Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/12-10_21p3.pdf
Page Number: 22

4 

AGENCY FOR INT’L DEVELOPMENT v. ALLIANCE FOR 
OPEN SOCIETY INT’L, INC. 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

the  Government  did  not  wish  (and  had  no  constitutional 
obligation) to provide.  The situation here is vastly differ-
ent.  Elimination  of  prostitution  is  an  objective  of  the
HIV/AIDS  program,  and  any  promotion  of  prostitution—
whether  made  inside  or  outside  the  program—does  harm 
the program.

Of course the most obvious manner in which the admis-
sion to a program of an ideological opponent can frustrate 
the purpose of the program is by freeing up the opponent’s
funds  for  use  in  its  ideological  opposition.  To  use  the 
Hamas  example  again:  Subsidizing  that  organization’s
provision  of  social  services  enables  the  money  that  it 
would  otherwise  use  for  that  purpose  to  be used,  instead, 
  Perhaps  that  problem
for  anti-American  propaganda.
does  not  exist  in  this  case  since  the  respondents  do  not
affirmatively promote prostitution.  But the Court’s analy-
sis  categorically  rejects  that  justification  for  ideological 
requirements in all cases, demanding “record indica[tion]”
that “federal funding will simply supplant private funding, 
rather  than  pay  for  new  programs.”    Ante,  at  14.   This 
seems to me quite naive.  Money is fungible.  The economic 
reality  is  that  when  NGOs  can  conduct  their  AIDS  work
on  the  Government’s  dime,  they  can  expend  greater  re-
sources on policies that undercut the Leadership Act.  The 
Government  need  not  establish  by  record  evidence  that
this  will  happen.  To  make  it  a  valid  consideration  in 
determining  participation  in  federal  programs,  it  suffices
that this is a real and obvious risk. 

None of the cases the Court cites for its holding provide 
support.  I  have  already  discussed  Rust.  As  for  Regan  v. 
Taxation  With  Representation  of  Wash.,  461  U. S.  540 
(1983), that case upheld rather than invalidated a prohibi-
tion against lobbying as a condition of receiving 26 U. S. C.
§501(c)(3)  tax-exempt  status.    The  Court’s  holding  rested
on  the  conclusion  that  “a  legislature’s  decision  not  to
subsidize  the  exercise  of  a  fundamental  right  does  not