Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
Page Number: 48

22 

TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH OF COLUMBIA, INC. v.
COMER 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
 

Start where the Court stays silent.  Its opinion does not
acknowledge that our precedents have expressly approved
of a government’s choice to draw lines based on an entity’s
religious  status.  See  Amos,  483  U. S.,  at  339;  Walz,  397 
U. S., at 680; Locke, 540 U. S., at 721.  Those cases did not 
deploy strict scrutiny to create a presumption of unconsti-
tutionality,  as  the  Court  does  today.    Instead,  they  asked
whether  the  government  had  offered  a  strong  enough 
reason to justify drawing a line based on that status.  See 
Amos,  483  U. S.,  at  339  (“[W]e  see  no  justification  for 
applying  strict  scrutiny”);  Walz,  397  U. S.,  at  679  (reject-
ing  criticisms  of  a  case-by-case  approach  as  giving  “too 
little weight to the fact that it is an essential part of adju-
dication  to  draw  distinctions,  including  fine  ones,  in  the 
process of interpreting the Constitution”); Locke, 540 U. S., 
at 725 (balancing the State’s interests against the aspiring 
minister’s).

The  Court  takes  two  steps  to  avoid  these  precedents. 
First,  it  recasts  Locke  as  a  case  about  a  restriction  that 
prohibited  the  would-be  minister  from  “us[ing]  the  funds 
to prepare for the ministry.”  Ante, at 12.  A faithful read-
ing of Locke gives it a broader reach.  Locke stands for the 
reasonable proposition that the government may, but need 
not,  choose  not  to  fund  certain  religious  entities  (there, 
ministers) where doing so raises “historic and substantial” 
establishment  and  free  exercise  concerns.  540  U.  S.,  at 
725.  Second, it suggests that this case is different because 
it  involves  “discrimination”  in  the  form  of  the  denial  of 
access to a possible benefit.  Ante, at 11.  But in this area 
of  law,  a  decision  to  treat  entities  differently  based  on
distinctions that the Religion Clauses make relevant does 
not amount to discrimination.12  To understand why, keep 

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12 This explains, perhaps, the Court’s reference to an Equal Protection
Clause  precedent,  rather  than  a  Free  Exercise  Clause  precedent,  for 
this point.  See ante, at 11 (citing Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated