says that’s when things escalated.
According to The Christian Post, when the retired nurse asked the officers for permission to pray silently, the officers allowed it and then ordered her to stop praying.
Sause later sued the officers, but their command was upheld by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
NBC reports that the courts sided with the officers, ruling that although “the conduct of the officers was unprofessional, there was no court decision finding a First Amendment violation based on facts like those in her case.”
The lower court went on to say that the officers did not violate her First Amendment rights despite Sause’s testimony that when she showed them a copy of the Constitution, “One officer laughed and said, ‘That’s just a piece of paper’ and, ‘That doesn’t work here,'” The Christian Post reported.
But Sause took the appellate court’s decision to a higher authority, a move that ultimately led to Thursday’s Supreme Court victory.
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