### In the 

# United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

____________________ No. 14

- 1152

F REEDOM F ROM R ELIGION F OUNDATION , I NC ., A NNIE L AURIE G AYLOR , and D AN B ARKER , Plaintiffs

- Appellees
,

v.
J ACOB J. L EW , Secretary of the Treasury, and J OHN A

. K OSKINEN , Commissioner of Internal Revenue
, Defendants

- Appellants

.

____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin

. No. 11

- cv

- 0626

— Barbara B. Crabb
, Judge

.

____________________
A RGUED S EPTEMBER 9, 2014

— D ECIDED N OVEMBER 1 3
, 2014

____________________

Before F LAUM , R OVNER , and H AMILTON , Circuit Judges

. F LAUM , Circuit Judge

. The Freedom from Religion Fou ndation and its two co

- presidents (collectively “the plaintiffs ”) filed this suit to challenge the constitutionality of § 107 of the Internal Revenue Code, also known as the parsonage exem ption. The exemption excludes the value of employer

provided housing benefits from the gross income of any2 No. 14

- 1152

“minister of the gospel.” 26 U.S.C. § 107. The plaintiffs co nceded in the district court that they did not have standing to challenge § 107(1), which applies to in

- kind housing provi ded to a minister , but argued that they did have standing to challenge § 107(2), which applies to rental allowances paid to
ministers. The district court agreed that the plaintiffs had standing to challenge § 107(2), and held that the subsection is an unconstitutional establishment of religion under the First Amendment.

We conclude that the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge § 107(2) . We therefore do not reach the issue of the constit utionality of the parsonage exemption. The judgment of the district court is vacated and the case remanded with in stru ctions to dismiss the complaint for want of jurisdiction.

I. Background The parsonage exemp tion, codified at 26 U.S.C. § 107, a llows a minister to receive tax

- free housing from his church, whether the church provides it directly (by giving the mini ster access to a church

- owned residence) or indirectly (by gi ving the minister a rental allowance to obtain housing). 1 No n1 Section 107 provides:
In the case of a minister of the gospel, gross income does not include

— (1) the rental value of a home furnished to him as part of his compensation; or (2) the rental allo wance paid to him as part of his compensation, to the e xtent used by him to rent or provide a home and to the extent such allowance does not exceed the fair rental value of the home, including furnishings and appurt enances such as a gara ge, plus the cost of utilities.
26 U.S.C. § 107.No. 14

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clergy must generally pay income tax on the value of their employer

- provided housing unless they meet certain r equirements, including that such housing be provided “for the convenience of the employer.” Id

. § 119(a)

. Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) is a Wisco nsin

- based organization of atheists and agnostics. Annie Ga ylor and Dan Barker, also plaintiffs in this case, are the co

presid ents of FFRF; they receive a portion of their salar ies from FFRF in the form of a housing allowance. Because Ga ylor and Barker are not ministers, they paid income tax on this portion of their salar ies

. Neither taxpayer sought to e xclude this income on thei r federal income tax return s and neither has filed a claim for a refund after payment. The plaintiffs brought suit in the Western District of Wiscons in, claiming that § 107 violates the First Amendment because it conditions a tax benefit on religious affil iation

. In the district court, t he government contended that the court was without jurisdiction to decide the case because the plaintiffs lacked standing. The plaintiffs conceded that they did not have standing to challenge § 107(1)

— the exemption for housing provided in

- kind by a church

— because Gaylor and Barker do not receive in

- kind housing from FFRF. That part of their challenge was dismissed, and the plaintiffs have

n ot appealed that determination . As to § 107(2)

— the rental

allowance exemption

— however, the plaintiffs argued that they did have standing; for reasons we discuss below, the district court agreed. The court then proceeded to hold § 107(2) unconstitutional un der the three

- part test esta blished in Lemon v. Kurtzman , 403 U.S. 602, 612

– 13 (1971). The government appeals both of these holdings.4 No. 14

- 1152

II. Discussion

T he jurisdiction of federal court s is limited by Article III of the Constitution to “Cases” and “Controve rsies.” U.S. Const. art. III , § 2

. No “Case” or “Controversy” exists if the plaintiff lacks standing to challenge the defendant’s alleged misconduct

. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). The plaintiff bears the burden of establishing the r equired elements of standing

