Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

violates the Free Exercise Clause.5 

* 

* 
Nearly  200  years  ago,  a  legislator  urged  the  Maryland
Assembly  to  adopt  a  bill  that  would  end  the  State’s  dis-
qualification of Jews from public office: 

* 

“If, on account of my religious faith, I am subjected to
disqualifications,  from  which  others  are  free,  . . .  I 
cannot  but  consider  myself  a  persecuted  man.  . . .  An
odious  exclusion  from  any  of  the  benefits  common  to 
the rest of my fellow-citizens, is a persecution, differ-
ing only in degree, but of a nature equally unjustifia-
ble  with  that,  whose  instruments  are  chains  and  tor-
ture.”  Speech by H. M. Brackenridge, Dec. Sess. 1818,
in  H.  Brackenridge,  W.  Worthington,  &  J.  Tyson, 
Speeches  in  the  House  of  Delegates  of  Maryland,  64
(1829). 

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has not 
subjected  anyone  to  chains  or  torture  on  account  of  reli-
gion.  And  the  result  of  the  State’s  policy  is  nothing  so
dramatic as the denial of political office.  The consequence
is,  in  all  likelihood,  a  few  extra  scraped  knees.    But  the 
exclusion  of  Trinity  Lutheran  from  a  public  benefit  for 
which  it  is  otherwise  qualified,  solely  because  it  is  a 
church,  is  odious  to  our  Constitution  all  the  same,  and 
cannot stand. 

The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for 
the  Eighth  Circuit  is  reversed,  and  the  case  is  remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

It is so ordered. 

—————— 

5 Based  on  this  holding,  we  need  not  reach  the  Church’s  claim  that

the policy also violates the Equal Protection Clause.