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My own ancestors fled from Otto von Bismarck's Germany in 1870 over just this kind of issue: Bismarck's Kulturkampf against Catholic Church-related institutions.

Bismarck said he wasn't against the Catholics' right to "worship," but their right to operate "socially beneficial services" (primary schools, seminaries, Universities, hospitals/medical missions, publishing houses, social services for the poor) functioning as subsidiaries of the Church, not the State.

I am sure that even most Catholics do not realize that the Church is--- or ought to be --- the ultimate bulwark against the totalitarian State.

The most interesting door being opened is the one that ultimately would spell the end of religious schools in this country. IF the religious exemption is nullified in a parochial school, then what is to stop the suit by an atheist who demands that all prayers and religious observances be banned at the church school, since that infringes on his religious right to not practice a religion?

I'm less concerned about court mandated observances in the priesthood and more concerned with court mandated shackles being put on churches once that ‘public’ threshold is crossed. It could easily become the basis for forbidding any religious observances outside the temple doors, court mandated renting out of church facilities to gay groups, etc.

Mind, this is already in the process in some places... A court is deciding if a Catholic mission can be compelled to rent out their facilities to a gay mens group which desires to use the facilities for a gay retreat. The argument is that since the mission has rented out rooms to others before, it is forbidden from denying the gay group under the fair lodging laws, nor could they now decide to restrict others from renting to skirt the issue. Once something is rented for lodging, it is forever forward stripped of any religious protections.

Which, indeed, would go for almost any church that ever charged any fees to hold a wedding or other event. They would be, under the arguments presented, forbidden from ever denying a group that didn't meet with the church's approval. If a group wanted to rent the church for a gay orgy upon the altar, that’d be their right to do so, so long as they paid the prevailing fees.

I have to hope that the court's stance on the 2nd amendment extends to the first, and I think it will, especially with the much disagreed with Westburo decision, where the court held that the government failed to establish a compelling reason to exclude the speech of the Westburo protesters on the grounds that such speech was automatically protected and the government would need an extraordinary reason to exempt that protection.

All in all, I'd much rather Congress get off their rumps and actually dismantle the whole ADA, as these rules have been so heavily abused as to make them an overriding intrusion into private and public property, and cost well over a trillion dollars to comply with so far.