. Kathrein v. City of Evanston , Ill.
, 752 F.3d 680, 690 (7th Cir. 2014). The standing inquiry is “e specially rigorous ” when plaintiffs claim, as they do here, that “an action taken by one of the other two branches of the Fe deral Government was unconstitutional.” Raines v. Byrd
, 521 U.S. 811, 819

– 20 (1997). The “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing” requires the plaintiff to show that he has suffered (or is i mminently threatened with) (1) a concrete and particulari zed “injury in fact” (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant
, and that is (3) likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision. Lujan , 504 U.S. at 560

– 61

. Especially important here is the requirement that the plai ntiff ’s injury be “concrete and particularized,” meaning that “the injury must affect the plaintiff in a personal and ind ividual way.” Id . at 560 n.1. A “generally available grievance about gover nment

— claiming only harm to ... every citizen’s interest in proper a pplication of the Constitution and laws” is not considered an “injury” for standing purposes. Id . at 573

– 74. “The concept of a ‘concrete’ injury is particularly elusive in the Establi shment Clause context ... because the Esta b-No. 14

- 1152 5

lishment Clause is primarily aim ed at protecting non

economic interests of a spiritual, as opposed to a physical or pecuniary, nature.” Vasquez v. Los Angeles C nty

. , 487 F.3d 1246, 1250 (9th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted)

. It is clear, ho wever, that a plaintiff cannot establish standing based solely

on being offended by the government’s alleged violat ion of the Establishment Clause. See Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Am s

. United for Separation of Church & State , Inc. , 454 U.S. 464,
485

– 86 (1982) ( concluding that plaintiffs lacked standing b ecause they “fail[ed] to identify any personal injury suffered by them as a consequence of the alleged [violation of the E stablishment Clause], other than the psychological cons equence presumably produced by observation of cond uct with which one disa grees ” ); Freedom from Religion Found. , Inc. v. Obama , 641 F.3d 803, 80 7 (7th Cir. 2011) (“[O]ffense at the behavior of the government, and a desire to have public off icials comply with (plaintiffs’ view of) the Constitution, di ffers from a legal injury.”).

A lthough psychic injury alone is insufficient, there are a variety of ways for plaintiffs to demonstrate standing in E stablishment Clause cases. For example, the Supreme Court has said that “plaintiffs may demonstrate standing based on the direct harm of what is claimed to be an establishment of religion, such as a mandatory prayer in a public school clas sroom.” Ariz. Christian Sch. Tuition Org. v. Winn
, 131 S. Ct. 1436, 14 40 (2011). Similarly, being exposed to religious sy mbols can constitute a direct harm. See Doe v. C nty

. of Mon tgomery, Ill. , 41 F.3d 1156, 1159 (7th Cir. 1994). The plaintiffs here, howev er, cannot rely on the direct harm doctrine, b ecause § 107(2) does not require them to see or do anything.6 No. 14

- 1152

Another way t hat plaintiffs in Establishment Clause cases often show standing is by relying on the special rule set forth
in Flast v. Cohen , 392 U.S. 83 (1968). As a general rule, stan ding to challenge the legality of a government expenditure “cannot be based on a plai ntiff’s mere status as a taxpayer.” Winn , 131 S. Ct. at 1442. Such suits are typically foreclosed because the harm is too widely shared, the financial injury to any given taxpayer is too slight, and the possibility of r edress is too speculative to support standing under traditio nal principles. Id . at 1442

– 45. In Flast , however, the Supreme Court created an exception to this general rule: “[A] t axpa yer will have standing ... when he alleges that congressional action under the taxing and spending clause is in d erogation of [the Establishment Clause ] .” 392 U.S. at 105

– 06. The Court, however, has since clarified the scope of Flast , holding that it only applies to taxpayer challenges involving specific government appropriations; Flast does not give taxpayers standing to challenge the c onstitutionality of tax credits or other “tax expenditures.” Winn , 131 S. Ct. at 1447; see id . at 1450 (Kagan, J., dissenting) ( characterizing the majority’s holding as creating a “distinction in standing law between appropriations and tax expenditures”). As the parsonage e xemption is a ta x expenditure, plaintiffs cannot rely on the Flast exception to establish standing. See Staff of Joint Com m. on Taxation, 110th Cong., Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditur es for F iscal Y ears 2007

