Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
Page Number: 43

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

17 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

540 U. S., at 725.  The Court could “think of few areas in 
which  a  State’s  antiestablishment  interests  come  more 
into  play”  than  the  “procuring  [of]  taxpayer  funds  to  sup-
port church leaders.”  Id., at 722. 

The  same  is  true  of  this  case,  about  directing  taxpayer
funds to houses of worship, see supra, at 2.  Like the use of 
public dollars for ministers at issue in Locke, turning over
public funds to houses of worship implicates serious anti-
establishment and free exercise interests.  The history just
discussed  fully  supports  this  conclusion.  As  states  dises-
tablished, they repealed laws allowing taxation to support 
religion  because  the  practice  threatened  other  forms  of 
government  support  for,  involved  some  government  con-
trol  over,  and  weakened  supporters’  control  of  religion. 
Common sense also supports this conclusion.  Recall that a 
state  may  not  fund  religious  activities  without  violating
the Establishment Clause.  See Part II–A, supra.  A state 
can  reasonably  use  status  as  a  “house  of  worship”  as  a
stand-in  for  “religious  activities.”    Inside  a  house  of  wor-
ship, dividing the religious from the secular would require 
intrusive  line-drawing  by  government,  and  monitoring
those  lines  would  entangle  government  with  the  house  of
worship’s  activities.    And  so  while  not  every  activity  a 
house of worship undertakes will be inseparably linked to 
religious  activity,  “the  likelihood  that  many  are  makes  a
categorical  rule  a  suitable  means  to  avoid  chilling  the 
exercise of religion.”  Amos, 483 U. S., at 345 (Brennan, J., 
concurring  in  judgment).    Finally,  and  of  course,  such 
funding implicates the free exercise rights of taxpayers by 
denying them the chance to decide for themselves whether 
and how to fund religion.  If there is any “ ‘room for play in
the joints’ between” the Religion Clauses, it is here.  Locke, 
540 U. S., at 718 (quoting Walz, 397 U. S., at 669). 

As was true in Locke, a prophylactic rule against the use
of  public  funds  for  houses  of  worship  is  a  permissible 
accommodation of these weighty interests.  The rule has a