Court Opinion

ID: 9493900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:22:50.824626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:05.871373
License: Public Domain

KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge,
with whom WARDLAW, Circuit Judge, joins, Dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Before denying a permanent injunction, the district court should have obtained additional evidence and made findings of fact.
Tucson has a city park and band shell, generally available to all organizations, including religious organizations, for their events. For most non-profit organizations, if the event serves any of a broad range of civic goals, the city waives charges that it would otherwise impose for in-kind services. The charges are for such municipal services as “refuse containers, street sweeping, ... police services ...” and use of the sound system at the band shell. The city does not write checks to the organizations; what is at issue is whether it demands checks from them. The city’s written policy denotes three situations where the charges are not waived: (1) events hosted by organizations the city otherwise funds; (2) events put on by organizations allowed to occupy city property without paying rent; and (3) “events held in direct support of religious organizations.”
The record includes results of applications to waive charges for only one of the preceding years, 1995-96. The funding record shows that requests were made for 26 events, and granted for 23. The ones turned down were the “Casa Car Show,” the “Sister Cities Fund Raiser,” and the “Fun Day In the Park.” Nothing in the record says why any of these were rejected. It may be that the car show was commercial, and that the sister cities and fun day events were sponsored by organizations otherwise funded by the city or using city offices rent-free. We simply do not know. Nor do we know what the city means by its exclusion of funding for “events in direct support of religious organizations” or how the exclusion applies here. The majority believes that the very fact that some applications are denied is enough to decide this case.1 But this is not enough.
What we do not know matters to the outcome. For that reason, we should vacate the judgment and remand for an evi-dentiary hearing prior to issuance or denial of a permanent injunction. This record allows for either of two possibilities requiring opposite results. The first possibility is that the city is selective in what events it waives fees for, assuring that the events advance a viewpoint which the city endorses. If so, the city is entitled,2 and probably required, to deny the waivers for religious events. Or it may be that everyone gets a waiver for these routine municipal expenses except for events that promote religion. If so, that violates the core principal of neutrality required by the First Amendment,3 and the plaintiffs are entitled to prevail.
The majority opinion says we must “draw lines, sometimes quite fine, based on the particular facts of [this] case” to conclude that “this case involves significant factual differences from Rosenberger.”4 How would we know enough to draw fine lines based on the facts? We do not know the facts. There are no findings of fact. For all we know, the city is entirely unse-lective in practice. If so, the fund takes on a character similar to that of the quasi-public forum in Rosenberger. The government cannot restrict access to a public *1087forum on account of the speaker’s religious message.5 It makes no difference that municipal expenses and personnel are involved in maintaining the space. Government disbursements to organizations supporting a particular sectarian religious viewpoint are required by neutrality rather than barred by the Establishment Clause under Rosenberger6 and held not to violate the Establishment Clause in Mitchell v. Helms.7 Discriminating against religious institutions by denying them a non-discretionary benefit available to a broad class that otherwise includes them violates the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses.8 Our Constitution no more permits a government policy of anti-clericalism than favoritism.9 The Free Exercise Clause is not mere surplusage. Making religious groups pay for what everyone else gets for free is like charging the churches but no one else when they call for police or fire department assistance.10 Such interference with the free exercise of religion, by imposing a discriminatory burden, would be as plainly unconstitutional as government selection of preferred churches to whose treasuries it would contribute.
If the government makes a public forum available without discriminating against religious speech there could also not be any appearance of endorsement. A non-discretionary government benefit that goes to all non-profits does not violate the Establishment Clause if it includes religious institutions.11 Neutrality eliminates the potential establishment clause issue.12 Nor would there be any endorsement inference. The informed observer would know that all non-profits receive the fee waiver and that there is nothing special about the fact that the Gentalas’ organization received the waiver. Passersby who see municipal employees at the municipal band shell during the prayer event would no more infer a theological endorsement than they would if they were to see municipal firemen pointing hoses at a church fire.13
On the other hand, it may be that the city is selective, routinely denying the waiver to events or groups it feels do not “celebrate and commemorate the historical, cultural and ethnic heritage of the *1088City” or do not instill civic pride. If so, the waiver program would not be a public forum at all. Instead, it would be like the grant program in Finley — discretionary government funding subject to selective criteria.14 In that case the city could properly exclude religious organizations from the waiver program, regardless of whether the waivers would violate the Establishment Clause, simply because the religious nature of the events did not promote the city’s message of inclusion. And granting a waiver to the Gentalas under these facts would likely violate the Establishment Clause.15
Because the record does not enable us to base a decision on the necessary factual predicate, we should vacate and remand for an evidentiary hearing and findings of fact. Therefore I dissent.

. Maj. Op. at 1079.

. See Nat'l Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569, 586-88, 118 S.Ct. 2168, 141 L.Ed.2d 500 (1998).

. See Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U.S. 793, 120 S.Ct. 2530, 2541-42, 147 L.Ed.2d 660 (2000); Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 839, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995); see also, Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 846, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (O'Connor, J. concurring) (summarizing principle of neutrality toward religion).

. Maj. Op. at 1078.

. See Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829-30, 115 S.Ct. 2510.

. See id.

. See 530 U.S. 793, 120 S.Ct. 2530, 2541, 147 L.Ed.2d 660 (2000) ("If the religious, irreligious, and areligious are all alike eligible for governmental aid, no one would conclude that any indoctrination that any particular recipient conducts has been done at the behest of the government.”).

. See id.; see also, Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 274-75, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981).

. See, e.g., Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 531-32, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993); Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 877, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990); Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 18, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947).

. Cf. Roemer v. Board of Pub. Works, 426 U.S. 736, 747, 96 S.Ct. 2337, 49 L.Ed.2d 179 (1976).

. See Mitchell, 120 S.Ct. at 2541; Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829-30, 115 S.Ct. 2510; Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U.S. 664, 672-75, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970) (finding constitutional statute exempting from taxation real property used exclusively for religious purposes).

. See id.

. The majority notes that "the Fund supported other events sponsored by religiously-affiliated organizations when the events did not directly benefit the groups themselves, and events with religious themes sponsored by secular organizations” Maj. Op. at 1070 (footnote omitted). How is the passerby or even the "informed observer” to know the fine distinction apparently made (or at least attributed by the majority) between Gentala’s request for funding and the city's funding of a fishing clinic sponsored by the Aid Association for Lutherans (not "in direct support”) or a depiction of the birth of Christ (not "sponsored by a religious group”)?

. See Finley, 524 U.S. at 586-88, 118 S.Ct. 2168.

. See Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 2278, 147 L.Ed.2d 295 (2000); Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384, 395, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993); see also, Capitol Square Review & Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753, 773-74, 115 S.Ct. 2440, 132 L.Ed.2d 650 (1995) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (discussing endorsement inquiry in Establishment Clause cases).