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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 2000', '§ 702', '§ 1252', '§ 703', '§ 2000', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§702', '§ 702', '§ 2000', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 702', '§ 2000', '§ 702', '§ 702']

Corp of Presiding Bishop Vs Amos - Citation 106353 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Corp. of Presiding Bishop Vs. Amos - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/106353
Case Number 483 U.S. 327
Appellant Corp. of Presiding Bishop
corp. of presiding bishop v. amos - 483 u.s. 327 (1987) u.s. supreme court corp. of presiding bishop v. amos, 483 u.s. 327 (1987) corporation of the presiding bishop of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints v. amos no. 86-179 argued march 31, 1987 decided june 24, 1987 * 483 u.s. 327 appeal from the united states district court for the district of utah syllabus appellee mayson, who had been employed at a nonprofit facility, open to the public, that was run by religious entities associated with the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints (church), was discharged because he failed to qualify for a certificate that he was a member of the church and eligible to attend its temples. he, with other.....
Corp. of Presiding Bishop v. Amos - 483 U.S. 327 (1987)
U.S. Supreme Court Corp. of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987)
Appellee Mayson, who had been employed at a nonprofit facility, open to the public, that was run by religious entities associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church), was discharged because he failed to qualify for a certificate that he was a member of the Church and eligible to attend its temples. He, with other individuals purporting to represent a class, brought an action in Federal District Court, alleging religious discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The defendants moved to dismiss on the ground that they were shielded from liability under § 702 of the Act, which exempts religious organizations from Title VII's prohibition of religious discrimination in employment. The plaintiffs contended that, if § 702 was construed to allow religious employers to discriminate on religious grounds in hiring for nonreligious jobs, it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Finding that Mayson's case involved nonreligious activities, the court held that, under the test set out in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 , § 702 was unconstitutional as applied to secular activity because it had the primary effect of advancing religion.
Held: Applying § 702's exemption to religious organizations' secular activities does not violate the Establishment Clause. There is ample room under that Clause for benevolent neutrality which will permit religious exercise to exist without sponsorship and without interference. Section 702's exemption satisfies the first requirement of the three-part Lemon test that the challenged law serve a "secular legislative purpose." This requirement is aimed at preventing the relevant governmental decisionmaker from abandoning neutrality and acting with the intent of promoting a particular point of view in religious matters. It is a permissible legislative purpose (as here) to alleviate significant governmental interference with the ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious missions. Section 702 also satisfies Lemon's
second requirement that the challenged law have a principal or primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. A law is not unconstitutional simply because it allows churches to advance religion, which is their very purpose. For a law to have forbidden "effects," the Government itself must have advanced religion through its own activities and influence. The District Court's reliance on the facts that § 702 singles out religious entities for a benefit, and is unsupported by long historical tradition, is unpersuasive. Moreover, there is no merit to the contention that § 702 offends equal protection principles by giving less protection to religious employers' employees than to secular employers' employees, and thus must be strictly scrutinized. Where, as here, a statute does not discriminate among religions and, instead, is neutral on its face and motivated by a permissible purpose of limiting governmental interference with the exercise of religion, the proper inquiry is whether Congress has chosen a rational classification to further a legitimate end. As applied to nonprofit activities of religious employers, § 702 is rationally related to the legitimate purpose of alleviating significant governmental interference with the ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious missions. The third part of the Lemon test is also satisfied, since § 702 does not impermissibly entangle church and state. Rather, it effects a more complete separation of the two. Pp. 483 U. S. 334 -340.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and POWELL, STEVENS, and SCALIA, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post p. 483 U. S. 340 . BLACKMUN, J., post p. 483 U. S. 346 , and O'CONNOR, J., post p. 483 U. S. 346 , filed opinions concurring in the judgment.
Section 702 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 255, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-1, exempts religious organizations from Title VII's prohibition against discrimination in employment on the basis of religion. [ Footnote 1 ] The question presented
is whether applying the § 702 exemption to the secular nonprofit activities of religious organizations violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The District Court held that it does, and these cases are here on direct appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1252. [ Footnote 2 ] We reverse.
