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AMERICAN LEGION v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

Opinion of the Court 
Opinion of ALITO, J. 

cerned  to  rule  out.    874  F. 3d,  at  221  (internal  quotation 
marks omitted). 
  The  Fourth  Circuit  denied  rehearing  en  banc  over  dis-
sents  by  Chief  Judge  Gregory,  Judge  Wilkinson,  and 
Judge Niemeyer.  891 F. 3d 117 (2018).  The Commission 
and  the  American  Legion  each  petitioned  for  certiorari.  
We granted the petitions and consolidated them for argu-
ment.  586 U. S. ___ (2016). 

II 
A 
  The  Establishment  Clause  of  the  First  Amendment 
provides  that  “Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an 
establishment of religion.”  While the concept of a formally 
established  church  is  straightforward,  pinning  down  the 
meaning of a “law respecting an establishment of religion” 
has  proved  to  be  a  vexing  problem.    Prior  to  the  Court’s 
decision  in  Everson  v. Board  of  Ed.  of  Ewing,  330  U. S.  1 
(1947),  the  Establishment  Clause was  applied  only  to  the 
Federal  Government,  and  few  cases  involving  this  provi-
sion came before the Court.  After Everson recognized the 
incorporation  of  the  Clause,  however,  the  Court  faced  a 
steady stream of difficult and controversial Establishment 
Clause  issues,  ranging  from  Bible  reading  and  prayer  in 
the  public  schools,  Engel  v.  Vitale,  370  U. S.  421  (1962); 
School  Dist.  of  Abington  Township  v.  Schempp,  374  U. S. 
203  (1963),  to  Sunday  closing  laws,  McGowan  v.  Mary-
land,  366  U. S.  420  (1961),  to  state  subsidies  for  church-
related schools or the parents of students attending those 
schools, Board of Ed. of Central School Dist. No. 1 v. Allen, 
392 U. S. 236 (1968); Everson, supra.  After grappling with 
such  cases  for  more  than  20  years,  Lemon  ambitiously 
attempted  to  distill  from  the  Court’s  existing  case  law  a 
test  that  would  bring  order  and  predictability  to  Estab-
lishment  Clause  decisionmaking.    That  test,  as  noted, 
called  on  courts  to  examine  the  purposes  and  effects  of  a