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

Heading: Distinction between religious and secular activities

Text: Catholic Charities next argues that the First Amendment forbids the government to premis[e] a religious institution's eligibility for an exemption from government regulation upon whether the activities of the institution are deemed by the government to be `religious' or `secular'.... The argument is directed against the four statutory criteria an employer must satisfy to claim exemption from the WCEA as a religious employer. (health & Saf.Code, § 1367.25, subd. (b)(1)(A)-(D); see 10 caL.rptr.3d p. 292, 85 P.3d p. 75, ante. ) The argument lacks merit. The exception to the WCEA accommodates religious exercise by relieving statutorily defined religious employers (Health & Saf.Code, § 1367.25, subd. (b)) of the burden of paying for contraceptive methods that violate their religious beliefs. The United States Supreme Court has long recognized that the alleviation of significant governmentally created burdens on religious exercise is a permissible legislative purpose that does not offend the establishment clause. ( Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos (1978) 483 U.S. 327, 334-335, 107 S.Ct. 2862, 97 L.Ed.2d 273; Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla. (1987) 480 U.S. 136, 144-145, 107 S.Ct. 1046, 94 L.Ed.2d 190; cf. Employment Div., Ore. Dept. of Human Res. v. Smith, supra, 494 U.S. 872, 890, 110 S.Ct. 1595.) Such legislative accommodations would be impossible as a practical matter if the government were, as Catholic Charities argues, forbidden to distinguish between the religious entities and activities that are entitled to accommodation and the secular entities and activities that are not. In fact, Congress and the state legislatures have drawn such distinctions for this purpose, and laws embodying such distinctions have passed constitutional muster. (E.g., Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, supra, 483 U.S. 327, 334-340, 107 S.Ct. 2862 [upholding statutory exemption of religious employers from liability for religious discrimination; 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-1(a)]; East Bay Asian Local Development Corp. v. State of California (2000) 24 Cal.4th 693, 704-718, 102 Cal.Rptr.2d 280, 13 P.3d 1122 [upholding state laws exempting religiously affiliated organizations from landmark preservation laws, Gov.Code, §§ 25373, subds. (c) & (d), 37361, subd. (c)].) Catholic Charities' argument to the contrary largely depends on a single lower federal court decision, Espinosa v. Rusk (10th Cir.1980) 634 F.2d 477 ( Espinosa ). In that case, the court invalidated an antisolicitation ordinance because, among other things, it involve[d] municipal officials in the definition of what is religious. ( Id., at p. 481.) But whatever Espinosa might purport to hold, the decision could not supersede the United States Supreme Court's repeated holding that the government may constitutionally exempt religious organizations from generally applicable laws in order to alleviate significant governmentally imposed burdens on religious exercise. ( Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, supra, 483 U.S. 327, 334-335, 107 S.Ct. 2862; Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., supra, 480 U.S. 136, 144-145, 107 S.Ct. 1046; Employment Div., Ore. Dept. of Human Res. v. Smith, supra, 494 U.S. 872, 890, 110 S.Ct. 1595.) In any event, the court in Espinosa addressed the different problem of content-based prior restraints on speech. The court struck down an ordinance that gave municipal officials, in effect, the power to decide in advance which messages the city's residents would be permitted to hear by requiring the officials, before granting a permit, to determine that the applicant's purpose for soliciting funds was truly religious. The ordinance thus violated Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) 310 U.S. 296, 305-307, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213, which permits the government to regulate the time, place and manner of religious solicitations but not to censor them altogether based on an assessment of the content of speech. ( Espinosa, at pp. 480-482.) The WCEA, which places no restrictions on speech, does not present the problem addressed in Cantwell v. Connecticut and Espinosa. Our conclusion that the government may properly distinguish between secular and religious entities and activities for the purpose of accommodating religious exercise does not mean that any given statute purporting to draw such distinctions necessarily passes muster under the free exercise clause. [A] law targeting religious beliefs as such is never permissible, and a court `must survey meticulously the circumstances of governmental categories to eliminate, as it were, religious gerrymanders.' ( Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, supra, 508 U.S. 520, 533-534, 113 S.Ct. 2217, quoting Walz v. Tax Commission (1970) 397 U.S. 664, 696, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (conc. opn. of Harlan, J.).) We address below Catholic Charities' separate argument that the WCEA's definition of religious employer in fact embodies a legislative effort to target Catholic organizations for unfavorable treatment. (See 10 Cal.Rptr.3d p. 303, 85 P.3d p. 84 et seq., post. )