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Kennedy • Graven Offices in Minneapolis Saint Paul CHARTER E D St. Cloud DATE: July 23, 2021 Fifth Street Towers 150 South Fifth Street, Suite 700 Minneapolis MN 55402-1299 (612) 337-9300 telephone (612) 337-9310 fax http://www.kennedy-graven.com Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer MEMORANDUM TO: Nyle Zikmund, City Administrator Mark Beer, Finance Director FROM: Scott J. Riggs, City Attorney Joseph L. Sathe, Assistant City Attorney RE: Community Center Lease to Pursuit Church This memo is in response to your questions regarding leasing space in the Mounds View Community Center (MVCC) to Pursuit Church and Pursuit Church's request to place a sign on the MVCC's sign structure. This memo addresses separate and distinct issues from my February 24, 2021 memo regarding renting space in the MVCC to religious groups and amending the MVCC's rental policies. Please let us know when you are available to discuss this information in further detail. Constitutional Considerations When Leasing Space to Pursuit Church I. Free Exercise Clause. The Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution provides the government may not interfere with the free exercise of religion. However, this provision does not require the government to aid the exercise of religion (which would likely violate the Establishment Clause, discussed below) or even to remove obstacles to the free exercise of religion that are not of the government's making. It could be argued that if the City refused to lease a room in its public building to a religious group, it would be interfering with the Free Exercise of that religion. However, the courts have consistently held that allowing the Free Exercise of religion does not create an affirmative obligation for the state to aid in that exercise. The Supreme Court has held that a government action can exclude religious components (e.g., students pursuing a degree in theology were not eligible for a state scholarship) so long as the action was not motivated by animus, and thus does not interfere with the Free Exercise of religion. If the City adopted a policy of not leasing space in its public spaces to religious groups, it would be constitutional as long as it was not motivated by animus or applied in a discriminatory manner II. Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause concerns are much more relevant. The seminal case for our purposes is Lemon v. Kurtzman, a 1971 Supreme Court in which the Court formulated what is now known as the "Lemon Test." The Lemon Test asks: does a particular government action that bears on religion: DOC SOPEN\MU210\3 5\736320.v3-7/22/21