The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an interesting opinion, In re Navy Chaplaincy, concerning standing to challenge the Navy’s alleged favortism for Catholic chaplains. The majority opinion by Judge Kavanaugh begins:
A group of Protestant Navy chaplains sued the Navy, alleging that the Navy’s operation of its retirement system discriminates in favor of Catholic chaplains in violation of the Establishment Clause. But the plaintiffs do not claim that the Navy actually discriminated against any of them. We conclude that plaintiffs lack standing to bring this claim, and we therefore affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Judge Rogers dissented.
I’m crashing on a manuscript at the moment, but I hope to have time to say more about this case later.