Court Opinion

ID: 9764030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:08:20.39388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:52.138534
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Judge Colins:
I agree with Judge BARRY’S dissent which raises the issue, not addressed by the majority, of the Boards conclusion that Bishop Carroll failed to show that claimants behavior amounted to willful misconduct connected with his employment.
However, I believe that the majority’s decision reversing the Board and thereby denying unemployment *311compensation benefits to claimant violates the Establishment Clause of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, as well as Article I, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ... U.S. Const, amend. I (emphasis added). The use of the word “respecting” indicates a broad intent. A law might not actually establish a religion, but nevertheless be one leading to that end and therefore offend the First Amendment.
In Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 397 U.S. 664 (1970), the Court articulated the foremost evils against which the Establishment Clause was intended to protect as “sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity.” Id. at 668. In assessing whether a law violates the Establishment Clause, the Court must make a determination which turns on whether the action in question is intended to directly interfere with or in effect interferes with or establishes religious beliefs and practices. Id. at 699. However, the Court stated that “[n]o perfect or absolute separation is really possible; the very existence of the Religion Clauses is an involvement of sorts—one that seeks to mark boundaries to avoid excessive entanglement.” Id. at 670. The question here is whether the denial of benefits to claimant is excessive entanglement. The test unfortunately is one of degree. Either course, granting benefits or denying them, necessarily involves some entanglement. It is just such entanglement that this Court anticipated in reaching its decision in Christian School Ass’n of Greater Harrisburg v. Department of Labor and Industry, 55 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 555, 423 A.2d 1340 (1980) to exempt religious schools from the mandatory requirements of the Unemployment Com*312pensation Law (Act).1 This Court recognized that the Act might inflict an indirect burden on religion and sought to avoid even the possibility of a conflict between church and state.
Article I, Section 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides:
All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent; no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship. (Emphasis added.)
A state system cannot effectuate religious doctrines. Bishop Carroll of its own volition participated in the unemployment compensation system. It was never required to participate and remains free to terminate its participation at any time. Once it chooses to voluntarily assume this relationship, it thereby places itself within the jurisdiction of the Act in the same manner as any other employer and religious holdings must give way to secular laws. Bishop Carroll must accept the fact that under the mandate of the First Amendment the state has an obligation to remain as neutral as possible in the face of religious differences. School District of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 215.
The majority, in its opinion, has glossed over the fact that claimant agreed to get married in a civil ceremony prior to his discharge. However, this was not acceptable to the school administration, since only a marriage recog*313nized by the Church would suffice. At that time, claimant could not marry his future wife in a ceremony recognized by the Church, since she had been previously married and civilly divorced. Church doctrine bars marriage by a priest unless a religious annulment is first obtained. Hence, the non-disputed facts are that claimant agreed to marry according to the laws of the Commonwealth and subsequently did marry in the Bakerton United Methodist Church, Elmora, Pennsylvania, on December 12, 1987. By denying unemployment compensation under these circumstances, we are making two religious declarations: (1) we will be allowing a religion to use the Act to further its tenets on a de facto basis; and (2) we will be using the Act to recognize a hierarchical system of marriage within the Commonwealth.
When Bishop Carroll told claimant that a civil marriage was not acceptable, it was imposing religious tenets upon claimant as a condition of continued employment. Clearly, Bishop Carroll may require this of its employees and may fire its employees for failure to abide by the rules and teachings of the Church. What Bishop Carroll may not do is require the state unemployment compensation system to define such actions as work-related willful misconduct. Claimant’s refusal and inability to comply with a directive, essentially religious in nature, cannot be used to deny him unemployment compensation. The denial of benefits on that basis is certainly an excessive entanglement of religion and state.
In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), the Court considered criteria gleaned from many years of case law and articulated a three-pronged test for whether state action is compatible with the Establishment Clause: (1) does the state action have a secular purpose; (2) would its effect neither advance nor inhibit religion; and (3) would such action avoid excessive entanglement of gov*314ernment and religion? Id. at 612-13.2 If all three inquiries can be answered affirmatively, then the state action does not violate the Establishment Clause. Bender, 741 F.2d at 550.
Applying the criteria to the case sub judice, the questions to be answered are as follows: (1) does the Act, as it was applied to the facts in the case sub judice, have a secular purpose; (2) does the Act, as applied, neither advance nor inhibit religion; and (3) does the Act, as applied, avoid excessive government entanglement with religion? If we can answer yes to all three questions, then no Establishment Clause violation has occurred.
While the purpose of the Act itself is purely secular, the manner in which it was applied to the facts of this case has destroyed that secular purpose. The majority chooses to ignore that the “willful misconduct” of claimant complained of here is purely and simply a violation of the religious doctrines of the Church. This is particularly so in light of the fact that Bishop Carroll made no showing that the claimant’s “willful misconduct” was job-related, as concluded by the Board. The Act, as applied here, effectively denying benefits to claimant because he chose to marry by a method unacceptable to the Catholic religion, serves to advance that religion. Additionally, the action taken here certainly does not avoid excessive government entanglement with religion. For all of the foregoing reasons, I would uphold the award of benefits.
Judge SMITH joins in this Dissenting Opinion.

 Act of December 5,1936, EL. (1937)2897, as amended, 43 ES. §§751-914.

 It should be noted that the Court has held in later cases that the Lemon test does not embody the exclusive criteria for determining whether state action violates the Establishment Clause. However, as noted in Bender v. Williamsport Area School District, 741 F.2d 538, 551, n.20 (1984), the Court continues to utilize the Lemon test.