Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 52.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

5 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (quoting McDaniel, 435 U. S., at 
627) (emphasis deleted).  But no one can question that con-
duct lurked just beneath the surface.  After all, the State 
identified clergy based on their “conduct and activity,” and 
the plurality opinion concluded that the State’s prohibition
was based on “status, acts, and conduct.”  435 U. S., at 627; 
see  also  id.,  at  630–633  (Brennan,  J.,  concurring  in  judg-
ment); Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 
U. S. 520 (1993).

Consistently,  too,  we  have  recognized  the  First  Amend-
ment’s  protection  for  religious  conduct  in  public  benefits 
cases.  When the government chooses to offer scholarships,
unemployment benefits, or other affirmative assistance to 
its  citizens,  those  benefits  necessarily  affect  the  “baseline 
against which burdens on religion are measured.”  Locke v. 
Davey, 540 U. S. 712, 726 (2004) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (cit-
ing Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 16 (1947)). 
So, as we have long explained, the government “penalize[s]
religious  activity”  whenever  it  denies  to  religious  persons 
an  “equal  share  of  the  rights,  benefits,  and  privileges  en-
joyed by other citizens.”  Lyng v. Northwest Indian Ceme-
tery Protective Assn., 485 U. S. 439, 449 (1988).  What ben-
efits  the  government  decides  to  give,  whether  meager  or
munificent, it must give without discrimination against re-
ligious conduct.   

Our cases illustrate the point.  In Sherbert v. Verner, 374 
U. S.  398  (1963),  for  example,  a  State  denied  unemploy-
ment benefits to Adell Sherbert not because she was a Sev-
enth Day Adventist but because she had put her faith into
practice  by  refusing  to  labor  on  the  day  she  believed  God
had set aside for rest.  See id., at 399–401.  Recognizing her
right to exercise her religion freely, the Court held that Ms. 
Sherbert was entitled to benefits.  See id., at 410.  Similarly, 
in Thomas v. Review Bd. of Ind. Employment Security Div., 
450 U. S. 707 (1981), the Court held that Eddie Thomas had