The Deseret Gymnasium (Gymnasium) in Salt Lake City, Utah, is a nonprofit facility, open to the public, run by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (CPB), and the Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (COP). The CPB and the COP are religious entities associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church), an unincorporated religious association sometimes called the Mormon or LDS Church. [ Footnote 3 ]
Appellee Mayson worked at the Gymnasium for some 16 years as an assistant building engineer and then as building engineer. He was discharged in 1981 because he failed to qualify for a temple recommend, that is, a certificate that he is a member of the Church and eligible to attend its temples. [ Footnote 4 ]
Mayson and others purporting to represent a class of plaintiffs brought an action against the CPB and the COP alleging, among other things, discrimination on the basis of religion in violation of § 703 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2. [ Footnote 5 ] The defendants moved to dismiss this claim on the ground that § 702 shields them from liability. The plaintiffs contended that, if construed to allow religious employers to discriminate on religious grounds in hiring for nonreligious jobs, § 702 violates the Establishment Clause.
The District Court first considered whether the facts of these cases require a decision on the plaintiffs' constitutional argument. Starting from the premise that the religious activities of religious employers can permissibly be exempted under § 702, the court developed a three-part test to determine whether an activity is religious. [ Footnote 6 ] Applying this test to
Mayson's situation, the court found: first, that the Gymnasium is intimately connected to the Church financially and in matters of management; second, that there is no clear connection between the primary function which the Gymnasium performs and the religious beliefs and tenets of the Mormon Church or church administration; [ Footnote 7 ] and third, that none of Mayson's duties at the Gymnasium are "even tangentially related to any conceivable religious belief or ritual of the Mormon Church or church administration," 594 F.Supp. 791, 802 (Utah 1984). The court concluded that Mayson's case involves nonreligious activity. [ Footnote 8 ]
594 F. Supp, at 812. [ Footnote 9 ]
The court concluded, however, that § 702 fails the second part of the Lemon test because the provision has the primary effect of advancing religion. [ Footnote 10 ] Among the considerations mentioned by the court were: that § 702 singles out religious entities for a benefit, rather than benefiting a broad grouping of which religious organizations are only a part; [ Footnote 11 ] that § 702 is not supported by long historical tradition; [ Footnote 12 ] and that § 702 burdens the free exercise rights of employees of religious institutions who work in nonreligious jobs. Finding that § 702 impermissibly sponsors religious organizations by granting them "an exclusive authorization to engage in conduct which can directly and immediately advance religious tenets and practices," id. at 825, the court declared the statute unconstitutional as applied to secular activity. The court entered summary judgment in favor of Mayson pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), and ordered him reinstated with backpay. [ Footnote 13 ] Subsequently, the court vacated its judgment
Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136 , 480 U. S. 144 -145 (1987) (footnote omitted). It is well established, too, that
Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664 , 397 U. S. 673 (1970). There is ample room under the Establishment Clause for "benevolent neutrality which will permit religious exercise to exist without sponsorship and without interference." Id. at 397 U. S. 669 . At some point, accommodation may devolve into "an unlawful
fostering of religion," Hobbie, supra, at 480 U. S. 145 , but these are not such cases, in our view.
The private appellants contend that we should not apply the three-part Lemon approach, which is assertedly unsuited to judging the constitutionality of exemption statutes such as § 702. Brief for Appellants in No. 86-179, pp. 24-26. The argument is that an exemption statute will always have the effect of advancing religion, and hence be invalid under the second (effects) part of the Lemon test, a result claimed to be inconsistent with cases such as Walz v. Tax Comm'n, supra, which upheld property tax exemptions for religious organizations. The first two of the three Lemon factors, however, were directly taken from pre- Walz decisions, 403 U.S. at 403 U. S. 612 -613, and Walz did not purport to depart from prior Establishment Clause cases, except by adding a consideration that became the third element of the Lemon test. 403 U.S. at 403 U. S. 613 . In any event, we need not reexamine Lemon as applied in this context, for the exemption involved here is in no way questionable under the Lemon analysis.
