Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
Page Number: 3

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

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Syllabus 

not  meaningfully  burden  the  Church’s  free  exercise  rights.    Absent 
any such burden, the argument continues, the Department is free to
follow  the  State’s  antiestablishment  objection  to  providing  funds  di-
rectly  to  a  church.    But,  as  even  the  Department  acknowledges,  the 
Free  Exercise Clause  protects  against  “indirect  coercion or  penalties 
on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions.”  Lyng, 
485  U. S., at  450.  Trinity  Lutheran is not claiming any entitlement 
to  a  subsidy.   It  is  asserting  a  right  to  participate  in  a  government 
benefit  program  without  having  to  disavow  its  religious  character.
The express discrimination against religious exercise here is not the
denial of a grant, but rather the refusal to allow the Church—solely 
because  it  is  a  church—to  compete  with  secular  organizations  for  a 
grant.  Pp. 9–11.

(c) The Department tries to sidestep this Court’s precedents by ar-
guing that this case is instead controlled by Locke v. Davey.  It is not. 
In  Locke,  the  State  of  Washington  created  a  scholarship  program  to
assist high-achieving students with the costs of postsecondary educa-
tion.  Scholarship recipients were free to use state funds at accredited 
religious  and  non-religious  schools  alike,  but  they  could  not  use  the 
funds  to  pursue  a  devotional  theology  degree.  At  the  outset,  the 
Court  made  clear  that  Locke  was  not  like  the  cases  in  which  the 
Court  struck  down  laws  requiring  individuals  to  “choose  between
their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit.”  540 U. S., 
at  720–721.  Davey  was  not  denied  a  scholarship  because  of  who  he 
was; he was denied a scholarship because of what he proposed to do. 
Here  there  is no  question  that  Trinity  Lutheran was  denied  a  grant 
simply because of what it is—a church.

The Court in Locke also stated that Washington’s restriction on the 
use of its funds was in keeping with the State’s antiestablishment in-
terest in not using taxpayer funds to pay for the training of clergy, an 
“essentially religious endeavor,” id., at 721.  Here, nothing of the sort 
can  be  said  about  a  program  to  use  recycled  tires  to  resurface  play-
grounds.  At any rate, the Court took account of Washington’s anties-
tablishment interest only after determining that the scholarship pro-
gram  did  not  “require  students  to  choose  between  their  religious 
beliefs and receiving a government benefit.”  Id., at 720–721.  There 
is no dispute that Trinity Lutheran is put to the choice between being 
a church and receiving a government benefit.  Pp. 11–14.

(d) The  Department’s  discriminatory  policy  does  not  survive  the 
“most  rigorous”  scrutiny  that  this  Court  applies  to  laws  imposing
special disabilities on account of religious status.  Lukumi, 508 U. S., 
at 546.  That standard demands a state interest “of the highest order”
to  justify  the  policy  at  issue.  McDaniel,  435  U. S.,  at  628  (internal 
quotation  marks  omitted).    Yet  the  Department  offers  nothing  more