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Page Number: 42

2 

CARSON v. MAKIN 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

religious  institutions.   Moreover,  the  Court  for  many  dec-
ades understood the Establishment Clause to prohibit gov-
ernment from funding religious exercise.* 

Over  time,  the  Court  eroded  these  principles  in  certain 
respects.  See,  e.g.,  Zelman  v.  Simmons-Harris,  536  U. S. 
639, 662 (2002) (allowing government funds to flow to reli-
gious schools if private individuals selected the benefiting 
schools;  the  government  program  was  “entirely  neutral
with  respect  to  religion”;  and  families  enjoyed  a  “genuine 
choice among options public and private, secular and reli-
gious”).  Nevertheless, the space between the Clauses con-
tinued to afford governments “some room to recognize the 
unique status of religious entities and to single them out on
that basis for exclusion from otherwise generally applicable 
laws.”  Trinity Lutheran, 582 U. S., at ___ (SOTOMAYOR, J., 
dissenting) (slip op., at 9). 

Trinity Lutheran veered sharply away from that under-
standing.  After assuming away an Establishment Clause 
violation,  the  Court  revolutionized  Free  Exercise  doctrine 
by equating a State’s decision not to fund a religious organ-
ization with presumptively unconstitutional discrimination
on the basis of religious status.  See id., at ___–___ (slip op., 
at 10–11).  A plurality, however, limited the Court’s deci-
sion to “express discrimination based on religious identity” 
(i.e., status), not “religious uses of funding.”  Id., at ___, n. 3 
(slip op., at 14, n. 3).   In other words, a  State was barred 

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* See, e.g., Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 16 (1947) (“No
tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious
activities or institutions . . . ”); Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 222–223 
(1997)  (observing  that  government  aid  that  impermissibly  “advanc[ed] 
. . .  religion”  was  constitutionally  barred); Mitchell  v. Helms,  530  U. S. 
793, 840 (2000) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (“[O]ur decisions 
provide no precedent for the use of public funds to finance religious ac-
tivities” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Rosenberger v. Rec-
tor and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 875–876 (1995) (Souter,
J., dissenting) (chronicling cases).