Court Opinion

ID: 9553202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:25:09.607408+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:30:18.318240
License: Public Domain

*794KLEINFELD, Circuit Judge:
I respectfully dissent.
We issued a previous order in this case.1 I dissented, on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked standing.2 The Boy Scouts petitioned for rehearing, and the majority now issues an order with a quite different standing analysis. Without standing, there is no federal jurisdiction, and no authority to certify.
Surprisingly, the majority now bases standing on a theory the majority expressly rejected the last time around. The new theory is that the plaintiffs would like to use the parks but “avoid doing so because they are offended by the Boy Scouts’ exclusion, and publicly expressed disapproval, of lesbians, atheists and agnostics.”3 The theory is that the plaintiffs suffer “emotional harm and the loss of recreational enjoyment”4 because they “do not want to view signs posted by the Boy Scouts or interact with the Boy Scouts’ representatives in order to gain access to the facilities.”5
Perhaps I need say no more than that the majority expressly rejected this very theory the last time around, and rightly so. Here is what the majority said last time about the theory it adopts this time:
We reject the families’ other theories of standing. The Breens’ and the BarnesWallaces’ purposeful avoidance of the parklands leased by the Boy Scouts as a protest against the Scouts’ exclusionary policies is not a sufficient injury. We have held that people can suffer a direct injury from the need to avoid large religious displays, such as giant crosses or lifesize biblical scenes. See, e.g., Buono, 371 F.3d at 549 (five to eight-foot-tall cross); SCSC, 93 F.3d at 619 (fifty-one-foot-tall cross); Ellis, 990 F.2d at 1520 (thirty-six-foot and forty-three-foot-tall crosses); Kreisner v. City of San Diego, 1 F.3d 775, 777 (9th Cir.1993) (ten by fourteen-foot displays containing life-size statuary of biblical scenes). But there are no displays in either Camp Balboa or the Aquatic Center that would be so overwhelmingly offensive that families who do not share the Scouts’ religious views must avoid them. See Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 485, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982) (requiring the plaintiffs to show a personal injury suffered “as a consequence of the alleged constitutional error”) (emphasis omitted).6
That was correct and that should be the end of the case. To assist the reader, I will speak a little more extensively than the majority did last time on why the psychological theory is mistaken, and the cases distinguished last time were correctly distinguished.
The overarching authority for this standing issue is the Supreme Court decision in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc.7 The Court granted *795certiorari in that case to reject “the unusually broad and novel view of standing” that the lower court had applied in Establishment Clause cases.8 In Valley Forge, advocacy groups challenged a government decision to give excess government real estate for free to the Assemblies of God to operate a Christian college. The Court expressly rejected the psychological injury theory argued in that case and ours. The Court held that “psychological” injury caused by “observation” of “conduct with which one disagrees” is “not an injury sufficient to confer standing under Art. Ill,”9
They fail to identify any personal injury suffered by them as a consequence of the alleged constitutional error, other than the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees. That is not an injury sufficient to confer standing under Art. Ill, even though the disagreement is phrased in constitutional terms.10
It is not enough, under controlling authority, that plaintiffs have an interest in the conduct they challenge. For them to have standing, they need a “legally protected interest.”11 Under Valley Forge, “psychological consequence,”12 even when strongly felt, is not what Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife calls a “legally protected interest” 13 and “standing is not measured by the intensity of the litigant’s interest or the fervor of his advocacy.”14
The majority now distinguishes Valley Forge on the theory that the plaintiffs in that case did not want to use the land and the plaintiffs in this case do.15 The ratio decidendi of Valley Forge does not support this distinction. Valley Forge holds that “psychological” injury caused by “observation” of “conduct with which one disagrees” is not a concrete injury to a legally protected interest sufficient to confer standing, and that is what the plaintiffs allege. Thus being there and seeing the offending conduct does not confer standing.
In Valley Forge, the Court saw no significance to the fact that one of the advocacy groups objecting to this giveaway of federal land near Philadelphia had members who lived in Pennsylvania.16 But suppose that the distinction would make a difference, as when environmental advocacy groups have standing or not depending on whether they have members who use the land affected by the proposed federal action.17 There still needs to be a concrete injury to a legally protected interest, and in our case there is nothing but avoidance of a place because of people there who hold different views.
The authorities the majority relies on today (having distinguished them last time) are our gigantic cross cases, primari*796ly Buono v. Norton18 and Ellis v. City of La Mesa.19 Buono applied Separation of Church & State Committee v. City of Eugene,20 which had held that a 51-foot-tall neon-illuminated cross on the crest of a hill in a city park violated the Establishment Clause.21 In Buono the cross in Mojave National Preserve was five to eight feet tall on a prominent rock outcropping rising 15 to 20 feet above grade. It appeared “likely that the Sunrise Rock cross will project a message of government endorsement to a reasonable observer” of a particular religious belief.22 The plaintiff had standing because he regularly visited the preserve and took an inconvenient road to avoid viewing the prominent cross on government property.23
Buono holds that the “inhibition” from using public land “as a consequence of the alleged constitutional error” created by the cross goes beyond a mere psychological injury. This holding has boundaries, among them the facts of Buono and the holding in Valley Forge. Buono distinguishes “the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which it disagrees,” and a psychological consequence is all plaintiffs establish in this case.24