Lemon requires first that the law at issue serve a "secular legislative purpose." Id. at 403 U. S. 612 . This does not mean that the law's purpose must be unrelated to religion -- that would amount to a requirement "that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups," Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 , 343 U. S. 314 (1952), and the Establishment Clause has never been so interpreted. Rather, Lemon's "purpose" requirement aims at preventing the relevant governmental decisionmaker -- in this case, Congress -- from abandoning neutrality and acting with the intent of promoting a particular point of view in religious matters.
Under the Lemon analysis, it is a permissible legislative purpose to alleviate significant governmental interference with the ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious missions. Appellees argue that there is no such purpose here, because § 702 provided adequate protection for religious employers prior to the 1972 amendment,
when it exempted only the religious activities of such employers from the statutory ban on religious discrimination. We may assume for the sake of argument that the pre-1972 exemption was adequate in the sense that the Free Exercise Clause required no more. Nonetheless, it is a significant burden on a religious organization to require it, on pain of substantial liability, to predict which of its activities a secular court will consider religious. The line is hardly a bright one, and an organization might understandably be concerned that a judge would not understand its religious tenets and sense of mission. [ Footnote 14 ] Fear of potential liability might affect the way an organization carried out what it understood to be its religious mission.
The second requirement under Lemon is that the law in question have "a principal or primary effect . . . that neither advances nor inhibits religion." 403 U.S. at 403 U. S. 612 . Undoubtedly, religious organizations are better able now to advance their purposes than they were prior to the 1972 amendment to § 702. But religious groups have been better able to advance their purposes on account of many laws that have passed constitutional muster: for example, the property tax exemption at issue in Walz v. Tax Comm'n, supra, or the loans of schoolbooks to schoolchildren, including parochial school students, upheld in Board of Education v. Allen, 392
397 U.S. at 397 U. S. 668 . Accord, Lemon, 403 U.S. at 403 U. S. 612 .
Dedicatory Prayer for the Gymnasium, quoted, 594 F.Supp. at 800-801, n. 15. These cases therefore do not implicate the apparent concerns of the District Court. Moreover, we find no persuasive evidence in the record before us that the Church's ability to propagate its religious doctrine through the Gymnasium is any greater now than it was prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. In such circumstances, we do not see how any advancement of religion achieved by the Gymnasium can be fairly attributed to the Government, as opposed to the Church. [ Footnote 15 ]
We find unpersuasive the District Court's reliance on the fact that § 702 singles out religious entities for a benefit. Although the Court has given weight to this consideration in its past decisions, see n 11, supra, it has never indicated that statutes that give special consideration to religious groups are per se invalid. That would run contrary to the teaching of our cases that there is ample room for accommodation of religion under the Establishment Clause. See supra at 483 U. S. 334 -335. Where, as here, government acts with the proper purpose of lifting a regulation that burdens the exercise of religion, we see no reason to require that the exemption come packaged with benefits to secular entities.
Appellees argue that § 702 offends equal protection principles by giving less protection to the employees of religious employers than to the employees of secular employers. [ Footnote 16 ] Appellees rely on Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228 , 456 U. S. 246
(1982), for the proposition that a law drawing distinctions on religious grounds must be strictly scrutinized. But Larson indicates that laws discriminating among religions are subject to strict scrutiny, ibid., and that laws "affording a uniform benefit to all religions" should be analyzed under Lemon, 456 U. S. at 456 U. S. 252 . In cases such as these, where a statute is neutral on its face and motivated by a permissible purpose of limiting governmental interference with the exercise of religion, we see no justification for applying strict scrutiny to a statute that passes the Lemon test. The proper inquiry is whether Congress has chosen a rational classification to further a legitimate end. We have already indicated that Congress acted with a legitimate purpose in expanding the § 702 exemption to cover all activities of religious employers. Supra at 483 U. S. 336 . To dispose of appellees' equal protection argument, it suffices to hold -- as we now do -- that, as applied to the nonprofit activities of religious employers, §702 is rationally related to the legitimate purpose of alleviating significant governmental interference with the ability of religious organizations to define and carry out their religious missions.
