Case Name: TEXAS MONTHLY, INC. v. BULLOCK, COMPTROLLER OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS OF STATE OF TEXAS, et al.
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1989-02-21
Citations: 489 U.S. 1
Docket Number: No. 87-1245
Parties: TEXAS MONTHLY, INC. v. BULLOCK, COMPTROLLER OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS OF STATE OF TEXAS, et al.
Judges: Brennan, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Marshall and Stevens, JJ., joined. White, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 25. Blackmun, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which O’Connor, J., joined, post, p. 26. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy, J., joined, post, p. 29.
Reporter: United States Reports
Volume: 489
Pages: 1–45

Head Matter:
TEXAS MONTHLY, INC. v. BULLOCK, COMPTROLLER OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS OF STATE OF TEXAS, et al.
No. 87-1245.
Argued November 1, 1988
Decided February 21, 1989
Brennan, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Marshall and Stevens, JJ., joined. White, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, post, p. 25. Blackmun, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which O’Connor, J., joined, post, p. 26. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy, J., joined, post, p. 29.
Roger James George, Jr., argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were John M. Harmon and Pamela Stanton Baron.
Hairiet D. Burke, Assistant Attorney General of Texas, argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Jim Mattox, Attorney General, Mary F. Keller, First Assistant Attorney General, and Lou McCreary, Executive Assistant Attorney General.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Booksellers Association, Inc., by Maxwell J. Lillienstein; for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by James C. Harrington, Steven R. Shapiro, and John A. Powell; and for the Magazine Publishers of America, Inc., by Eli D. Minton and James R. Cregan.

Opinion:
Justice Brennan
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice Marshall and Justice Stevens join.
Texas exempts from its sales tax "[pjeriodicals that are published or distributed by a religious faith and that consist wholly of writings promulgating the teaching of the faith and books that consist wholly of writings sacred to a religious faith." Tex. Tax Code Ann. §151.312 (1982). The question presented is whether this exemption violates the Establishment Clause or the Free Press Clause of the First Amendment when the State denies a like exemption for other publications. We hold that, when confined exclusively to publications advancing the tenets of a religious faith, the exemption runs afoul of the Establishment Clause; accordingly, we need not reach the question whether it contravenes the Free Press Clause as well.
I
Prior to October 2, 1984, Texas exempted from its sales and use tax magazine subscriptions running half a year or longer and entered as second class mail. Tex. Tax Code Ann. §151.320 (1982). This exemption was repealed as of October 2, 1984, before being reinstated effective October 1, 1987. Tex. Tax Code Ann. §151.320 (Supp. 1988-1989). Throughout this 3-year period, Texas continued to exempt from its sales and use tax periodicals published or distributed by a religious faith consisting entirely of writings promulgating the teaching of the faith, along with books consisting solely of writings sacred to a religious faith. Tex. Tax Code Ann. § 151.312 (1982).
Appellant Texas Monthly, Inc., publishes a general interest magazine of the same name. Appellant is not a religious faith, and its magazine does not contain only articles promulgating the teaching of a religious faith. Thus, it was required during this 3-year period to collect and remit to the State the applicable sales tax on the price of qualifying subscription sales. Tex. Tax Code Ann. § 151.051, 151.052, 151.401 (1982 and Supp. 1988-1989). In 1985, appellant paid sales taxes of $149,107.74 under protest and sued to recover those payments in state court.
The District Court of Travis County, Texas, ruled that an exclusive exemption for religious periodicals had "no basis . . . other than the promotion of religion itself, a prohibited reason" under the Establishment Clause. App. to Juris. Statement 47. The court also found the exemption unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of the content of publications, presumably in violation of the Free Press Clause. Id., at 42. Declaring itself "without power to rewrite the statute to make religious periodicals subject to tax," id., at 47, the court struck down the tax as applied to nonreligious periodicals and ordered the State to refund the amount of tax Texas Monthly had paid, plus interest. Id., at 43.
The Court of Appeals, Third Supreme Judicial District of Texas, reversed by a 2-to-l vote. 731 S. W. 2d 160 (1987). Applying the tripartite test enunciated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971), the court held, first, that the exemption served the secular purpose of preserving separation between church and state. Second, the court asserted that the exemption did not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, because "the effect of religious tax exemptions such as § 151.312 is to permit religious organizations to be independent of government support or sanction." 731 S. W. 2d, at 163. The court considered it irrele vant that the exemption did not extend to other nonprofit or secular publications, because "the neutrality toward religion effected by the grant of an exemption for religious periodicals" remained unaffected by the provision or denial of a similar exemption for nonreligious publications. Id., at 164. Finally, the court concluded that the exemption did not produce impermissible government entanglement with religion. Rather than scrutinize each publication for which a publisher sought an exemption for conformity with the statute's terms, the court found, the Comptroller's Office merely required that a group applying for an exemption demonstrate that it was a religious organization. Once a satisfactory showing had been made, the Comptroller's Office did not later reassess the group's status as a religious organization. It further allowed the group to determine, without review by the State, which of its publications promulgated the teaching of its faith. Because the exemption was administered to minimize state entanglement with religion, the court thought it consistent with Lemon's third prong.
