Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a90_6j37.pdf
Page Number: 6.0

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2021) 

5 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

provide care.”  Shah Decl. 44, ¶56.  But as we have already 
seen,  Maine  does  not  dispute  that  unvaccinated  religious
objectors and unvaccinated medical objectors are equally at
risk for contracting COVID–19 or spreading it to their col-
leagues.  Nor is it any answer to say that, if the State re-
quired vaccination for medical objectors, they might suffer
side  effects  resulting  in  fewer  medical  staff  available  to 
treat  patients.  If  the  State  refuses  religious  exemptions,
religious workers will be fired for refusing to violate their 
faith, which will also mean fewer healthcare workers avail-
able to care for patients.  Slice it how you will, medical ex-
emptions and religious exemptions are on comparable foot-
ing when it comes to the State’s asserted interests.

The Court of Appeals found Maine’s rule neutral and gen-
erally applicable due to an error this Court has long warned
against—restating  the  State’s  interests  on  its  behalf,  and 
doing so at an artificially high level of generality.  According
to the court below, Maine’s regulation sought to “protec[t]
the  health  and  safety  of  all  Mainers,  patients,  and
healthcare workers alike.”  Does 1–6 v. Mills, ___ F. 4th ___, 
___, 2021 WL 4860328, *6 (CA1, Oct. 19, 2021).  But when 
judging whether a law treats a religious exercise the same 
as comparable secular activity, this Court has made plain 
that  only  the  government’s  actually  asserted  interests  as 
applied to the parties before it count—not post-hoc reimag-
inings  of  those  interests  expanded  to  some  society-wide
level of generality.  Fulton, 593 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6); 
Tandon, 593 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 2); Lukumi, 508 U. S., 
at  544–545.  “At  some  great  height,  after  all,  almost  any 
state action might be said to touch on ‘. . . public health and
safety’  . . . and measuring a highly particularized and indi-
vidual  interest”  in  the  exercise  of  a  civil  right  “ ‘directly
against . . . these rarified values inevitably makes the indi-
vidual interest appear the less significant.’ ”  Yellowbear v. 
Lampert,  741  F. 3d  48,  57  (CA10  2014)  (quoting  J.  Clark,
Guidelines for the Free Exercise Clause, 83 Harv. L. Rev.