Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 55.0

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

33 

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

2 
What was this right understood to protect?  In seeking to
discern that meaning, it is easy to get lost in the voluminous 
discussion of religious liberty that occurred during the long
period from the first British settlements to the adoption of
the Bill of Rights.  Many different political figures, religious
leaders, and others spoke and wrote about religious liberty 
and the relationship between the authority of civil govern-
ments and religious bodies.  The works of a variety of think-
ers were influential, and views on religious liberty were in-
formed  by  religion,  philosophy,  historical  experience,
particular controversies and issues, and in no small meas-
ure by the practical task of uniting the Nation.  The picture
is complex.

For present purposes, we can narrow our focus and con-
centrate on the circumstances that relate most directly to
the adoption of the Free Exercise Clause.  As has often been 
recounted, critical state ratifying conventions approved the 
Constitution  on  the  understanding  that  it  would  be
amended  to  provide  express  protection  for  certain  funda-
mental rights,39 and the right to religious liberty was un-
questionably one of those rights.  As noted, it was expressly
protected  in  12  of  the  13  State  Constitutions,  and  these
state constitutional provisions provide the best evidence of 
the scope of the right embodied in the First Amendment. 

When  we  look  at  these  provisions,  we  see  one  predomi-
nant model.  This model extends broad protection for reli-
gious liberty but expressly provides that the right does not 
protect conduct that would endanger “the public peace” or
“safety.” 

—————— 
of religious Worship”). 

39 See McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 769 (2010); see also Creat-
ing the Bill of Rights 281, 282 (H. Veit., K. Bowling, & C. Bickford eds. 
1991); 1 A. Kelly, W. Harbison, & H. Belz, The American Constitution: 
Its Origins and Development 110, 118 (7th ed. 1991).