In addition, the court rejected Texas Monthly's claim that the exemption violated the Free Press Clause because it discriminated among publications on the basis of their content. The court read our decision in Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221 (1987), to preclude only those taxes that are imposed solely on the press or targeted at a small group within the press. Because Texas' exemption encompassed only a minority of publications, leaving the bulk of subscription sales subject to tax, the court reasoned that it escaped the strictures of the Free Press Clause as we had interpreted it.
now reverse. We noted probable jurisdiction, 485 U. S. 958 (1988), and now reverse.
As a preliminary matter, Texas argues that appellant lacks standing to challenge the constitutionality of the exemption. It claims that if this Court were to declare the exemption invalid, the proper course under state law would be to remove the exemption for religious publications, rather than extend it to nonreligious periodicals or strike down the sales and use tax in its entirety. If Texas is right, appellant cannot obtain a refund of the tax it paid under protest. Nor can it qualify for injunctive relief, because.its subscription sales are no longer taxed. Hence, Texas contends, appellant cannot show that it has suffered or is threatened with redressable injury, which this Court declared to be a prerequisite for standing in Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 472 (1982).
The State's contention is misguided. In Arkansas Writers' Project, supra, at 227, we rejected a similar argument, "for it would effectively insulate underinclusive statutes from constitutional challenge, a proposition we soundly rejected in Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268, 272 (1979)." It is not for us to decide whether the correct response as a matter of state law to a finding that a state tax exemption is unconstitutional is to eliminate the exemption, to curtail it, to broaden it, or to invalidate the tax altogether. Nor does it make any difference — contrary to the State's suggestion — that Texas Monthly seeks only a refund and not prospective relief, as did the appellant in Arkansas Writers' Project. A live controversy persists over Texas Monthly's right to recover the $149,107.74 it paid, plus interest. Texas cannot strip appellant of standing by changing the law after taking its money.
Ill
In proscribing all laws "respecting an establishment of religion," the Constitution prohibits, at the very least, legislation that constitutes an endorsement of one or another set of religious beliefs or of religion generally. It is part of our settled jurisprudence that "the Establishment Clause prohibits government from abandoning secular purposes in order to put an imprimatur on one religion, or on religion as such, or to favor the adherents of any sect or religious organization." Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437, 450 (1971). See, e. g., School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373, 381 (1985); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 52-53, and n. 37 (1985); Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S. 333, 356-357 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring in result); Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 103-104 (1968); Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 216-217 (1963); Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 495 (1961); Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1947). The core notion animating the requirement that a statute possess "a secular legislative purpose" and that "its principal or primary effect... be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion," Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 612, is not only that government may not be overtly hostile to religion but also that it may not place its prestige, coercive authority, or resources behind a single religious faith or behind religious belief in general, compelling nonadherents to support the practices or proselytizing of favored religious organizations and conveying the message that those who do not contribute gladly are less than full members of the community.
It does not follow, of course, that government policies with secular objectives may not incidentally benefit religion. The nonsectarian aims of government and the interests of religious groups often overlap, and this Court has never required that public authorities refrain from implementing reasonable measures to advance legitimate secular goals merely because they would thereby relieve religious groups of costs they would otherwise incur. See Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 393 (1983). Nor have we required that legislative categories make no explicit reference to religion. See Wallace v. Jaffree, supra, at 70 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) ("The endorsement test does not preclude government from acknowledging religion or from taking religion into account in making law and policy"); Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 715 (1984) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Government need not resign itself to ineffectual diffidence because of exaggerated fears of contagion of or by religion, so long as neither intrudes unduly into the affairs of the other.
Thus, in Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263 (1981), we held that a state university that makes its facilities available to registered student groups may not deny equal access to a registered student group desiring to use those facilities for religious worship or discussion. Although religious groups benefit from access to university facilities, a state university may not discriminate against them based on the content of their speech, and the university need not ban all student group meetings on campus in order to avoid providing any assistance to religion. Similarly, in Mueller v. Allen, supra, we upheld a state income tax deduction for the cost of tuition, transportation, and nonreligious textbooks paid by a taxpayer for the benefit of a dependent. To be sure, the deduction aided parochial schools and parents whose children attended them, as well as nonsectarian private schools and their pupils' parents. We did not conclude, however, that this subsidy deprived the law of an overriding secular purpose or effect. And in the case most nearly on point, Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664 (1970), we sustained a property tax exemption that applied to religious properties no less than to real estate owned by a wide array of nonprofit organizations, despite the sizable tax savings it accorded religious groups.
