Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1088_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 35

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

13 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

public  policy  position,  we  must  believe  that  a  religiously
neutral classroom is the best if funded by public dollars”); 
id., at 106 (Maine senator asserting that the State’s “lim-
ited [tax] dollars for schools” should be spent on those “that 
are non-religious and that are neutral on religion”).  Under-
lying  these  views  is  the  belief  that  the  Establishment 
Clause  seeks  government  neutrality.    And  the  legislators
thought that government payment for this kind of religious 
education  would  be  antithetical  to  the  religiously  neutral
education that the Establishment Clause requires in public 
schools.  Cf.  Epperson,  393  U. S.,  at  106;  McCollum,  333 
U. S., at 211.  Maine’s nonsectarian requirement, they be-
lieved, furthered the State’s antiestablishment interests in 
not promoting religion in its public school system; the re-
quirement  prevented  public  funds—funds  allocated  to  en-
sure that all children receive their constitutional right to a 
free  public  education—from  being  given  to  schools  that 
would use the funds to promote religion.

In the majority’s view, the fact that private individuals,
not Maine itself, choose to spend the State’s money on reli-
gious education saves Maine’s program from Establishment 
Clause condemnation.  But that fact, as I have said, simply 
permits Maine to route funds to religious schools.  See, e.g., 
Zelman,  536  U. S.,  at  652.    It  does  not  require  Maine  to 
spend its money in that way.  That is because, as explained 
above,  this  Court  has  long  followed  a  legal  doctrine  that
gives States flexibility to navigate the tension between the
two  Religion  Clauses.  Supra,  at  4.  This  doctrine  “recog-
nize[s]  that  there  is  ‘play  in  the  joints’  between  what  the
Establishment  Clause  permits  and  the  Free  Exercise 
Clause compels.”  Trinity Lutheran, 582 U. S., at ___ (slip 
op.,  at  6)  (quoting  Locke,  540  U. S.,  at  718).    This  wiggle-
room means that “[t]he course of constitutional neutrality
in this area cannot be an absolutely straight line.”  Walz, 
397 U. S., at 669.  And in walking this line of government