Holy Spirit Ass'n for Unification of World Christianity v. Tax Commission of City of New York

• Decision Date: 06 May 1982
• Citation: Holy Spirit Ass'n for Unification of World Christianity v. Tax Commission of City of New York, 450 N.Y.S.2d 292, 55 N.Y.2d 512, 435 N.E.2d 662 (N.Y. 1982)
• Parties: , 435 N.E.2d 662 In the Matter of HOLY SPIRIT ASSOCIATION FOR the UNIFICATION OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY, Appellant, v. TAX COMMISSION OF the CITY OF NEW YORK, Respondent.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 292

450 N.Y.S.2d 292

55 N.Y.2d 512, 435 N.E.2d 662

In the Matter of HOLY SPIRIT ASSOCIATION FOR the UNIFICATION OF WORLD CHRISTIANITY, Appellant, v. TAX COMMISSION OF the CITY OF NEW YORK, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of New York.

May 6, 1982.

Laurence H. Tribe, Cambridge, Mass., of the Massachusetts Bar, admitted pro hac vice, for appellant.

Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., Corp. Counsel, New York City (Edith I. Spivack, Rochelle M. Corson and Russell D. Scott, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.

Herbert Teitelbaum and Sanford Jay Rosen, New York City, Robin B. Johansen, San Francisco, Cal., and Sarah E. Kurtz, of the California Bar, admitted pro hac vice, San Francisco, Cal., for Nat. Council of Churches of Christ in the U. S. A. and another, amici curiae.

Julius B. Poppinga, Newark, N. J., Samuel E. Ericsson, Los Angeles, Cal., and Stephen H. Galebach, of the Virginia Bar, admitted pro hac vice; Robert A. Destro, Milwaukee, Wis., of the Wisconsin Bar, admitted pro hac vice, and Forest D. Montgomery, Washington, D. C. Bar, admitted pro hac vice, for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and others, amici curiae.

Robert L. Beebe, Stephen J. Harrison and Deborah R. Herbach, Albany, for the State Bd. of Equalization and Assessment, amicus curiae.

Steven R. Shapiro, New York City, for the American Civil Liberties Union and another, amici curiae.

Nathan Z. Dershowitz, Marc D. Stern and Victoria B. Eiger, New York City, for American Jewish Congress, amicus curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

JONES, Judge.

In determining whether a particular ecclesiastical body has been organized and is conducted exclusively for religious purposes, the courts may not inquire into or classify the content of the doctrine, dogmas, and teachings held by that body to be integral to its religion but must accept that body's characterization of its own beliefs and activities and those of its adherents, so long as that characterization is made in good faith and is not sham. On this principle it must be concluded that the Unification Church has religion as its "primary" purpose inasmuch as much of its doctrine, dogmas, and teachings and a significant part of its activities are recognized as religious, and in good faith it classifies as religious the beliefs and activities which the Tax Commission (Commission) and the court below have described as political and economic.

The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (the Church) is one of more than 120 national Unification Churches throughout the world propagating a common religious message under the spiritual guidance of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Unification movement's founder and prophet. The Church was organized as a California nonprofit corporation in 1961, and since 1975 has maintained its headquarters in New York City.

In March, 1976 the Church applied to the Tax Commission of the City of New York under section 421 (subd. 1, par. ) of the New York Real Property Tax Law ¹ for exemption from real property taxes for the tax year beginning July 1, 1976 of three properties title to which it had acquired in 1975. The three properties are: the Church headquarters, located at 4 West 43rd Street in the Borough of Manhattan; the missionary residence, located at 305 West 107th Street in Manhattan; and the maintenance and storage facility, located at 38-38 Ninth Street in the Borough of Queens. Following hearings, the Tax Commission on September 21, 1977, by a vote of 4 to 3 denied the application. The majority concluded that, "although the applicant association does in certain respects bespeak of a religious association, it is in our opinion so threaded with political motives that it requires us to deny its application". Having concluded that the Church was not organized or conducted exclusively for religious purposes, the majority of the Commission had no occasion to consider whether the three properties were used exclusively for religious purposes. The dissenting members of the Tax Commission, explicitly declining to judge the validity or content of the religious beliefs of the Church or its adherents or to submit the Church's theology to analysis, concluded that the Church was organized exclusively for religious purposes and that the three properties in question were used exclusively for statutory purposes. The dissenters would therefore have granted the application.

The Church then instituted the present proceeding under CPLR article 78 for judgment annulling the determination of the Commission, directing that the Church's application be granted, and declaring that the three properties are entitled to tax exemption. By order dated September 21, 1977 Supreme Court, New York County, transferred the proceeding to the Appellate Division. The Appellate Division, declaring itself unable to determine on the record then before it whether the Commission had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying the exemption, remanded the matter for a hearing by a Special Referee, holding the article 78 proceeding in abeyance pending receipt of the referee's report.

Between January 15 and December 7, 1979 the Special Referee heard extensive testimony as to the nature of the Church, the Church's purpose and activities, and the uses of the three properties. On August 25, 1980 the Special Referee issued his report concluding that the Church's primary purpose is religious but finding that the Commission had not acted arbitrarily or capriciously in its determination that "the Church is so inextricably interwoven with political motives and activities as to warrant denial of the tax exemption", adding that "the evidence at the hearing established that petitioner's religious purposes are intertwined with political and economic objectives that form an amalgam".

On May 5, 1981 the Appellate Division 81 A.D.2d 64, 438 N.Y.S.2d 521 confirmed the report of the Special Referee and the determination of the Commission by a vote of 4 to 1. Because that court, in reviewing the determination of the Commission invoked erroneous legal principles (as did the majority of the Commission in ruling on the Church's application for tax exemption), we now reverse.

It is appropriate at the threshold to delineate our holding in this case--to make explicit what we are not as well as what we are called on to decide. We are not called on to determine whether the Church has any real religious purpose or whether any of its doctrine, dogmas, and teachings constitute a religion. In this case it is recognized that at least many of the beliefs and a significant part of the activities of the Church are religious and that the Unification movement at least in part is a religion. The determination of the Tax Commission, the report of the Special Referee, the opinion at the Appellate Division and now the arguments of the Tax Commission in our court all, at least implicitly, accept this proposition.

The issue that we confront is a narrower one--is the Church, many of whose beliefs and activities are religious, organized and conducted primarily ² for religious purposes within the contemplation of section 421 (subd. 1, par. )? This, as understood by the Tax Commission and the Appellate Division, turns on whether the Church is engaged in so many or such significant nonreligious activities as to warrant the conclusion that its purpose is not primarily religious. More specifically the issue is whether the activities which have been found to be "political" and "economic" are for the purposes of that statute to be classified as secular rather than religious.

When, as here, particular purposes and activities of a religious organization are claimed to be other than religious, the civil authorities may engage in but two inquiries: Does the religious organization assert that the challenged purposes and activities are religious, and is that assertion bona fide? Neither the courts nor the administrative agencies of the State or its subdivisions may go behind the declared content of religious beliefs any more than they may examine into their validity. This principle was firmly established in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 728, 20 L.Ed. 666, when the Supreme Court declared that "law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect." That court again condemned the judicial pursuit of any such investigation in Board of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 640-642, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1186-1187, 87 L.Ed. 1628, n. omitted:

"Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men * * * As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be * * * Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity * * * Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

"It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings * * *

"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion * * * If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us." The articulation of the Supreme Court in foreclosing judicial inquiry into the truth or falsity of religious beliefs is equally applicable to judicial inquiry as to the content of religious beliefs.

"Freedom of thought, which includes freedom of religious belief, is basic...