Opinion ID: 3025336
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Is the Redevelopment Plan a Neutral Law of

Text: General Applicability? Even if Lighthouse were able to show that the Plan burdened its free exercise of religion in a constitutionally cognizable way, the Plan would be subject to strict scrutiny only if it were not a neutral, generally applicable law. Smith, 494 U.S. at 878-79. See also San Jose Christian College v. City of Morgan Hill, 360 F.3d 1024, 1031 (9th Cir. 2004) (neutrality 49 and general applicability analysis is appropriate with respect to zoning ordinances as well as other kinds of regulations.) We hold that it is neutral and generally applicable. A law is not neutral if it has as its “object . . . to infringe upon or restrict practices because of their religious motivation.” Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 533. A law is not generally applicable when it “proscribes particular conduct only or primarily when religiously motivated.” Tenafly, 309 F.3d at 165. The Plan is clearly neutral; there is no evidence that it was developed with the aim of infringing on religious practices, and, unlike the ordinances examined in Lukumi which allowed animal killing for a number of secular reasons but not as part as a religious ritual, it does not reveal a value judgment that religious reasons for assembling are less important than secular reasons. See Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 537-38. Lighthouse argues, however, that the Redevelopment Plan is not generally applicable for two reasons: first, because it allows categorical exemptions for secular, but not religious, conduct, and, second, because it allows individualized, discretionary exemptions to its general rule. Lighthouse’s position is not persuasive. In order even to frame the analysis in these terms, one would have to understand the Plan as announcing a general rule of “no assemblies” (or perhaps “no occupancy of any kind”) which is then immediately undermined by the grant of numerous secular exemptions. The relevant question is whether the local government pursued its aims evenhandedly, generally allowing the kinds of uses that 50 would further the legislative goals and prohibiting the uses that would interfere with them. This is consistent with the Free Exercise jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and of this Court. So considered, the Plan is generally applicable despite its allowance of certain categories of secular assemblies because, as explained above, its prohibition applies evenly to all uses that are not likely to further Long Branch’s goal of a revitalized, “vibrant” and “vital” downtown. In this sense the Plan is not at all like the web of ordinances the Supreme Court held unconstitutional in Lukumi. Here, in addition to churches, the Plan does not allow some of the most important forms of civil assembly: government buildings (which would be unlikely to generate the late-hours traffic Long Branch wishes to encourage) and schoolhouses (which would be subject to the 200-foot liquor-license-free zone). The uses it does allow – restaurants, theaters, bars, clubs, retail shops – are likely to further its aims, not harm them. We equally decline to hold that every zoning ordinance that includes a waiver or amendment provision is, solely by virtue of that fact, unconstitutional unless it can survive strict scrutiny, as this does not reflect existing precedent of the Supreme Court or of this Circuit and would be untenable as a practical matter. In arguing that the presence of an amendment procedure subjects the Plan to strict scrutiny, Lighthouse quotes our statement in Blackhawk that “a law must satisfy strict scrutiny if it permits individualized, discretionary exemptions because such a regime creates the opportunity for a facially neutral and 51 generally applicable standard to be applied in practice in a way that discriminates against religiously motivated conduct.” Blackhawk, 381 F.3d at 209 (internal citations omitted.) It is true that in Blackhawk we summarized the rule in these terms; however, this formulation is perhaps an overstatement. The significance for Free Exercise purposes of whether a law includes a system of individualized exemptions can be traced back to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Smith. There, the Court distinguished a generally applicable criminal statute from the kinds of unemployment benefits determinations at issue in earlier Free Exercise cases by noting that “the ‘good cause’ standard [embodied in the unemployment benefits rules] created a mechanism for individualized exemption,” i.e., a system of “individualized assessment of the reason for the relevant conduct,” then stated that its “decisions in the unemployment cases stand for the proposition that where the State has in place a system of individual exemptions, it may not refuse to extend that system to cases of ‘religious hardship’ without compelling reason.” Smith, 494 U.S. 872 at 884 (emphasis added). What makes a system of individualized exemptions suspicious is the possibility that certain violations may be condoned when they occur for secular reasons but not when they occur for religious reasons. In Blackhawk, it was not the mere existence of an exemption procedure that gave us pause but rather the fact that the Commonwealth could not coherently explain what, other than the religious motivation of Blackhawk’s conduct, justified the unavailability of an exemption. See Blackhawk, 381 F.3d at 211. We are persuaded by the Tenth Circuit’s approach to this 52 issue. In Grace United Methodist Church, 451 F.3d 643, the court held that “although zoning laws may permit some individualized assessment for variances, they are generally applicable if they are motivated by secular purposes and impact equally all land owners in the city seeking variances.” Id. at 651. A zoning ordinance including a provision that certain enumerated uses “may be permitted by the board” was nonetheless a neutral law of general applicability, where (1) there was no evidence that “the ordinance was passed due to religious animus,” (2) there was no evidence that the regulation was discriminatorily enforced against religious institutions, and (3) there was no evidence that the ordinance “devalue[d] religious reasons by judging them to be of lesser import than nonreligious reasons.” Id. at 653-54, 655. The application of the Tenth Circuit’s test to Long Branch’s Plan confirms that the existence of an amendment procedure does not make the Plan less than generally applicable. Although the guidelines for amendment are somewhat vague, requiring a two-level review and the final production of an “ordinance [that] shall specify the relationship of the proposed changes or amendments to the City Master Plan and the goals and objectives of the Redevelopment Plan,” Long Branch has identified a procedure that does not involve a value judgment on the reason for the amendment. We therefore find the Plan to be a neutral law of general applicability not subject to strict scrutiny. 53