It cannot be seriously contended that § 702 impermissibly entangles church and state; the statute effectuates a more complete separation of the two and avoids the kind of intrusive inquiry into religious belief that the District Court engaged in in this case. The statute easily passes muster under the third part of the Lemon test. [ Footnote 17 ]
"This subchapter [ i.e., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. ] shall not apply . . . to a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities."
Cf., e.g., Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388 , 463 U. S. 397 (1983) (provision of benefits to a broad spectrum of groups is an important index of secular effect); Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756 , 413 U. S. 794 (1973) (narrowness of benefited class is an important factor in evaluating whether effect of a law violates the Establishment Clause).
Cf. Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664 , 397 U. S. 676 -679 (1970) (relying in part, in upholding property tax exemption for religious groups, on long historical tradition for such exemptions).
Subsequently, the court concluded that disputed issues of material fact precluded summary judgment for the Beehive employees ( see n. 5 supra ). 618 F.Supp. 1013, 1016 (Utah 1985).
Undoubtedly, Mayson's freedom of choice in religious matters was impinged upon, but it was the Church (through the COP and the CPB), and not the Government, who put him to the choice of changing his religious practices or losing his job. This is a very different case than Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U. S. 703 (1985). In Caldor, the Court struck down a Connecticut statute prohibiting an employer from requiring an employee to work on a day designated by the employee as his Sabbath. In effect, Connecticut had given the force of law to the employee's designation of a Sabbath day, and required accommodation by the employer regardless of the burden which that constituted for the employer or other employees. See Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136 , 480 U. S. 145 , n. 11 (1987). In the present cases, appellee Mayson was not legally obligated to take the steps necessary to qualify for a temple recommend, and his discharge was not required by statute. We find no merit in appellees' contention that § 702
Appellees argue that § 702 creates danger of political divisiveness along political lines. As the Court stated in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668 , 465 U. S. 684 (1098):
"[T]his Court has not held that political divisiveness alone can serve to invalidate otherwise permissible conduct. And we decline to so hold today. This case does not involve a direct subsidy to church-sponsored schools or colleges, or other religious institutions, and hence no inquiry into political divisiveness is even called for, Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388 , 463 U. S. 403 -404, n. 11 (1983)."
These cases present a confrontation between the rights of religious organizations and those of individuals. Any exemption from Title VII's proscription on religious discrimination necessarily has the effect of burdening the religious liberty of prospective and current employees. An exemption says that a person may be put to the choice of either conforming to certain religious tenets or losing a job opportunity, a promotion, or, as in these cases, employment itself. [ Footnote 2/1 ]
The potential for coercion created by such a provision is in serious tension with our commitment to individual freedom of conscience in matters of religious belief. [ Footnote 2/2 ]
Laycock, Towards a General Theory of the Religion Clauses: The
Case of Church Labor Relations and the Right to Church Autonomy, 81 Colum.L.Rev. 1373, 1389 (1981). See also Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U. S. 696 (1976) (church has interest in effecting binding resolution of internal governance disputes); Kedroff v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U. S. 94 (1952) (state statute purporting to transfer administrative control from one church authority to another violates Free Exercise Clause). For many individuals, religious activity derives meaning in large measure from participation in a larger religious community. Such a community represents an ongoing tradition of shared beliefs, an organic entity not reducible to a mere aggregation of individuals. [ Footnote 2/3 ] Determining that certain activities are in furtherance of an organization's religious mission, and that only those committed to that mission should conduct them, is thus a means by which a religious community defines itself. Solicitude for a church's ability to do so reflects the idea that furtherance of the autonomy of religious organizations often furthers individual religious freedom as well.
