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Page Number: 54.0

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AMERICAN LEGION  v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

THOMAS,  J., concurring  in judgment 
THOMAS,  J., concurring  in judgment 

III 
  As  to  the  long-discredited  test  set  forth  in  Lemon  v. 
Kurtzman,  403  U. S.  602,  612–613 (1971), and reiterated 
in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 
Greater  Pittsburgh  Chapter,  492  U. S.  573,  592–594 
(1989), the plurality rightly rejects its relevance to claims, 
like this one, involving “religious references or imagery in 
public  monuments,  symbols,  mottos,  displays,  and cere-
monies.”    Ante,  at  15–16,  and  n. 16.    I  agree  with  that 
aspect  of its opinion.  I would take the logical next step 
and  overrule  the Lemon  test in all contexts.  First, that 
test has no basis in the original meaning of the Constitu-
tion.  Second, “since its inception,” it has “been manipu- 
lated to fit whatever result the Court aimed to achieve.”  
McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 
545  U. S.  844,  900  (2005)  (Scalia,  J.,  dissenting);  see 
Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 
508  U. S.  384,  398–399  (1993)  (Scalia,  J.,  concurring  in 
judgment).  Third, it continues to cause enormous confu-
sion  in  the  States  and  the  lower  courts.    See  generally 
Utah Highway Patrol Assn. v. American Atheists, Inc., 565 
U. S.  994  (2011)  (THOMAS,  J.,  dissenting  from  denial  of 
certiorari).    In  recent  decades,  the  Court  has  tellingly 
refused to apply Lemon in the very cases where it purports 
to be most useful.  See Utah Highway, supra, at 997–998 
(collecting  cases);  ante,  at  13  (plurality  opinion) (same).  
The obvious explanation is that Lemon does not provide a 
sound  basis  for  judging  Establishment  Clause  claims.  

—————— 

(quoting L. Boettner, Roman Catholicism 360 (1962)); see 403 U. S., at 
636 (similar).  The tract said that Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin learned 
the  “secret[s]  of  [their]  success”  in  indoctrination  from  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  that  “an  undue  proportion  of  the  gangsters,  racketeers, 
thieves,  and  juvenile  delinquents  who  roam  our  big  city  streets  come 
. . . from the [Catholic] parochial schools,” where children are taught by 
“brain-washed,”  “ ‘ignorant  European  peasants.’ ”    Boettner,  supra,  at 
363, 370–372.