Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
Page Number: 35

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

9 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

U. S. Const., Amdt. 1.  “[I]f expanded to a logical extreme,”
these  prohibitions  “would  tend  to  clash  with  the  other.” 
Walz,  397  U. S.,  at  668–669.    Even  in  the  absence  of  a 
violation of one of the Religion Clauses, the interaction of 
government and religion can raise concerns that sound in
both Clauses.  For that reason, the government may some-
times  act  to  accommodate  those  concerns,  even  when  not 
required  to  do  so  by  the  Free  Exercise  Clause,  without
violating the Establishment Clause.  And the government
may  sometimes  act  to  accommodate  those  concerns,  even
when  not  required  to  do  so  by  the  Establishment  Clause,
without  violating  the  Free  Exercise  Clause.  “[T]here  is
room  for  play  in  the  joints  productive  of  a  benevolent
neutrality  which  will  permit  religious  exercise  to  exist 
without  sponsorship  and  without  interference.”    Id.,  at 
669.  This  space  between  the  two  Clauses  gives  govern-
ment some room to recognize the unique status of religious 
entities and to single them out on that basis for exclusion 
from otherwise generally applicable laws.

Invoking  this  principle,  this  Court  has  held  that  the
government may sometimes relieve religious entities from
the  requirements  of  government  programs.  A  State  need 
not,  for  example,  require  nonprofit  houses  of  worship  to 
pay property taxes.  It may instead “spar[e] the exercise of 
religion  from  the  burden  of  property  taxation  levied  on 
private profit institutions” and spare the government “the 
direct confrontations and conflicts that follow in the train 
of those legal processes” associated with taxation.  See id., 
at 673–674.  Nor must a State require nonprofit religious
entities  to  abstain  from  making  employment  decisions  on 
the  basis  of  religion.  It  may  instead  avoid  imposing  on
these  institutions  a  “[f]ear  of  potential  liability  [that] 
might affect the way” it “carried out what it understood to 
be its religious mission” and on the government the sensi-
tive task of policing compliance.  Corporation of Presiding 
Bishop  of  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter-day  Saints  v.