In Ellis, there were three crosses, one 36 feet high on top of a mountain, one 43 feet high in a city park, and a picture of the mountaintop cross on the city insignia.25 The plaintiffs avoided the locations, missed the spectacular view from the mountaintop, and one claimed that he dedined to invite business clients to the city because the cross offended them. We held that the plaintiffs who would have visited the public areas but for the crosses had standing because their access to public property was interfered with by the crosses. The majority applies the same theory here. Applying these cases, though, to a case where there is no gigantic cross, is an unjustified extension of their holdings.
The majority was correct the last time, when it distinguished the gigantic cross cases. Previously, it held that “[t]he Breens’ and the Barnes-Wallaces’ purposeful avoidance of the parklands leased by the Boy Scouts as a protest against the Scouts’ exclusionary policies is not a sufficient injury ... [because] there are no displays in either Camp Balboa or the Aquatic Center that would be so overwhelmingly offensive that families who do not share the Scouts’ religious views must avoid them.” I agree.
In our gigantic cross cases, the government maintained what amounted to a shrine for a particular religion on public land. Since time immemorial, shrines have been erected on hills and mountaintops.26 A huge cross on a hill or mountaintop would appear to a reasonable objective observer to be a shrine. People not sharing the religious views represented by the cross become visitors to another religion’s shrine. On public lands, we are all owners, none of us are mere guests. Even if the Boy Scout emblem were 51 feet tall, *797illuminated by neon, and at the crest of a hill (none of which is true), no reasonable observer would think that the Boy Scout emblem created a shrine to a major religion or sexual preference. A gigantic cross on a mountaintop carries religious significance that a herd of 11 year old boys camping out and swimming does not.
Unlike a cross, neither a Boy Scout, nor the Boy Scout emblem (an eagle with a shield on a fleur-de-lis), nor a sign saying “Boy Scouts,” is the central symbol of any religion or sexual preference. One would have no idea that the Boy Scouts even had any views about religion or sex without doing research. And even if one did, one would, as the petition for rehearing demonstrates, learn that sex and religion are but an incidental part of scouting. If one reads the Boy Scout Handbook to find out whether the Boy Scouts are primarily oriented around sexual and religious teachings, one will be disappointed to find that there are more pages about knot tying than sex and religion combined, and that most of what Boy Scouts learn about and do involves camping, boating, hiking, swimming, and charitable activities.
Here is the Boy Scout oath that the Barnes-Wallaces say makes them “feel degraded.”
Scout Oath or Promise
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
Those who disagree with religion of any sort, patriotism, altruism, physical fitness, mental alertness, or honesty as virtues would not want to take this oath, but no one has to take the oath or know what it says to use the park. Here is the Boy Scout Law that generations of Scouts have been required to memorize, and that the Breens swear makes them feel “disturbed” and “offended,”
Scout Law
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
One who rejects any of these as virtues, not just reverence, would not want to follow the Boy Scout Law, but no one has to honor or even know of the oath in order to use the park. Many generations of Boy Scouts have committed the whole oath to memory, as they must to get their Tenderfoot badge. Without memorizing the Scout Law or looking it up, one would not even know that it included a non-sectarian reference to religion. By contrast, a gigantic cross on a mountaintop requires no research to let the visitor know that he is visiting a Christian shrine.
There is a distinction between a prominent display of an unambiguous religious symbol on public land and groups with myriad viewpoints working with government to facilitate public use of lands. San Diego, like many municipalities, leases property to many non-profit groups: San Diego Calvary Korean Church, Point Loma Community Presbyterian Church, the Jewish Community Center, the Vietnamese Federation, the Black Police Officers Association, and ElderHelp. No doubt people can be found in San Diego who do not like Koreans, Presbyterians, Jews, Vietnamese, Blacks, and old people, and who disagree with the beliefs people in these groups share. Their feelings of disagreement or dislike should not be treated as the “concrete injury” that is “an invasion of a legally protected interest” required for standing.27
*798There is a distinction important to our liberties between having a legally protected interest and having an interest in not being offended. Some people may feel “degraded” or “offended” because of the Boy Scouts’ positions on reverence and sexuality but so long as their access is unimpaired, the feeling is no stronger a basis for standing than the feelings others may have about atheists or lesbians managing the facility. By treating the Barnes-Wallaces and Breens revulsion for Boy Scouts and consequent avoidance of a place the Boy Scouts manage as conferring standing, we extend standing to a claim that precedent does not support. And we assist in a campaign to destroy by litigation an association of people because of their viewpoints. A feeling of revulsion for others who have different beliefs, so strong that one feels degraded or excluded if they are present, does not confer standing.
Granting standing to the Barnes-Wallaces and the Breens undermines freedom of speech and freedom of association. The Boy Scouts are entitled to gather together freely and reinforce the views they share. The Barnes-Wallaces and the Breens can use the facilities that the Boy Scouts manage without agreeing to the Boy Scouts’ views, and without the quiet and respectful politeness we all exercise in the presence of another religion’s shrines.
One virtue not in the Boy Scout law, doubtless because in a free society it is taken for granted, is tolerance. The Boy Scouts must and do display tolerance for gay, lesbian, atheist, and agnostic users of the facilities that they manage for the city. A free country requires that groups with differing views, such as the plaintiffs and the Boy Scouts, nevertheless have to display tolerance for each other. Granting standing to one because the presence of *799the other revolts them, under the guise that their own feelings and disagreements make them feel excluded, threatens all our liberties.

