Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf
Page Number: 39

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

17 

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

To  clear  the  way  for  this  new  regime,  the  majority  was
willing to take liberties.  Paying little attention to the terms
of the Free Exercise Clause, it was satisfied that its inter-
pretation  represented  a  “permissible”  reading  of  the  text, 
Smith, 494 U. S., at 878, and it did not even stop to explain 
why that was so.  The majority made no effort to ascertain
the original understanding of the free-exercise right, and it 
limited  past  precedents  on  grounds  never  previously  sug-
gested.  Sherbert, Thomas, and Hobbie were placed in a spe-
cial  category  because  they  concerned  the  award  of  unem-
ployment  compensation,  Smith,  494  U. S.,  at  883,  and 
Yoder was distinguished on the ground that it involved both
a  free-exercise  claim  and  a  parental-rights  claim,  Smith, 
494 U. S., at 881.  Not only did these distinctions lack sup-
port in prior case law, the issue in Smith itself could easily
be  viewed  as  falling  into  both  of  these  special  categories. 
After all, it involved claims for unemployment benefits, and 
members of the Native American Church who ingest peyote 
as part of a religious ceremony are surely engaging in ex-
pressive  conduct  that  falls  within  the  scope  of  the  Free 
Speech Clause.  See, e.g., Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397, 

—————— 
that its analysis would have been any different if the dissent’s interpre-
tation were correct. 

In Cantwell, the Court addressed the constitutionality of a state stat-
ute that generally prohibited the solicitation of funds for religious pur-
poses  unless  a  public  official  found  in  advance  that  the  cause  was  au-
thentically religious.  See 310 U. S., at 300–302.  The Court held that the 
Free Exercise Clause prohibited the State from conditioning permission
to  solicit  funds  on  an  administrative  finding  about  a  religious  group’s
authenticity, but the Court did not suggest that a blanket ban on solici-
tation would have necessarily been sustained.  On the contrary, it said 
that the State was “free to regulate the time and manner of solicitation 
generally, in the interest of public safety, peace, comfort or convenience.” 
Id., at 307–308 (emphasis added).  And the Court said not one word about 
“strict scrutiny,” a concept that was foreign to Supreme Court case law 
at that time.  See Fallon, Strict Judicial Scrutiny, 54 UCLA L. Rev. 1267,
1284 (2007) (“Before 1960, what we would now call strict judicial scrutiny
. . . did not exist”).