Larson v Valente

 In Larson v. Valente, Minnesota enacted a statute to regulate charitable solicitations in order to protect the public and the beneficiaries of charitable contributions from fraudulent practices.

Under this enactment, certain religious organizations were exempted from the law's registration and reporting requirements. In particular, the law exempted "only those religious organizations that received more than half of their total contributions from members or affiliated organizations .... “

The Supreme Court held that the fifty percent rule created a denominational preference, because it imposed "the registration and reporting requirements of the Act on some religious organizations but not on others."

By selectively conferring a "substantial advantage" on some religious charities, the law created a serious risk of politicizing religion by treating some religious organizations as political insiders and others as political outsiders.

Interestingly, the exemption in Larson was not based upon doctrinal differences between favored and disfavored religious organizations, but rather on purely secular factors concerning solicitation of funds from nonmembers.

Arguably, the Establishment Clause violation would be even clearer if the line drawn between exempted and non-exempted religious organizations had been based upon certain religious teachings or practices or on the degree of religiosity of different denominations.

So, what happens once the Court decides that the Minnesota law created a denominational preference?

The “clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.” The “clearest command”—this is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause. And probably of the Free Exercise Clause as well.