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Page Number: 59

4 

AMERICAN LEGION v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

the Internal Revenue Service to deny tax-exempt status to 
schools  that  discriminated  on  the  basis  of  race.    The  par-
ents  claimed  that  their  children  suffered  a  “stigmatic 
injury,  or  denigration”  when  the  government  supported 
racially discriminatory institutions.  Id., at 754.  But this 
Court refused to entertain the case, reasoning that stand-
ing  extends  “only  to  those  persons  who  are  personally 
denied  equal  treatment  by  the  challenged  discriminatory 
conduct.”    Id.,  at  755  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).  
Now  put  the  teachings  there  alongside  the  Association’s 
standing theory here and you get this utterly unjustifiable 
result:  An  African-American  offended  by  a  Confederate 
flag atop a state capitol would lack standing to sue under 
the Equal Protection Clause, but an atheist who is offended 
by  the  cross  on  the  same  flag  could  sue  under  the  Es- 
tablishment  Clause.    Who  really  thinks  that  could  be  the 
law?    See  Brief  for  Becket  Fund  for  Religious  Liberty  as 
Amicus Curiae 34–35. 
  Consider,  as  well,  the  Free  Exercise  Clause.    In  Harris 
v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297 (1980), this Court denied standing 
to a religious group that raised a free exercise challenge to 
federal  restrictions  on  abortion  funding  because  “the 
plaintiffs had ‘not contended that the [statute in question] 
in any way coerce[d] them as individuals in the practice of 
their religion.’ ”  Id., at 321, n. 24.  Instead, the Court has 
held,  a  free  exercise  plaintiff  generally  must  “show  that 
his  good-faith  religious  beliefs  are  hampered  before  he 
acquires  standing  to  attack  a  statute  under  the  Free-
Exercise Clause.”  Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 615 
(1961)  (Brennan,  J.,  concurring  and  dissenting).    And  if 
standing  doctrine  has  such  bite  under  the  Free  Exercise 
Clause, it’s  difficult  to see  how  it  could  be  as toothless  as 
plaintiffs  suppose  under  the  neighboring  Establishment 
Clause. 
  In  fact,  this  Court  has  already  expressly  rejected  “of-
fended  observer”  standing  under  the  Establishment