In all of these cases, however, we emphasized that the benefits derived by religious organizations flowed to a large number of nonreligious groups as well. Indeed, were those benefits confined to religious organizations, they could not have appeared other than as state sponsorship of religion; if that were so, we would not have hesitated to strike them down for lacking a secular purpose and effect. See, e. g., School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, supra (invalidating state-funded educational programs in private schools, where 40 of the 41 beneficiaries were religious schools); Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U. S. 703 (1985) (finding vio-lative of the Establishment Clause a statute providing Sabbath observers with an unconditional right not to work on their chosen Sabbath).
In Widmar v. Vincent, we noted that an open forum in a public university would not betray state approval of religion so long as the forum was available "to a broad class of nonreligious as well as religious speakers." 454 U. S., at 274. "The provision of benefits to so broad a spectrum of groups," we said, "is an important index of secular effect." Ibid. We concluded that the primary effect of an open forum would not be to advance religion, "[a]t least in the absence of empirical evidence that religious groups will dominate" it. Id., at 275. Likewise, in Mueller v. Allen, we deemed it "particularly significant," 463 U. S., at 396, that "the deduction is available for educational expenses incurred by all parents, including those whose children attend public schools and those whose children attend nonsectarian private schools or sectarian private schools." Id., at 397.
Finally, we emphasized in Walz that in granting a property tax deduction, the State "has not singled out one particular church or religious group or even churches as such; rather, it has granted exemption to all houses of religious worship within a broad class of property owned by nonprofit, quasi-public corporations which include hospitals, libraries, playgrounds, scientific, professional, historical, and patriotic groups." 397 U. S., at 673. The breadth of New York's property tax exemption was essential to our holding that it was "not aimed at establishing, sponsoring, or supporting religion," id., at 674, but rather possessed the legitimate secular purpose and effect of contributing to the community's moral and intellectual diversity and encouraging private groups to undertake projects that advanced the community's well-being and that would otherwise have to be funded by tax revenues or left undone. Moreover, "[t]he scheme [was] not designed to inject any religious activity into a nonreligious context, as was the case with school prayers. No particular activity of a religious organization — for example, the propagation of its beliefs — [was] specially promoted by the exemptions." Id., at 689 (Brennan, J., concurring). As Justice Harlan observed:
"To the extent that religious institutions sponsor the secular activities that this legislation is designed to promote, it is consistent with neutrality to grant them an exemption just as other organizations devoting resources to these projects receive exemptions. . As long as the breadth of exemption includes groups that pursue cultural, moral, or spiritual improvement in multifarious secular ways, including, I would suppose, groups whose avowed tenets may be antitheological, atheistic, or agnostic, I can see no lack of neutrality in extending the benefit of the exemption to organized religious groups." Id., at 697 (separate opinion) (footnote omitted).
Texas' sales tax exemption for periodicals published or distributed by a religious faith and consisting wholly of writings promulgating the teaching of the faith lacks sufficient breadth to pass scrutiny under the Establishment Clause. Every tax exemption constitutes a subsidy that affects non-qualifying taxpayers, forcing them to become "indirect and vicarious 'donors.'" Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U. S. 574, 591 (1983). See also Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Wash., 461 U. S. 540, 544 (1983). Insofar as that subsidy is conferred upon a wide array of nonsectarian groups as well as religious organizations in pursuit of some legitimate secular end, the fact that religious groups benefit incidentally does not deprive the subsidy of the secular purpose and primary effect mandated by the Establishment Clause. However, when government directs a subsidy exclusively to religious organizations that is not required by the Free Exercise Clause and that either burdens nonbenefi-ciaries markedly or cannot reasonably be seen as removing a significant state-imposed deterrent to the free exercise of religion, as Texas has done, see infra, at 17-20, it "provide[s] unjustifiable awards of assistance to religious organizations" and cannot but "conve[y] a message of endorsement" to slighted members of the community. Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327, 348 (1987) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment). This is particularly true where, as here, the subsidy is targeted at writings that promulgate the teachings of religious faiths. It is difficult to view Texas' narrow exemption as anything but state sponsorship of religious belief, regardless of whether one adopts the perspective of beneficiaries or of uncompensated contributors.
