Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1088_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 25

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

public schools . . . which ‘aid or oppose’ any religion.”  Ep-
person v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 106 (1968).  “This prohibi-
tion,”  we  have  cautioned,  “is  absolute.”  Ibid.   See,  e.g., 
McCollum, 333 U. S. 203 (no weekly religious teachings in 
public  schools);  Engel  v.  Vitale,  370  U. S.  421  (1962)  (no 
prayers in public schools); School Dist. of Abington Town-
ship v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203 (1963) (no Bible readings in 
public schools); Epperson, 393 U. S. 97 (no religiously tai-
lored curriculum in public schools); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 
U. S. 38 (1985) (no period of silence for meditation or prayer 
in public schools); Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992) (no
prayers during public school graduations); Santa Fe Inde-
pendent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U. S. 290 (2000) (no pray-
ers during public school football games).

Although  the  Religion  Clauses  are,  in  practice,  often  in 
tension, they nonetheless “express complementary values.”  
Cutter, 544 U. S., at 719.  Together they attempt to chart a 
“course of constitutional neutrality” with respect to govern-
ment and religion.  Walz, 397 U. S., at 669.  They were writ-
ten to help create an American Nation free of the religious
conflict that had long plagued European nations with “gov-
ernmentally  established  religion[s].”    Engel,  370  U. S.,  at 
431.  Through the Clauses, the Framers sought to avoid the
“anguish, hardship and bitter strife” that resulted from the
“union of Church and State” in those countries.  Id., at 429; 
see  also  Committee  for  Public  Ed.  &  Religious  Liberty  v. 
Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 795–796 (1973). 

The Religion Clauses thus created a compromise in the 
form of religious freedom.  They aspired to create a “benev-
olent neutrality”—one which would “permit religious exer-
cise to exist without sponsorship and without interference.” 
Walz, 397 U. S., at 669.  “[T]he basic purpose of these pro-
visions” was “to insure that no religion be sponsored or fa-
vored, none commanded, and none inhibited.”  Ibid.  This 
religious freedom in effect meant that people “were entitled