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

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

It is true the Department has not criminalized the way
Trinity  Lutheran  worships  or  told  the  Church  that  it
cannot  subscribe  to  a  certain  view  of  the  Gospel.    But,  as 
the  Department  itself  acknowledges,  the  Free  Exercise
Clause  protects  against  “indirect  coercion  or  penalties  on
the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions.” 
Lyng, 485 U. S., at 450.  As the Court put it more than 50 
years  ago,  “[i]t  is  too  late  in  the  day  to  doubt  that  the 
liberties of religion and expression may be infringed by the
denial  of  or  placing  of  conditions  upon  a  benefit  or  privi-
lege.”  Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 404; see also McDaniel, 435 
U. S.,  at  633  (Brennan,  J.,  concurring  in  judgment)  (The
“proposition—that  the  law  does  not  interfere  with  free 
exercise  because  it  does  not  directly  prohibit  religious
activity,  but  merely  conditions  eligibility  for  office  on  its 
abandonment—is . . . squarely rejected by precedent”).

Trinity  Lutheran  is  not  claiming  any  entitlement  to  a
subsidy. 
It  instead  asserts  a  right  to  participate  in  a
government benefit program without having to disavow its 
religious  character.  The  “imposition  of  such  a  condition
upon  even  a  gratuitous  benefit  inevitably  deter[s]  or  dis-
courage[s] the exercise of First Amendment rights.”  Sher-
bert, 374 U. S., at 405.  The express discrimination against
religious  exercise  here  is  not  the  denial  of  a  grant,  but 
rather the refusal to allow the Church—solely because it is 
a  church—to  compete  with  secular  organizations  for  a 
grant.  Cf.  Northeastern  Fla.  Chapter,  Associated  Gen. 
Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U. S. 656, 666 
(1993) (“[T]he ‘injury in fact’ is the inability to compete on 
an  equal  footing  in  the  bidding  process,  not  the  loss  of  a
contract”).  Trinity Lutheran is a member of the community 
too,  and  the  State’s  decision  to  exclude  it  for  purposes  of 
this public program must withstand the strictest scrutiny. 

B 
The  Department  attempts  to  get  out  from  under  the