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Page Number: 11.0

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ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN v. CUOMO 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

fine, or establish that they qualified for an exemption.  Id., 
at 25 (asking whether the State’s scheme was “reasonable”); 
id., at 27 (same); id., at 28 (same).  Rational basis review is 
the test this Court normally applies to Fourteenth Amend-
ment challenges, so long as they do not involve suspect clas-
sifications based on race or some other ground, or a claim of 
fundamental right.  Put differently, Jacobson didn’t seek to 
depart from normal legal rules during a pandemic, and it 
supplies no precedent for doing so.  Instead, Jacobson ap-
plied what would become the traditional legal test associ-
ated with the right at issue—exactly what the Court does
today.  Here, that means strict scrutiny:  The First Amend-
ment traditionally requires a State to treat religious exer-
cises at least as well as comparable secular activities unless 
it can meet the demands of strict scrutiny—showing it has
employed  the  most  narrowly  tailored  means  available  to 
satisfy a compelling state interest.  Church of Lukumi, 508 
U. S., at 546. 

Next, consider the right asserted.  Mr. Jacobson claimed 
that  he  possessed  an  implied  “substantive  due  process” 
right  to  “bodily  integrity”  that  emanated  from  the  Four-
teenth Amendment and allowed him to avoid not only the
vaccine but also the $5 fine (about $140 today) and the need 
to show he qualified for an exemption.  197 U. S., at 13–14. 
This Court disagreed.  But what does that have to do with 
our circumstances?  Even if judges may impose emergency 
restrictions on rights that some of them have found hiding
in the Constitution’s penumbras, it does not follow that the 
same fate should befall the textually explicit right to reli-
gious exercise.

Finally,  consider  the  different  nature  of  the  restriction.
In Jacobson, individuals could accept the vaccine, pay the
fine, or identify a basis for exemption.  Id., at 12, 14.  The 
imposition on Mr. Jacobson’s claimed right to bodily integ-
rity,  thus,  was  avoidable  and  relatively  modest.    It  easily