The authority to engage in this process of self-definition inevitably involves what we normally regard as infringement on free exercise rights, since a religious organization is able to condition employment in certain activities on subscription to particular religious tenets. We are willing to countenance the imposition of such a condition because we deem it vital that, if certain activities constitute part of a religious community's practice, then a religious organization should be able to
This rationale suggests that, ideally, religious organizations should be able to discriminate on the basis of religion only with respect to religious activities, so that a determination should be made in each case whether an activity is religious or secular. This is because the infringement on religious liberty that results from conditioning performance of secular activity upon religious belief cannot be defended as necessary for the community's self-definition. Furthermore, the authorization of discrimination in such circumstances is not an accommodation that simply enables a church to gain members by the normal means of prescribing the terms of membership for those who seek to participate in furthering the mission of the community. Rather, it puts at the disposal of religion the added advantages of economic leverage in the secular realm. As a result, the authorization of religious discrimination with respect to nonreligious activities goes beyond reasonable accommodation, and has the effect of furthering religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 , 403 U. S. 612 (1971).
What makes the application of a religious-secular distinction difficult is that the character of an activity is not self-evident. As a result, determining whether an activity is religious or secular requires a searching case-by-case analysis. This results in considerable ongoing government entanglement in religious affairs. See id. at 403 U. S. 613 . Furthermore, this prospect of government intrusion raises concern that a religious organization may be chilled in its free exercise activity. While a church may regard the conduct of certain functions as integral to its mission, a court may disagree. A religious organization therefore would have an incentive to characterize as religious only those activities about which there likely would be no dispute, even if it genuinely believed that religious commitment was important in performing other tasks as well. As a result, the community's process
The risk of chilling religious organizations is most likely to arise with respect to nonprofit activities. The fact that an operation is not organized as a profit-making commercial enterprise makes colorable a claim that it is not purely secular in orientation. In contrast to a for-profit corporation, a nonprofit organization must utilize its earnings to finance the continued provision of the goods or services it furnishes, and may not distribute any surplus to the owners. See generally Hansmann, The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise, 89 Yale L.J. 835 (1980). This makes plausible a church's contention that an entity is not operated simply in order to generate revenues for the church, but that the activities themselves are infused with a religious purpose. Furthermore, unlike for-profit corporations, nonprofits historically have been organized specifically to provide certain community services, not simply to engage in commerce. Churches often regard the provision of such services as a means of fulfilling religious duty and of providing an example of the way of life a church seeks to foster. [ Footnote 2/4 ]
Nonprofit activities therefore are most likely to present cases in which characterization of the activity as religious or secular will be a close question. If there is a danger that a religious organization will be deterred from classifying as religious those activities it actually regards as religious, it is likely to be in this domain. [ Footnote 2/5 ] This substantial potential for chilling religious activity makes inappropriate a case-by-case determination of the character of a nonprofit organization, and justifies a categorical exemption for nonprofit activities. Such an exemption demarcates a sphere of deference with respect to those activities most likely to be religious. It permits infringement on employee free exercise rights in those instances in which discrimination is most likely to reflect a religious community's self-definition. While not every nonprofit activity may be operated for religious purposes, the likelihood that many are makes a categorical rule a suitable means to avoid chilling the exercise of religion. [ Footnote 2/6 ]
Sensitivity to individual religious freedom dictates that religious discrimination be permitted only with respect to employment in religious activities. Concern for the autonomy of religious organizations demands that we avoid the entanglement and the chill on religious expression that a case-by-case determination would produce. We cannot escape the fact that these aims are in tension. Because of the nature of nonprofit activities, I believe that a categorical exemption for
The fact that a religious organization is permitted, rather than required, to impose this burden is irrelevant; what is significant is that the burden is the effect of the exemption. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 , 403 U. S. 612 (1971). An exemption, by its nature, merely permits certain behavior, but that has never stopped this Court from examining the effect of exemptions that would free religion from regulations placed on others. See, e.g., United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252 , 455 U. S. 261 (1982) ("Granting an exemption from social security taxes to an employer operates to impose the employer's religious faith on the employees"); Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664 , 397 U. S. 674 (1970) (legislative purpose in granting tax exemption not determinative; "[w]e must also be sure that the end result -- the effect -- is not an excessive government entanglement with religion"); see also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 , 406 U. S. 220 -221 (1972) ("The Court must not ignore the danger that an exception from a general obligation of citizenship on religious grounds may run afoul of the Establishment Clause"). This approach reflects concern not only about the impact of exemptions on others, but also awareness that:
Grand Rapids School Dist. v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373 , 473 U. S. 389 (1985).