– 20 11 , at 32 (Comm. Print 2007) ( i dentif ying the parsonage exe mption as a “tax expenditure”)

. A third way for individuals to establish standing in an Establishment Clause case, which plaintiffs rely on here, is to demonstrate that “ they have incurred a cost or been denied a benefit on account of their religion. Those cost s and benefits can result from alleged discrimination i n the tax code, suchNo. 14

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as when the availability of a tax exemption i s conditioned on religious affiliation.” Wi nn , 131 S. Ct. at 1440 (majority opi nion) . As an example, the Winn C ourt cited to its decision in Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock , 489 U.S. 1 , 5

– 8 (1989) (plurality opinion)
, which held that a general

- interest secular mag azine

— which had paid sales taxes on its subscription sales under protest and later sued to recover those payments

— had stan ding to challenge a Texas sales tax exemption for periodicals that were published by a religious faith and co nsisted “wholly of writings promulgating the teaching of the faith .” This approach does not rely on intangible psychic harm or the mere fact that a taxpayer’s money helped to fu rther an unconstitutional end. Rather, it bases standing on the allegation that the government’s unconstitutional action caused the plaintif f a concrete, dollars

- and

- cents injury. The plaintiffs here argue that they have standing because they were denied a benefit (a tax exemption for their e mployer

- provided housing allowance) that is conditioned on religious affiliation. 2 This argument fails
, however, for a

2 FFR F’s standing in this suit is based on the doctrine of associational standing

. [A]n association has standing to bring suit on behalf of its members when: (a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual me mbers in the law suit.
Int’l Union, United Auto ., Aerospace & Agr. Implement Workers of Am. v. Brock , 477 U.S. 274, 282 (1986) (quoting Hunt v. Washington State Apple Advertising Com’n , 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977) )

. Because we hold that the individual plaintiffs in this case (FFRF members) do not have sta nding , it8 No. 14

- 1152

simple reason: the plaintiffs were never denied the parsonage exemption because they never asked for it. 3 Without a r equest, there can be no denial. And absent any personal den ial of a benefit, the plaintiff s ’ claim amounts to nothing more than a generalized grievance about § 107(2)’s unconstitutio nality , which does not support standing. Lujan , 504 U.S. at
573

– 74 (“[A] plaintiff raising only a generally available grievance a bout government ... does not state an Article III case or controversy. ”). In other words, t he mere fact that the tax code condi tion s the availability of a tax e xemp tion on r eligious affiliation does not give a plaintiff standing to cha llenge that provision of the code. A plaintiff can not establish standing to challenge such a provision without having pe rsonally claim ed and been denied the exemption. Though the Supreme Court has never squarely a ddressed the issue presented here, the Court’s precedent supports our conclusion. In Allen v. Wright , the plaintiffs sued the IRS for failing to deny tax

- exempt status to racially discriminatory private scho ols. 468 U.S. 737, 745 (1984), abrogated on other grounds by Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc
., 134 S. Ct. 1377 (2014)

. T he plaintiffs , parents of African

follows that FFRF lacks associational standing. FFRF has not advanced any argument suggesting that the organization might have standing i ndependent of that of its members.

3 The plaintiffs could have sought the exemption by excluding their housing allowances from their reported income on their tax returns and then petitioning the Tax Court if the IRS were to dis all ow the exclusion. 26 U.S.C. § 6213( a). Alternatively, they could have adopted the approach taken by the plaintiff in Texas Monthl y , see 489 U.S. at 6, and paid income tax on their housing allowance , claimed refunds from the IRS, and then

sue d if the IRS rejected or failed to act upon their claims

. See 26 U.S.C. § 742 2; 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(1)

.No. 14

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America n children attending public schools, attempted to show standing by arguing that they were “harmed directly by the mere fact of Government financial aid to discrimin atory private schools.” 4 Id . at 7 52

. The Court found that the y did not have standing. Id . at 766. Even if the plaintiff s ’ a sserted basis for standing was interpreted as a claim of “sti gmatic inju ry

... suffered by all members of a racial group when the Government discriminates on the basis of race,” the Court held that such injury confers standing “only to ‘those persons who are personally denied equal treatment’ by the challenged discriminatory conduct.” Id . at 754

– 55 (quoting Heckler v. Mathews , 465 U.S. 728, 740 (1984)). Unlike the plaintiff in Heckler
, a male who “personally ha[d] been denied [Social Security] benefits that similarly situated
women receive [ d ] ,” see 465 U.S. at 740 n.9, the Allen plaintiffs did “not allege a stigmatic injury suffered as a direct result of ha ving personally been denied equal treatment.” 468 U.S. at 755 (e mphasis added).

