周三，最高法院一致支持新泽西州反堕胎怀孕中心的一个团体，该团体与该州民主党司法部长就一份关于捐赠者信息的调查传票发生了纠纷。
本案的争议点是，在传票被强制执行之前，第一选择妇女资源中心这个团体是否有法律地位以第一修正案为由对传票提出质疑。
已离任的司法部长马修·普拉特金(Matthew Platkin)寻找了数千页文件，以确定该组织是否“从事了欺骗性或其他非法行为”，包括可能希望保持私密的捐赠者的姓名和联系信息。
第一选择(First Choice)是一个以信仰为基础的组织，在全州经营着五个地点，它称这一努力是旨在恐吓其业务的“敌对”运动的一部分，并起诉阻止传票。
尼尔·戈萨奇法官代表他的九名同事写道，该组织可以继续进行诉讼，以保护捐赠者的隐私。
“根据其指控和声明，并考虑到我们在该领域的许多长期先例以及对第三方行为的合理推断，First Choice已经确定，司法部长对私人捐赠者信息的要求损害了该组织的第一修正案结社权，”Gorsuch写道。
法院在很大程度上依赖于20世纪50年代的一项裁决，当时领导种族融合运动的全美有色人种协进会成功地阻止了阿拉巴马州司法部长提出的交出该团体私人成员名单的要求。
“自20世纪50年代以来，该法院一直面临一个又一个类似(新泽西州)司法部长的官方要求，”戈萨奇写道。"一次又一次，我们认为这些要求加重了行使第一修正案权利的负担."
新泽西州总检察长办公室没有立即回应ABC新闻的置评请求。
在此案中支持“第一选择”的宗教权利倡导者赞扬了这一裁决的广泛影响。
“这是美国每一个基于信仰的牧师的胜利，”说威廉这是一个非营利性宗教自由法律团体。“法庭说得非常清楚那我们的第一修正案自由——包括宗教自由——是“必然”这使得联邦法院的大门对宗教团体敞开，以保护他们的统治不受侵入的状态官僚。"
Supreme Court unanimously says anti-abortion pregnancy centers can fight subpoena for donor identities
The Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously sided with a group of New Jersey anti-abortion pregnancy centers embroiled in a dispute with the state's Democratic attorney general over an investigative subpoena for donor information.
At issue in the case was whether the group -- First Choice Women's Resource Centers -- had legal standing to challenge the subpoena on First Amendment grounds before it had even been enforced.
Attorney General Matthew Platkin, who has since left office, sought thousands of pages of documents to determine whether the group has "engaged in deceptive or otherwise unlawful conduct," including the names and contact information of donors who may have wished to remain private.
First Choice, a faith-based organization that operates five locations across the state, has called the effort part of a "hostile" campaign meant to intimidate its operations and sued to block the subpoena.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for all nine of his colleagues, concluded the group can move forward with its lawsuit in a bid to protect the privacy of donors.
"From its allegations and declarations, and given our many and longstanding precedents in the area and reasonable inferences about third-party behavior, First Choice has established that the Attorney General's demand for private donor information injures the group's First Amendment associational rights," Gorsuch wrote.
The Court leaned heavily on a ruling from the 1950s in which the NAACP -- then leading a campaign for racial integration -- succeeded in fending off a demand by Alabama's attorney general to turn over the group's private membership rolls.
"Since the 1950s, this Court has confronted one official demand after another like the [New Jersey ] Attorney General's," Gorsuch wrote. "Over and again, we have held those demands burden the exercise of First Amendment rights."
The New Jersey attorney general's office did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
Religious rights advocates, who had backed First Choice in the case, praised the ruling's broader impact.
“This is a triumph for every faith-based ministry in America,” saidWilliamHaun, senior counsel at Becket, a nonprofit religious liberty legal group. “The Court made crystal clearthatour First Amendment freedoms—including religious freedom—are‘necessarily’associative, and that keeps the federal courthouse doors open for religious groups to protect their governance fromintrusivestatebureaucrats.”