Post at 483 U. S. 347 .
See also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 , 472 U. S. 50 (1985) ("[T]he Court has identified the individual's freedom of conscience as the central liberty that unifies the various Clauses in the First Amendment").
Post at 483 U. S. 349 .
Essentially for the reasons set forth in JUSTICE O'CONNOR's opinion, particularly the third and final paragraphs thereof, I too, concur in the judgment of the Court. I fully agree that the distinction drawn by the Court seems "to obscure far more than to enlighten," as JUSTICE O'CONNOR states, post at 483 U. S. 347 , and that, surely, the "question of the constitutionality of the § 702 exemption as applied to for-profit activities of religious organizations remains open," post at 483 U. S. 349 .
Although I agree with the judgment of the Court, I write separately to note that this action once again illustrates certain difficulties inherent in the Court's use of the test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 , 403 U. S. 612 -613 (1971). See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 , 472 U. S. 67 (1985) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment); Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668 , 465 U. S. 687 (1984) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring). As a result of this problematic analysis, while the holding of the opinion for the Court extends only to nonprofit organizations, its reasoning fails to acknowledge that the amended § 702, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-1, raises different questions as it is applied to profit and nonprofit organizations.
Wallace v. Jaffree, supra, at 472 U. S. 82 .
In my view, the opinion for the Court leans toward the second of the two unacceptable options described above. While acknowledging that "[u]ndoubtedly, religious organizations are better able now to advance their purposes than they were prior to the 1972 amendment to § 702," the Court seems to suggest that the "effects" prong of the Lemon test is not at all implicated as long as the government action can be characterized as "allowing" religious organizations to advance religion, in contrast to government action directly advancing religion. Ante at 483 U. S. 337 . This distinction seems to me to obscure far more than to enlighten. Almost any government benefit to religion could be recharacterized as simply "allowing" a religion to better advance itself, unless perhaps it involved actual proselytization by government agents. In nearly every case of a government benefit to religion, the religious mission would not be advanced if the religion did not take advantage of the benefit; even a direct financial subsidy to a religious organization would not advance religion if, for some reason, the organization failed to make any use of the funds. It is for this same reason that there is little significance to the Court's observation that it was the Church, rather than the Government, that penalized Mayson's refusal to adhere to Church doctrine. Ante at 483 U. S. 337 , n. 15. The Church had the power to put Mayson to a choice of qualifying for a temple recommend or losing his job because the Government had lifted from religious organizations the general regulatory burden imposed by § 702.
The necessary first step in evaluating an Establishment Clause challenge to a government action lifting from religious organizations a generally applicable regulatory burden is to recognize that such government action does have the effect of advancing religion. The necessary second step is to separate those benefits to religion that constitutionally accommodate the free exercise of religion from those that provide unjustifiable awards of assistance to religious organizations. As I have suggested in earlier opinions, the inquiry framed by the Lemon test should be "whether government's purpose is to endorse religion and whether the statute actually conveys a message of endorsement." Wallace, 472 U.S. at 472 U. S. 69 . To ascertain whether the statute conveys a message of endorsement, the relevant issue is how it would be perceived by an objective observer, acquainted with the text, legislative history. and implementation of the statute. Id. at 472 U. S. 76 . Of course, in order to perceive the government action as a permissible accommodation of religion, there must in fact be an identifiable burden on the exercise of religion that can be said to be lifted by the government action. The determination whether the objective observer will perceive an endorsement of religion
Lynch v. Donnelly, supra, at 465 U. S. 693 -694.
Ante at 483 U. S. 344 (opinion concurring in judgment). These cases involve a Government decision to lift from a non-profit