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SHURTLEFF v. BOSTON 

 GORSUCH, J., concurring
GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

been exposed as an anomaly and a mistake.

From  the  birth  of  modern  Establishment  Clause  litiga-
tion in Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, this Court looked 
primarily to historical practices and analogues to guide its
analysis.  330 U. S. 1, 9–15 (1947).  So, for example, while
the dissent in Everson disagreed with some of the majority’s 
conclusions about what qualifies as an establishment of re-
ligion, it readily agreed that “[n]o provision of the Constitu-
tion is more closely tied to or given content by its generating
history than the religious clause of the First Amendment.” 
Id., at 33–49 (Rutledge, J., dissenting).  This approach fit,
too, with this Court’s usual course in other areas.  Often, we 
have looked to early and long-continued historical practices 
as evidence of the Constitution’s meaning at the time of its
adoption.5  And, in the years following Everson, the Court 
followed  this  same  path  when  interpreting  the  Establish-
ment  Clause.  Agree  or  disagree  with  the  conclusions  in
these  cases,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  Court  ap-
proached them in large part using history as its guide.6 
—————— 

5 See, e.g., McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 767–770 (2010); Giles 
v. California, 554 U. S. 353, 358 (2008); see also The Pocket Veto Case, 
279 U. S. 655, 689 (1929). 

6 See, e.g., Walz v. Tax Comm’n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 680 
(1970)  (upholding  tax  exemptions  for churches  because  they  were  sup-
ported by “more than a century of our history and uninterrupted prac-
tice”); School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 294 
(1963) (Brennan, J., concurring) (“[T]he line we must draw between the 
permissible and the impermissible is one which accords with history and 
faithfully  reflects  the  understanding  of  the  Founding  Fathers”); 
McGowan  v.  Maryland,  366  U. S.  420,  437–440  (1961)  (assessing  “the 
place of Sunday Closing Laws in the First Amendment’s history”); Tor-
caso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 490 (1961) (concluding that religious-test
oaths were one of the elements of “the formal or practical” religious es-
tablishments that “many of the early colonists left Europe and came here
hoping to” avoid).  JUSTICE THOMAS has raised important questions about 
this  Court’s  incorporation  of  the  Establishment  Clause  against  the 
States in these cases.  But “[e]ven assuming” incorporation, the Clause
“would only protect against an ‘establishment’ of religion as understood 
at the founding.”  Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, 591 U. S. ___,