Opinion ID: 2592106
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Burden on Free Exercise

Text: While the Supreme Court has been less than clear in defining just how much a State requirement need burden religion in order to violate the Free Exercise Clause, plainly governmental action that merely offends religious beliefs does not implicate First Amendment values ( see , Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v Wilson , 343 US 495, 505). This is particularly so in the context of school curriculum decisions, where important policy concerns dictate deference to education authorities. It is generally acknowledged that mere exposure to ideas that contradict religious beliefs does not impermissibly burden the free exercise of religion. [4] The First Amendment does not stand as a guarantee that a school curriculum will offend no religious group. [5] Moreover, parents have no constitutional right to tailor public school programs to individual preferences, including religious preferences (see , Epperson v Arkansas , 393 US 97, 106, supra) . Plaintiffs accept that the Constitution offers no protection against exposure to ideas that offend their religion. They maintain, however, that the Supreme Court recognized an exception to the mere exposure rule in Wisconsin v Yoder (406 US 205, supra ), and that they fall squarely within that exception. Yoder involved members of two Amish groups who refused, on the basis of religious belief, to send their children to school beyond the eighth grade. The parents were convicted of violating Wisconsin's compulsory school-attendance law, which required parents to send their children until age 16. At trial the Amish asserted that the law required what their religion forbade and thus violated the Free Exercise Clause. In addition, the Amish adduced testimony from expert witnesses, scholars on religion and education, who explained the relationship between the Amish belief concerning school attendance and the more general tenets of their religion, and described the devastating impact that compulsory high school attendance could have on the continued survival of the religious community. The Supreme Court in Yoder held Wisconsin could not require the Amish to send their children to public school after the eighth grade. In finding an impermissible burden on free exercise, the Supreme Court examined Amish life and culture in some detail, ultimately concluding that what was in issue were long-standing beliefs shared by an organized group, that the beliefs related to religious principles and pervaded and regulated Amish daily life, and that the State law threatened the continuing existence of the Old Order Amish church community. The reach of Yoder is plainly limited. The Supreme Court itself made that clear in cautioning that its holding would apply to probably few other religious groups or sects and that courts must move with great circumspection in performing the sensitive and delicate task of weighing a State's legitimate social concern when faced with religious claims for exemption from generally applicable educational requirements. (406 US, at 235-236.) Commentators have speculated that [f]ew future free exercise claimants are likely to match the testimony of extreme injury relied upon by the Supreme Court in Yoder . (Pepper, Reynolds, Yoder, and Beyond: Alternatives for the Free Exercise Clause , 1981 Utah L Rev 309, 338 [1981]; Smith, Constitutional Rights of Students, Their Families, and Teachers in the Public Schools , 10 Campbell L Rev 353, 376-379 [1988]; Strossen, op. cit. , at 387-389, 390, n 288.) Nevertheless, the present case bears some striking similarities to Yoder . As in Yoder , plaintiffs seek a religious exemption from exposure to ideas that are not merely offensive but allegedly abhorrent to their central religious beliefs. And like Yoder , governmental action purportedly compels them to participate in instruction that is at odds with a fundamental tenet of their religious belief  remaining simple from evil (406 US, at 218). The Brethren assert, like the Amish in Yoder , that these are entrenched religious beliefs, not the product of a way of life and mode of education by a group claiming to have recently discovered some `progressive' or more enlightened process for rearing children for modern life. ( Id. , at 235.) Their adherence to the Principle of Separation, they say, also stems from a sustained faith pervading and regulating [their] entire mode of life. ( Id. , at 219.) Thus, on this record we cannot agree with the sweeping conclusions reached by the Trial Judge in granting summary judgment that the mandated AIDS curriculum is neither contrary to the Brethren's religious beliefs nor destructive of the community as a whole. Rather, the record better supports the conclusion reached by the Appellate Division that compulsory education which exposes [plaintiffs'] children to the `details of evil' which their religion instructs them to avoid may place a limited burden upon the free exercise of their religion. (150 AD2d, at 19.) But it is as much plaintiffs' alleged differences from the Amish in Yoder as their similarities that give pause and persuade us that further factual development is required before a conclusion can be reached  either way  on the question whether the free exercise of sincerely held religious beliefs is burdened by compulsory AIDS education, how great such a burden might be, and what if any further accommodation should be made. With such significant public and private interests in the balance, on this record it is at the least prudent to withhold judgment until there is a firmer basis for the necessary findings of fact than the brief, contentious, often conclusory affidavits both sides have submitted. The trial record in Yoder is replete with fact, scholarly and expert testimony that has no parallel in the present record. Our decision to deny summary relief in this case, however, is not based simply on prudence. Our decision rests on the traditional ground that summary judgment should be denied where there are disputed issues of material fact, as there are in this record. Two examples of such issues are pertinent to the question of burden. Defendants acknowledge the sincerity of plaintiffs' religious beliefs. There is no dispute as to the tenets of their faith, and no need for the court to go behind the declared content of their religious beliefs. But defendants do very much question the extent to which plaintiffs have become part of mainstream society. They point to the not insubstantial facts that plaintiffs live and work in the Valley Stream community, their children attend public schools, and they take in new followers from the public  urging that plaintiffs are therefore not at all the isolated religious community that was the subject of Yoder . Plaintiffs, by contrast, insist that they are exactly like the Amish in Yoder , except for what they characterize as the minimal requirements that they attend public school and work in the community, because it is not feasible for them to do otherwise. This factual dispute goes to the heart of plaintiffs' assertions that their religious exercise would be burdened by exposure to the AIDS curriculum. If plaintiffs in their daily lives are so thoroughly integrated into the larger society  and its evils  the State requirement may in fact impose no burden, or only the limited burden the Appellate Division found. This clash of contentions  which divided the two lower courts  cannot be properly determined on the present record. Somewhat relatedly, a central disputed issue exists as to whether the AIDS curriculum poses any threat to the continued existence of the Brethren as a church community. That conclusion was factually established by trial testimony and findings in Yoder ( see , 406 US, at 209-212, 218-219, 235-236); and whether or not the law actually requires such extreme injury, plaintiffs themselves by their affirmed statements have represented that they are so threatened. But defendants have steadfastly maintained that no irreversible prejudice would befall plaintiffs and that, to the contrary, the proposed instruction would only benefit their children. Again, as this case has been posited by plaintiffs themselves, the record is inadequate to choose as a matter of law between the parties' disputed assertions.