. Barnes-Wallace v. City of San Diego, 471 F.3d 1038 (9th Cir.2006).

. Id. at 1049 (Kleinfeld, J., dissenting).

. Order certifying question to the Supreme Court of California at 784, Barnes-Wallace v. City of San Diego, No. 04-55732.

. Id. at 785.

. Id. at 784.

. Barnes-Wallace, 471 F.3d at 1045-46.

. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982).

. Id. at 470, 102 S.Ct. 752.

. Id. at 485, 102 S.Ct. 752.

. Id.

. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992).

. Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 485, 102 S.Ct. 752.

. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130.

. Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 486, 102 S.Ct. 752.

. Order certifying question to the Supreme Court of California at 785-86, Barnes-Wallace v. City of San Diego, No. 04-55732.

. Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 487 n. 23, 102 S.Ct. 752.

. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130.

. Buono v. Norton, 371 F.3d 543 (9th Cir.2004).

. Ellis v. City of La Mesa, 990 F.2d 1518 (9th Cir.1993).

. Separation of Church & State Committee v. City of Eugene, 93 F.3d 617 (9th Cir.1996).

. Id. at 618.

. Buono, 371 F.3d at 549.

. Id. at 547.

. Buono, 371 F.3d at 547 (quoting Valley Forge, 454 U.S. at 485, 102 S.Ct. 752).

. Ellis, 990 F.2d at 1520.

. See, e.g., 1 Samuel 9:9-13; 1 Kings 3:2.

. Judge Berzon almost concedes that her "comparison to the Jim Crow South may *798seem greatly overblown.” Indeed it does. Comparing the feelings of lesbians or atheists in San Francisco who object to the Boy Scouts managing a municipal facility, even though they have full, open, and totally nondiscriminatory access, to the treatment of black people in the Jim Crow South is worse than overblown. It is obscene.
It is beyond me how anyone old enough to recall when they separated us in Delaware on the train from New York to Washington, D.C., can use the Jim Crow laws as an analogy to the Boy Scouts managing facilities in Balboa Park. Black people were not allowed access, generally south of the Delaware-Pennsylvania state line, to diners, restaurants, water fountains, the front of the bus, and the front of railroad cars until the civil rights movement awakened America to the injustice of racial exclusion in the 1950’s and 1960's. Gays, lesbians and atheists have access identical to everyone elses’ in the public spaces at issue in this case. They just don't want to use it because of their offended feelings.
Judge Berzon concedes in footnote 3 that "[t]he absence or presence on public land of symbols of exclusion, whether racial, religious or otherwise, is not the focus of the standing issue in this case,” yet the only standing case she cites in her concurrence, Buono v. Norton, 371 F.3d 543 (9th Cir.2004), turns precisely on the presence of a cross on public land. Judge Berzon's other case citations, Fund for Animals, Inc. v. Lujan, 962 F.2d 1391, 1396 (9th Cir.1992), Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1, 110 S.Ct. 2228, 110 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990), Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209, 240, 97 S.Ct. 1782, 52 L.Ed.2d 261 (1977), and Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 756-57 and n. 22, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984), are also ill-fitting, as any intrepid scholar will discover.
It is crucial to the majority’s argument to call the Boy Scouts "the excluders,” but at Balboa Park, they do not exclude. The exclusion, to confer standing, must be from a facility to which one desires access. The Presbyterian Church, would, I should think, exclude me from employment as a minister, because I am Jewish, but if they managed a recreational facility open to all without discrimination as the Boy Scouts do, their ministry exclusion would not give me standing to challenge their park management contract. Exclusion from something else entirely, employment as a minister, does not confer standing to challenge any relationship the government has with the organization.