Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 78

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

17 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

The majority claims that giving weight to these consider-
ations  would  be  a  departure  from  our  precedent  and  give 
courts  too  much  discretion  to  interpret  the  Religion
Clauses.  See ante, at 16–18.  But we have long understood
that the “application” of the First Amendment’s mandate of
neutrality  “requires  interpretation  of  a  delicate  sort.” 
Schempp, 374 U. S., at 226.  “Each value judgment under
the  Religion  Clauses,”  we  have  explained,  must  “turn  on
whether particular acts in question are intended to estab-
lish or interfere with religious beliefs and practices or have
the effect of doing so.”  Walz, 397 U. S., at 669. 

Nor does the majority’s approach avoid judicial entangle-
ment in difficult and sensitive questions.  To the contrary,
as  I  have  just  explained,  it  burdens  courts  with  the  still
more complex task of untangling disputes between religious 
organizations and state governments, instead of giving def-
erence to state legislators’ choices to avoid such issues alto-
gether.  At the same time, it puts States in a legislative di-
lemma, caught between the demands of the Free Exercise
and  Establishment  Clauses,  without  “breathing  room”  to 
help ameliorate the problem.

I agree with the majority that it is preferable in some ar-
eas  of  the  law  to  develop  generally  applicable  tests.    The 
problem, as our precedents show, is that the interaction of 
the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses makes it par-
ticularly  difficult  to  design  a  test  that  vindicates  the 
Clauses’  competing  interests  in  all—or  even  most—cases. 
That is why, far from embracing mechanical formulas, our 
precedents  repeatedly  and  frankly  acknowledge  the  need 
for precisely the kind of “ ‘judgment-by-judgment analysis’ ” 
the majority rejects.  Ante, at 17; see, e.g., Walz, 397 U. S., 
at 669.  “The standards” of our prior decisions, we have said,
“should rather be viewed as guidelines with which to iden-
tify  instances  in  which  the  objectives  of  the  Religion 
Clauses have been impaired.”  Tilton, 403 U. S., at 678 (plu-
rality opinion); accord, Nyquist, 413 U. S., at 773, n. 31.