The Allen C ourt pointed to its holding in Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis , 407 U.S. 163 (1972 )
, as support for this concl usion. In that case, the Court determined that the plaintiff , an African

- American, did not have standing to challenge a cl ub’s racially discriminatory membership policies because he had never applied for membership , and therefore “was not injured by Moose Lodge’s membership policy

. ” Id . at 166

– 67. It apparently did not matter to the Court that such

4 The plaintiffs also argued that they had standing because the tax e xemptions at issue “impair[ed] their ability to have their public schools desegregated.” Allen , 468 U.S. at 752

– 53. The Court rejected this standing argument because the alleged injury was not “fairly traceable” to the
governm ent conduct challenged as unlawful. Id . at 757.10 No. 14

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an application would have b een futile because the club’s b ylaws only allowed Caucasians to become members. Futile or not, a request for membership was necessary to establish standing because, without it, no injury had occurred. In co ntrast, the Moose Lodge plaintiff did have standing to challenge the lodge’s refusal to serve him when he attended the club as a guest because, in that instance, he had requested and was denied a benefit. Id . at 165, 170. Like the plaintiffs in Allen and Moose Lodge , the plaintiffs here are m embers of a group (in this case, the non

- religious) that is allegedly suffering illegal discrimination

. But the mere fact that discrimination is occurring is not enough to establish standing, absent being “personally denied equal treatment.” Allen , 468 U.S . at 755

. 5 Allowing members of di scr iminated

- against groups who have not suffered a partic ularized injury to bring suit would not only be unconstit u5 Our conclusion is also generally consistent with the Fifth Circuit case
, Apache Bend Apartments, Ltd. v. United States , 987 F.2d 1174 (5th Cir. 1993) (en banc). There, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the p laintiffs did not have “prudential standing” to raise an equal protection challenge to sp ecial transition rules offered to a few designated taxpayers by the Tax R eform Act of 1986. Id . at 1175

– 77. In distinguishing the case from Heckler
, the court noted that “the plaintiffs here were not personally denied benefits under the transition rules” becau se they “never even sought such ben efits” under the rules. Id . at 1178 n.3. Because t he court in Apache Bend based its decision on the doctrine of prudential standing, it declined to decide whether the plaintiffs had alleged an injury sufficient to satisfy constitutional standing requirements. Id . at 1176

– 77 . The doctrine of pr udential standing, we note, is somewhat unsettled after the Supreme Co urt’s recent decision in Lexmark
, 134 S. Ct. 1377 . Because we hold that the plaintiffs in this case do not meet the constitutional standing r equirements, we need not reach the question of prudential standing.No. 14

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tion al, it would also create practical difficulties by opening the door to constitutional challenges to any tax exemption that a given individual suspects he may not be entitled to

— without first giv ing the IRS and the Tax C ourt the opportun ity to determine the proper construction and application of the law.

P laintiffs, apparently recognizing the constitutio nal and practical problems of extending standing to anyone that is part of an allegedly discriminated

- against group, suggest a limiting principle: only those discriminated

- against taxpa yers who are “similarly situated” to the taxpayers receiving the exempt ion have standing to sue. Here, Gaylor and Bar ker argue that they are similarly situated to the ministers r eceiving the § 107(2) exemption because they too receive a housing allowance. The only reason, they argue, that they cannot take advantage of § 107(2) is that they are not “mini sters of the gospel.” We reject this proposal for multiple rea sons. First, it fails to address the heart of our standing inquiry here

— whether plaintiffs have suffer ed a constitutionally cognizable injury. Bei ng part of a small group that suffers no injury is no di fferent from being part of a large group that suffers no inju ry; the size of the group makes no difference

. See Lac Du Fla mbeau Band of Lake Superior Chippe wa Indians v. Norton , 422 F.3d 490, 496 (7th Cir. 2005). Second, t here is, of course, a crucial difference
, other than religious belief
, between the plaintiffs and the ministers who take advantage of § 107(2)

— the latter group has actually claimed the exemp tion. The Court in Heckler found that merely being “similarly situated” is not enough

— the plaintiff there had standing because he “pe rsonally ha[d] been denied benefits that similarly situated12 No. 14

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women receive [d] .” 465 U.S. at 740 n.9. Third, the plaintiffs

o ffer no guidance on how to apply a vague “similarly situa ted” standard in the tax exemption context. When , exactly, is a plaintiff similar enough to the taxpayers who receive the allegedly illegal exemption? In the case of the parsonage e xemption , would it be enough that an employee receives a housing allowance? Or must the employee be some type of organizational leader, like Gaylor and Barker? Or perhaps an employee is not similar enough unless he is a leader who a lso provides guidance to a flock of fol lowers? None of these distinctions is obviously correct and plaintiffs offer no gui dance on how to draw a line

. Finally
, it is quite possible that the IRS or the Tax C ourt will interpret an exemption to apply
to a party that is “ similarly situated. ” And a party who r eceives an exemption has no standing to challenge it. We think it unlikely that § 107(2) will be interpreted to apply to the plaintiffs in this case, but there may be many closer ca ses. For example, the parsonage exemption applies on its face only to a “ minister of the gospel

. ” One could easily imagine a “similarly situated” non

- Christian clergyman challenging the constitutionality of this law prior to 1966, when the Tax Court of the United States interpreted the exemption to reach “the equivalent of ‘ministers’ in other religions.” Salkov v. Com m ission r , 46 T.C. 190, 194 (1966) (interpreting § 107(2) to apply to a Jewish cantor )

. We thus think it important to allow the IRS and the Tax Court to interpret the boundaries of a tax prov ision before we assess its constitutionality. The district court concluded that the plaintiffs in this case do have standing for a number of reasons, none of which we find persuasive. First, the district court worried that the go vernment’s view might insul ate § 107(2) from review entirely

. Indeed, some courts, including ours, have previously heldNo. 14

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that a party cannot challenge an underinclusive tax exem ption in a deficiency proceeding because the court would not have the power to provide the plaintiff with the tax break

. See, e.g.
, Templeton v. Commissioner , 719 F.2d 1408, 1412 (7th Cir. 1983). But this aspect of Templeton and the other cases cited by the district court is no longer good law

— the S upreme Court has squarely held that a plaintiff can have stand ing to challenge an underinclusive tax exemption even if the only available remedy is removing the exemption r ather than extending it to the plaintiff. See Ark. Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland , 481 U.S. 221, 227 (1987 ). In any case, “[t]he assumption tha t if [the plaintiffs] have no standing to sue, no one would have standing, is not a reason to find standing.” Valley Forge , 454 U.S. at 489 (quoting Schlesinger v. Reser vists Com m. to Stop the War , 418 U.S. 208, 227 (1974)).
Second, the district court thou ght that it would “serve no legitimate purpose to require plaintiffs to claim the exem ption and wait for the inevitable denial of the claim” because the “plaintiffs’ alleged injury is clear from the face of the statute and ... there is no plausible argument that the ind ividual plaintiffs could qualify for an exemption.” Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. Lew , 983 F. Supp. 2d 1051, 1055

– 56 (W.D. Wis. 2013)

. Requiring the plaintiffs to formally request the parsonage exemption , the district court said, would be a “waste” of “time,” and would be “unnecessary busy work.” Freedom f rom Religion Found., Inc. v. Lew , No. 11

- cv

- 0626 , at 8

– 9 (W.D. Wis. Aug. 29, 2012) (order denying defendants’ m otion to dismiss). In support of this view, the district court ci te d a Fourth Circuit case, Finlator v. Powers , 902 F.2d 1158 (4th Cir. 1990), which rejected a standing argument similar to the one the government makes here. Finlator involved a North Carolina law exempting “Holy Bibles” from the state sales14 No. 14

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tax. Id . at 115 9. The plaintiffs

— purchasers of various secular and (non

- Christian) sacred books that were taxed at the re gular rate

— sued the North Carolina Secretary of Revenue, contending that the law was unconstitutional. Id

. The Secr etary argued that the court lacked jurisdiction because the plaintiffs had not tak en nec essary “minimal steps to ensure their standing,” such as refusing to pay the tax or paying the tax under protest and subsequently contesting their liability. Id . at 1161.

