Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 90

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

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

whether the interests embodied in the Religion Clauses jus-
tify  that  line.”    Trinity  Lutheran,  582  U. S.,  at  ___ 
(SOTOMAYOR, J.,  dissenting)  (slip  op.,  at  8).  The  relevant 
question had always been not whether a State singles out 
religious entities, but why it did so. 

Here, a State may refuse to extend certain aid programs
to religious entities when doing so avoids “historic and sub-
stantial” antiestablishment concerns.  Locke, 540 U. S., at 
725.  Properly  understood,  this  case  is  no  different  from 
Locke because petitioners seek to procure what the plain-
tiffs in Locke could not: taxpayer funds to support religious 
schooling.4  Indeed, one of the concurrences lauds petition-
ers’  spiritual  pursuit,  acknowledging  that  they  seek  state 
funds for manifestly religious purposes like “teach[ing] re-
ligion” so that petitioners may “outwardly and publicly” live 
out their religious tenets.  Ante, at 3 (opinion of GORSUCH, 
J.).  But those deeply religious goals confirm why Montana
may properly decline to subsidize religious education.  In-
volvement in such spiritual matters implicates both the Es-
tablishment Clause, see Cutter, 544 U. S., at 714, and the 
free exercise rights of taxpayers, “denying them the chance 
to decide for themselves whether and how to fund religion,” 
Trinity Lutheran, 582 U. S., at ___ (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissent-
ing) (slip op., at 17).  Previously, this Court recognized that
a “prophylactic rule against the use of public funds” for “re-
ligious  activities”  appropriately  balanced  the  Religion
Clauses’ differing but equally weighty interests.  Ibid. 

The Court maintains that this case differs from Locke be-
cause  no  pertinent  “ ‘historic  and  substantial’ ”  tradition 
supports Montana’s decision.  Ante, at 14.  But the Court’s 

—————— 

4 Locke confirms that a facial challenge to no-aid provisions must fail. 
But cf. ante, at 13–14 (majority opinion).  In Locke, this Court upheld the 
application of a materially similar no-aid provision in Washington State, 
concluding that the Free Exercise Clause permitted Washington to forbid
state-scholarship  funds  for  students  pursuing  devotional  theology  de-
grees.  540 U. S., at 721.