Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1800_7lho.pdf
Page Number: 42.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

7 

 GORSUCH, J., concurring
GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

Lemon interrupted this long line of precedents.  It offered 
no plausible reason for ignoring their teachings.  And, as we 
have  seen,  the  ahistoric  alternative  it  offered  quickly 
proved both unworkable in practice and unsound in its re-
sults.  Nor is it as if Lemon vanquished the field even during 
its heyday.  Often, this Court continued to look to history to
resolve certain Establishment Clause disputes outside the
context of religious displays.7  And several early decisions 
applying Lemon were themselves rapidly overruled in part 
or in whole.8  All of which in time led Justice after Justice 
to conclude that Lemon was “flawed in its fundamentals,” 
“unworkable in practice,” and “inconsistent with our history
and our precedents.”  County of Allegheny, 492 U. S., at 655, 
669 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dis-
senting in part).9 

—————— 
___ (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 2). 

7 See,  e.g.,  Marsh  v.  Chambers,  463  U. S.  783,  786  (1983)  (surveying 
history to determine that “[f]rom colonial times through the founding of 
the Republic and ever since, the practice of legislative prayer has coex-
isted with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom”). 

8 See,  e.g.,  Agostini  v.  Felton,  521  U. S.  203,  236  (1997)  (overruling 
School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373 (1985), and Aguilar 
v.  Felton,  473  U. S.  402  (1985));  Mitchell  v.  Helms,  530  U. S.  793,  835 
(2000)  (plurality  opinion)  (overruling  Wolman  v.  Walter,  433  U. S.  229 
(1977), and Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U. S. 349 (1975)). 

9 See also, e.g., Salazar v. Buono, 559 U. S. 700, 720–721 (2010) (plu-
rality opinion of Kennedy, J., joined in full by ROBERTS, C. J., and in part 
by ALITO, J.); Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U. S. 677, 699–700 (2005) (BREYER, 
J., concurring) (noting “Lemon’s checkered career in the decisional law of 
this  Court”  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted));  id.,  at  692–693 
(THOMAS, J., concurring) (“This case would be easy if the Court were will-
ing to abandon the inconsistent guideposts it has adopted for addressing
Establishment Clause challenges”); McCreary County v. American Civil 
Liberties Union of Ky., 545 U. S. 844, 890 (2005) (Scalia, J., joined in full 
by Rehnquist, C. J., and THOMAS, J., and in part by Kennedy, J., dissent-
ing) (“[A] majority of the Justices on the current Court . . . have, in sepa-
rate opinions, repudiated the brain-spun ‘Lemon test’ ”); Board of Ed. of 
Kiryas  Joel  Village  School  Dist.  v.  Grumet,  512  U. S.  687,  720  (1994)