Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
Page Number: 30.0

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TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH OF COLUMBIA, INC. v.
COMER 
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
 

tini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 222–223 (1997). 

Nowhere is this rule more clearly implicated than when
funds  flow  directly  from  the  public  treasury  to  a  house  of 
worship.2  A house of worship exists to foster and further 
religious  exercise.    There,  a  group  of  people,  bound  by 
common religious beliefs, comes together “to shape its own 
faith and mission.”  Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran 
Church  and  School  v.  EEOC,  565  U. S.  171,  188  (2012).
Within its walls, worshippers gather to practice and reaf-
firm their faith.  And from its base, the faithful reach out 
to  those  not  yet  convinced  of  the  group’s  beliefs.  When  a 
government funds a house of worship, it underwrites this
religious exercise. 

Tilton  v.  Richardson,  403  U. S.  672  (1971),  held  as 
much.  The federal program at issue provided construction
grants to colleges and universities but prohibited grantees 
from  using  the  funds  to  construct  facilities  “ ‘used  for
sectarian  instruction  or  as  a  place  for  religious  worship’ ” 
or  “ ‘used  primarily  in  connection  with  any  part  of  the 
program of a school or department of divinity.’ ”  Id., at 675 
(plurality  opinion)  (quoting  20  U. S. C.  §751(a)(2)  (1964
ed.,  Supp.  V)).    It  allowed  the  Federal  Government  to 
recover the grant’s value if a grantee violated this prohibi-
tion  within  twenty  years  of  the  grant.    See  403  U. S.,  at 
675.    The  Court  unanimously  agreed  that  this  time  limit 

—————— 

Felton,  521  U. S.  203,  222–223  (1997)  (internal  quotation  marks  omit-
ted).    Whether  government aid  has  such  an  effect  turns  on  whether  it 
“result[s]  in  governmental  indoctrination,”  “define[s]  its  recipients  by
reference to religion,” or “create[s] an excessive entanglement” between
the  government  and  religion.    Id.,  at  234;  see  also  id.,  at  235  (same 
considerations  speak  to  whether  the  aid  can  “reasonably  be  viewed  as
an endorsement of religion”). 

2 Because  Missouri  decides  which  Scrap  Tire  Program  applicants 
receive  state  funding,  this  case  does  not  implicate  a  line  of  decisions 
about indirect aid programs in which aid reaches religious institutions 
“only  as  a  result  of  the  genuine  and  independent  choices  of  private
individuals.”  Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U. S. 639, 649 (2002).