Opinion ID: 2230068
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Religious Accommodation

Text: The Majority chooses to follow an analysis performed earlier by the United States Supreme Court in Kiryas Joel I, without the subsequent enlightenment of Agostini, because the facts and issues before this Court are more similar, as they see it, to those addressed in Kiryas Joel I (majority opn, at 692). However, the Majority ignores the critical fact that the statute now at issue is significantly different from the statute struck down in Kiryas Joel I. It had specifically named the Village of Kiryas Joel as the sole beneficiary of the first legislative effort. Under that structure, as this Court and the Supreme Court discerned, there was simply no guarantee that any other similarly situated group would garner the same benefits ( see, Board of Educ. of Kiryas Joel Vil. School Dist. v Grumet, 512 US 687, 703, supra ). The initial statute constituted an impermissible accommodation because it transferred political authority directly to a single religious group ( id., at 706). In finding an impermissible accommodation under the initial statute, the Supreme Court contrasted the statute with the neutral Village Law under which Kiryas Joel had incorporated ( id., at 703). Significantly, this law permits any group meeting certain population and area requirements to incorporate (Village Law § 2-200). It cannot be denied that chapter 390 also utilizes such neutral population and area requirements to transfer political authority to any qualifying municipality. Thus, the new statute has corrected the aspects of the legislation that failed the accommodation analysis in Kiryas Joel I, and the Majority nevertheless interposes a reconstituted standard in this regard. This shaky accommodation concern incorporates another facet of the Majority view that we dissenters view differentlythe reliance on something dubbed a sufficiently broad spectrum standard. Besides being precedentially unsupportable, the resulting inquiry demonstrates the moving target and slippery slope nature of the latest invalidation test. For example, no court ever proposed that the problem with chapter 390 could be solved by making it apply to other religious groups. Yet, the Majority now suggests that the application to secular, as well as religious groups, is not enough. If the statute does not apply to a sufficiently broad spectrum of religious groups, then the Majority concludes that it has the impermissible effect of advancing one religion over othersan impermissible accommodation ( see, majority opn, at 695). That is plainly wrong.