The Fourth Circuit concluded th at the plaintiffs had standing. The court based its holding largely on prudential grounds: Realistically, if this court were to deny standing in this case, the appellants would simply pr otest the payment and collection of the State’s sales tax, and refile their suit. We do not b elieve that this a dditional requirement would

... contribute in any way to our ability to decide a question presented and contested by parties having a demonstrated interest and stake in its resolution.

Id at 1162

. The court also believed that “it would be an u ntenable waste of judicial resources to deny the [plaintiffs] standing in this case given the patent unconstitutionality” of the challenged exemption. Id

. Insofar as the district court and the Fourth Circuit in Fi nlator suggest that asking for and being denied a tax exem ption should not be a requirement for establishing standing because doing so would be a waste of time, we cannot agree. Perhaps these courts are correct that requiring the plaintiffsNo. 14

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to request and be denied the parsonage exemption will be a “futile exercise
, ” 6 Freedom f rom Religion Found.
, No. 11

- cv

0626 , at 8

– 9, that will not improve the court’s ability to r esolve the constitutional challenge , but this is beside the point. The Constitution does not allow federal courts to hear
suits filed b y plaintiffs who lack standing , and standing is absent here because the plaintiffs have not been personally denied the parsonage exemption. Article III “is not merely a troublesome hurdle to be overcome if possible so as to reach the ‘merits’ of a lawsuit which a party desires to have adj udicated; it is a part of the basic charter promulgated by the Framers.” Valley Forge , 454 U.S. at 476.

The Finlator court , however
, concluded that the plaintiffs in that case had standing for an additional reason: they “ did suffer actual injury” because Bible purchasers automatically received a sales tax exemption, while purchasers of other texts could receive the exemption only by taking the extra step of protesting payme nt or filing a refund suit. 902 F.2 d at 1162 . “Simply stated,” the court said, “an injury is created by the very fact that the [government] imposes additional bu rdens on the [plaintiffs] not placed on purchasers of ‘Holy B ibles.’” Id

. In the case before us , neither party explains how a taxpayer actually goes about “claiming” the parsonage e xemption , and the plaintiffs do not argue that they face any

6 The government argues that requesting the ex emption might not be futile because there is a chance that the IRS would grant the plaintiffs a rental allowance exemption on the theory that atheism can be treated as a “religion” for Establishment Clause purposes. Whether or not this is true, it is irrelevant : to establish standing, a plaintiff must request (and be denied) a benefit , even if , practically speaking, the request has no chance of succes s

. See, e.g.
, Moose Lodge , 407 U.S. at 166

– 67.16 No. 14

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additional burden in claiming the e xemption that ministers do not. Finally, the district court observed that the Supreme Court has frequently reached the merits in cases where a plaintiff challenged a tax exemption under the Establishment Clause, even when it was not clear that the plaintiff had been personally denied the exemption before filing suit. For e xample, in Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York , 397 U.S. 664, 666

– 67 (1970), an owner of real estate challenged a New York property tax exemption for religious, educational, or chari table nonprofit organizations . Nothing in the Court’s opinion in dicat es that the plaintiff sought a property tax e xemption prior to filing his suit which the Court rejected on the merits. Id . at 680. But t he Walz Court never discussed standing. Thus
, the case has no force in the standing context: “When a potential juri sdictional defect is neither noted nor discussed in a federal decision, the decision does not stand for the proposition that no defect existed.” Winn , 131 S. Ct. at 1448. To summarize, plaintiffs do not have standing to cha llenge the constitutional ity of the parsonage exemption

. A person suffers no judicially cognizable injury merely because others receive a tax benefit that is cond itioned on allegedly unconstitutional criteria, even if that person is otherwise “similarly situated” to those who do receive the benefit. O nly a person that has been denied such a benefit can be deemed to have suffered a cognizable injury. The plainti ffs here have never been denied the parsonage exemption b ecause they have never requested it; therefore, they have su ffered no injury.No. 14

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III. Conclusion

Because the plaintiffs do not have standing to challenge the parsonage exemption, we V ACATE the judgment of the district court and R EMAND with instructions to dismiss the complaint for want of jurisdiction.