Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 77.0

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

55 

ALITO, J., concurring in judgment
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 

their head, Barnette held that students with religious objec-
tions to saluting the flag were indeed “relieved . . . from obe-
dience to a general [rule] not aimed at the promotion or re-
striction of religious beliefs.”  Gobitis, 310 U. S., at 594. 
  After  reviving  Gobitis’s  anti-exemption  rhetoric,  Smith 
turned to Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, an 1879 
decision upholding the polygamy conviction of a member of 
the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints.    Unlike 
Gobitis, Reynolds at least had not been overruled,75 but the 
decision was not based on anything like Smith’s interpreta-
tion of the Free Exercise Clause.  It rested primarily on the
proposition that the Free Exercise Clause protects beliefs, 
not conduct.  98 U. S., at 166–167.  The Court had repudi-
ated  that  distinction  a  half  century  before  Smith  was  de-
cided.  See  Cantwell,  310  U. S.,  at  303–304;  Murdock  v. 
Pennsylvania,  319  U. S.  105,  110–111,  117  (1943).    And 
Smith itself agreed!  See 494 U. S., at 877. 

The remaining pre-Sherbert cases cited by Smith actually 
cut against its interpretation.  None was based on the rule 
that  Smith  adopted.  Although  these  decisions  ended  up 
In 
denying  exemptions,  they  did  so  on  other  grounds. 
Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (1944), where a Je-
hovah’s Witness who enlisted a child to distribute religious
literature was convicted for violating a state child labor law,
the  decision  was  based  on  the  Court’s  assessment  of  the 
strength of the State’s interest.  Id., at 159–160, 162, 169– 
170; see also  Yoder, 406 U. S., at 230–231 (describing the 
Prince Court’s rationale). 

In  Braunfeld  v.  Brown,  366  U. S.  599,  601,  609  (1961) 
(plurality  opinion),  which  rejected  a  Jewish  merchant’s
challenge to Pennsylvania’s Sunday closing laws, the Court 
balanced the competing interests.  The Court attached di-
minished weight to the burden imposed by the law (because 

—————— 

75 This discussion does not suggest that Reynolds should be overruled.