Court Opinion

ID: 9785734
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:17:04.620764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:32.204118
License: Public Domain

DURRANT, Justice,
concurring:
141 I concur. The court's analysis is consistent with Lemon and its progeny. To permit a plaintiff to enlist the judicial system to press a claim for clergy malpractice would clearly result in the kind of governmental intrusion into religious practices that is prohibited by the entanglement prong of current Establishment Clause analysis. Further, in focusing exclusively on the Establishment Clause in its analysis, our opinion adopts the analytical approach commonly used by courts in assessing clergy malpractice claims. I write separately merely to note that I believe the plaintiff's claims are barred not only by the Establishment Clause, but by the Free Exercise Clause as well. 1
142 In my view, judicial analyses of religious issues under the First Amendment have too often come to focus exclusively on the Establishment Clause. I think this unfortunate because a significant part of the genius of the two religion clauses is in their mutually reinforcing dynamic. One of the central means of promoting the free exercise of religious beliefs protected by the Free Exercise Clause is to guard against the establishment of a state church, as proscribed by the Establishment Clause. One of the central means of guarding against the establishment of a particular religion is to protect the free exercise rights of adherents of all religions. While the clauses are complementary in this sense, in another sense they are in dynamic tension. To allow a particular state benefit to a religious group may implicate the Establishment Clause, yet to deny it to that group may impinge upon free exercise rights. Yet, notwithstanding their at once complementary and contradictory nature, I believe that the ultimate end of both religion causes is the same-the protection of religious liberty.
1 43 However, as courts have expanded the reach of the Establishment Clause to include the prohibitions of state benefits to, or accommodations of, religion that in no realistic sense could lead to the establishment of a state church, they have tended to diminish the protections of the Free Exercise Clause. Or, they have made the Establishment Clause do the work of the Free Exercise Clause. For instance, the entanglement prong of the Lemon Establishment Clause analysis may actually be a better analytical {it with the Free Exercise Clause. The case before us illustrates this point. Under traditional Establishment Clause analysis, allowing clergy malpractice claims would clearly result in an excessive governmental entanglement with religion. The courts would be put in the position of overseeing, assessing, and passing judgment on a core activity of churches-the provision of ecclesiastical counseling. Clearly, this would be an unconstitutional governmental intrusion into religion. But on what basis is it unconstitutional? Is permitting this type of entanglement a step that is likely to lead to the establishment of religion? Does its constitutional infirmity lie in the fact that it benefits religion? I think that few religious denominations would view governmental intrusion into their core ecclesiastical functions as somehow ben-efitting them. The danger of such an intrusion is not so much that it could lead to the establishment of religion as that it directly impinges on the free exercise of religion. Yet, under the Lemon analytical framework, which places the entanglement assessment under the Establishment Clause, we are led to the Establishment Clause analysis upon which the court's opinion relies.
44 It might be asked what difference it makes whether a governmental intrusion into religion is analyzed under the Establishment *210Clause or the Free Exercise Clause. In either case, the intrusion is proscribed. I think it matters because to the extent we blur the analytical distinction between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, to the extent we make the Establishment Clause do the work of both clauses, we sap some of the life from the Free Exercise Clause. Further, we lose the benefits that come from examining the clauses in tandem. I think we would be better served if, in the development of our religion clauses' jurisprudence, courts more often examined the full picture and conducted their analysis with reference to both clauses, taking into account both their mutually reinforcing aspects as well as the distinct rights they protect.
Accordingly, while I coneur in the court's opinion, I would also affirm on the ground that the claims determined by the court to be barred by the Establishment Clause are also barred by the Free Exercise Clause. Recognizing a cause of action that is in essence one for clergy malpractice would amount to a secular judicial restraint upon one of the core functions of many religious denominations. Indeed, given the fact that actions for malpractice in other contexts have developed within fields of employment reserved for professionals whose practices are heavily regulated, a common law action for clergy malpractice would necessarily borrow its criteria from those contexts. The consequence would be tantamount to regulatory oversight by the judiciary of ecclesiastical counseling. Neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause permits such a result.
'I 46 WILKINS, J., concurs in DURRANT's, J., concurring opinion.

. The LDS Church's brief on appeal presents arguments under the excessive entanglement prong of the Establishment Clause and under what it describes as the " 'church autonomy doctrine' ... [gJrounded in both religion clauses of the First Amendment."