Opinion ID: 2639069
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Religious gerrymander

Text: Our analysis does not end with the conclusion that the WCEA is facially neutral towards religion. The First Amendment requires more than facial neutrality. It protects against `subtle departures from neutrality' and governmental hostility which is masked as well as overt. ( Lukumi, supra, 508 U.S. 520, 534, 113 S.Ct. 2217, quoting Gillette v. United States, supra, 401 U.S. 437, 452, 91 S.Ct. 828.) Thus, a court `must survey meticulously the circumstances of governmental categories to eliminate, as it were, religious gerrymanders.' ( Ibid., quoting Walz v. Tax Commission, supra, 397 U.S. 664, 696, 90 S.Ct. 1409 (conc. opn. of Harlan, J.).) Catholic Charities argues the Legislature gerrymandered the WCEA to deny the benefit of the exemption to Catholic organizations. The law discriminates, Catholic Charities contends, both against the Catholic Church and against religious organizations of any denomination that engage in charitable work, as opposed to work that is purely spiritual or evangelical. We find no merit in the argument that the WCEA discriminates against the Catholic Church. It was at the request of Catholic organizations that the Legislature added an exception permitting religious employers to deny coverage for contraceptive methods that are contrary to the religious employer's religious tenets. (Health & Saf.Code, § 1367.25, subd. (b).) Because most religions do not object to prescription contraceptives, most religious employers are subject to the WCEA. The Legislature's decision to grant preferential treatment to religious employers who do object is justifiable as an accommodation of religious exercise under the principles discussed above. ( Amos, supra, 483 U.S. 327, 334-335, 107 S.Ct. 2862.) That the exemption is not sufficiently broad to cover all organizations affiliated with the Catholic Church does not mean the exemption discriminates against the Catholic Church. [9] We find nothing to the contrary in Larson v. Valente, supra, 456 U.S. 228, 102 S.Ct. 1673 ( Larson ), the decision on which Catholic Charities principally relies. The high court in Larson held unconstitutional under the establishment clause a Minnesota statute that discriminated, in effect, against the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. For many years prior to Larson, Minnesota law had regulated charitable solicitations generally but exempted from regulation all solicitations by religious organizations. In 1978, the Minnesota Legislature amended the law to exempt only those religious organizations that received more than 50 percent of their contributions from members or affiliated organizations. Minnesota defended the exemption as intended to prevent abusive solicitations of the public, reasoning that the members of well-established, internally funded churches would exercise enough supervision over fund-raising activities to justify dispensing with state supervision. The high court rejected the argument. In the court's view, the 50-percent rule violated [t]he clearest command of the Establishment Clause, namely, that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another. ( Id., at p. 244, 102 S.Ct. 1673.) Laws granting denominational preferences must serve compelling governmental interests and be closely fitted to further those interests. ( Id., at pp. 246-247, 102 S.Ct. 1673.) Minnesota's law failed that test. The reasoning of Larson, supra, 456 U.S. 228, 102 S.Ct. 1673, does not invalidate the WCEA. The statute invalidated in Larson drew an explicit distinction between religious denominations based on their sources of income, and used that distinction to impose a regulatory burden only on certain denominations. In contrast, the WCEA applies to religious and nonreligious organizations equally. The WCEA confers the special benefit of exemption only on those religious organizations whose tenets are opposed to prescription contraceptives and that meet the other requirements for exemption. This benefit, as explained above, is justifiable as a legislative accommodation  an effort to alleviate a governmentally imposed burden on religious exercise. (See Amos, supra, 483 U.S. 327, 334-335, 107 S.Ct. 2862.) Those Catholic employers that do not qualify for exemption are treated precisely the same as all other employers in the state, whether religious or nonreligious. Thus, while the WCEA may treat some Catholic employers more favorably than other employers, the WCEA does not under any circumstance treat Catholic employers less favorably than any other employers. About a law such as this, Larson has nothing to say. [10] Catholic Charities argues the WCEA violates Larson, supra, 456 U.S. 228, 102 S.Ct. 1673, for the additional reason that the law draws a distinction between religious organizations whose purpose is the inculcation of religious values (Health & Saf.Code, § 1367.25, subd. (b)(1)(A)) and other religious organizations that, in Catholic Charities' words, have the temerity to engage in ministries other than the `inculcation of religious values.' (Italics in original.) We accept Catholic Charities' assertion that the Catholic Church's self-understanding compels it to engage in `corporal works of mercy,' which `consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead.' (Quoting Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) ¶ 2447, p. 588.) However, to the extent Catholic Charities is arguing the WCEA embodies a preference for non-Catholic denominations, the argument fails for the reasons already given. Catholic Charities' intent may be to argue that the WCEA discriminates against charitable social work as a religious practice. Such an argument would implicate [t]he principle that government, in pursuit of legitimate interests, cannot in a selective manner impose burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief.... ( Lukumi, supra, 508 U.S. 520, 543, 113 S.Ct. 2217.) Applying this principle, the high court in Lukumi held unconstitutional an ordinance that permitted the killing of animals for food or sport, but not in religious rituals. The ordinance had `every appearance of a prohibition that society is prepared to impose upon [Santeria worshippers] but not upon itself.' ( Id., at p. 545, 113 S.Ct. 2217, quoting The Florida Star v. B.J.F. (1989) 491 U.S. 524, 542, 109 S.Ct. 2603, 105 L.Ed.2d 443.) The WCEA is not similar. If a religiously affiliated organization fails to qualify for exemption because its purpose is something other than the inculcation of religious values (Health & Saf.Code, § 1367.25, subd. (b)(1)(A)), then the result is simply that the organization becomes subject to the same obligations that apply to all other employers. Because the WCEA applies to all nonreligious employers engaged in charitable social work, no argument can logically be made that the WCEA imposes a burden on charitable social work only when performed for religious reasons. As additional support for its claim that the WCEA's purpose is to discriminate against the Catholic Church, Catholic Charities contends the Legislature drafted the religious employer exception (Health & Saf.Code, § 1367.25, subd. (b)) with the specific intention of excluding Catholic hospitals and social service agencies like Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities draws an analogy to Lukumi, supra, 508 U.S. 520, 540-542, 113 S.Ct. 2217, in which the high court considered specific statements by members of the Hialeah City Council as evidence that the ordinance prohibiting animal sacrifice was intended to suppress the Santeria religion. Catholic Charities' assertions about the legislative history of the WCEA do not justify a similar conclusion in this case. According to Catholic Charities, the history of the WCEA suggests the Legislature intended the law to close a Catholic gap in insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives. The evidence does not support the contention. The phrase Catholic gap appears only in Catholic Charities' brief, not in the legislative history. Catholic Charities refers to the Senate testimony of a representative of Planned Parenthood, which opposed any exception for religious employers. Explaining that organization's position, the witness stated: Primarily our intent was to close the gap in insurance coverage for contraception and prescription benefit plans. Our concern with granting an exemption is that that defeats the original purpose of the bill. The gap to which the witness apparently referred was the gap identified by a national consulting firm's 1999 study of health insurance for prescription contraceptives. This study, which received much attention in the Legislature, concluded that approximately 10 percent of commercially insured Californians did not already have insurance coverage for prescription contraceptives. The study identified this minority not as the employees of Catholic organizations, but as persons covered by PPO and indemnity plans. While most HMO's covered prescription contraceptives, not all PPO and indemnity plans did. Catholic Charities' assertion that the purpose of the WCEA was to close a Catholic gap rather than a statewide statistical gap in coverage has no apparent evidentiary support. [11] Next, Catholic Charities argues the Legislature deliberately narrowed the statutory exception for religious employer[s] (Health & Saf.Code, § 1367.25, subd. (b)) to include as few Catholic organizations as possible and specifically to exclude Catholic hospitals and social service organizations. The legislative history does show that the bill's sponsors argued against a broader exception. The bill's Senate sponsor, for example, stated in a committee hearing that the intention of the authors as it relates to creating a religious exemption may not be the same intentions of the religions themselves in wanting to be exempted. [¶] The intention of the religious exemption in both these bills is an intention to provide for exemption for what is religious activity. The more secular the activity gets, the less religiously based it is, and the more we believe that they should be required to cover prescription drug benefits for contraception. Catholic Charities describes this and similar statements as evidence that the Legislature targeted specific Catholic organizations for disadvantageous treatment. But we have already examined and rejected that argument. The law treats some Catholic organizations more favorably than all other employers by exempting them; nonexempt Catholic organizations are treated the same as all other employers.