How expansive the class of exempt organizations or activities must be to withstand constitutional assault depends upon the State's secular aim in granting a tax exemption. If the State chose to subsidize, by means of a tax exemption, all groups that contributed to the community's cultural, intellectual, and moral betterment, then the exemption for religious publications could be retained, provided that the exemption swept as widely as the property tax exemption we upheld in Walz. By contrast, if Texas sought to promote reflection and discussion about questions of ultimate value and the contours of a good or meaningful life, then a tax exemption would have to be available to an extended range of associations whose publications were substantially devoted to such matters; the exemption could not be reserved for publications dealing solely with religious issues, let alone restricted to publications advocating rather than criticizing religious belief or activity, without signaling an endorsement of religion that is offensive to the principles informing the Establishment Clause. See Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U. S., at 711 (O'Connor, J., concurring) (because the statute bestows an advantage on Sabbath observers "without according similar accommodation to ethical and religious beliefs and practices of other private employees," "[t]he message conveyed is one of endorsement of a particular religious belief, to the detriment of those who do not share it"; the statute therefore "has the effect of advancing religion, and cannot withstand Establishment Clause scrutiny"); Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S., at 356-361 (Harlan, J., concurring in result) (conscientious objector status cannot be limited to those whose opposition to war has religious roots, but must extend to those whose convictions have purely moral or philosophical sources).
It is not our responsibility to specify which permissible secular objectives, if any, the State should pursue to justify a tax exemption for religious periodicals. That charge rests with the Texas Legislature. Our task, and that of the Texas courts, is rather to ensure that any scheme of exemptions adopted by the legislature does not have the purpose or effect of sponsoring certain religious tenets or religious belief in general. As Justice Harlan remarked: "The Court must survey meticulously the circumstances of governmental categories to eliminate, as it were, religious gerrymanders. In any particular case the critical question is whether the circumference of legislation encircles a class so broad that it can be fairly concluded that religious institutions could be thought to fall within the natural perimeter." Walz, 397 U. S., at 696 (separate opinion). Because Texas' sales tax exemption for periodicals promulgating the teaching of any religious sect lacks a secular objective that would justify this preference along with similar benefits for nonreligious publications or groups, and because it effectively endorses religious belief, the exemption manifestly fails this test.
IV
A
In defense of its sales tax exemption for religious publications, Texas claims that it has a compelling interest in avoiding violations of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, and that the exemption serves that end. Without such an exemption, Texas contends, its sales tax might trammel free exercise rights, as did the flat license tax this Court struck down as applied to proselytizing by Jehovah's Witnesses in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 (1943). In addition, Texas argues that an exemption for religious publications neither advances nor inhibits religion, as required by the Establishment Clause, and that its elimination would entangle church and state to a greater degree than the exemption itself.
We reject both parts of this argument. Although Texas may widen its exemption consonant with some legitimate secular purpose, nothing in our decisions under the Free Exercise Clause prevents the State from eliminating altogether its exemption for religious publications. "It is virtually self-evident that the Free Exercise Clause does not require an exemption from a governmental program unless, at a minimum, inclusion in the program actually burdens the claimant's freedom to exercise religious rights. " Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor, 471 U. S. 290, 303 (1985) (citations omitted). In this case, the State has adduced no evidence that the payment of a sales tax by subscribers to religious periodicals or purchasers of religious books would offend their religious beliefs or inhibit religious activity. The State therefore cannot claim persuasively that its tax exemption is compelled by the Free Exercise Clause in even a single instance, let alone in every case. No concrete need to accommodate religious activity has been shown.
Moreover, even if members of some religious group succeeded in demonstrating that payment of a sales tax — or, less plausibly, of a sales tax when applied to printed matter— would violate their religious tenets, it is by no means obvious that the State would be required by the Free Exercise Clause to make individualized exceptions for them. In United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252 (1982), we ruled unanimously that the Federal Government need not exempt an Amish employer from the payment of Social Security taxes, notwithstanding our recognition that compliance would offend his religious beliefs. We noted that "[n]ot all burdens on religion are unconstitutional," id., at 257, and held that "[t]he state may justify a limitation on religious liberty by showing that it is essential to accomplish an overriding governmental interest." Id., at 257-258. Although the balancing test we set forth in Lee must be performed on a case-by-case basis, a State's interest in the uniform collection of a sales tax appears comparable to the Federal Government's interest in the uniform collection of Social Security taxes, and mandatory exemptions under the Free Exercise Clause are arguably as difficult to prove. No one has suggested that members of any of the major religious denominations in the United States — the principal beneficiaries of Texas' tax exemption — could demonstrate an infringement of their free exercise rights sufficiently serious to overcome the State's countervailing interest in collecting its sales tax.
B
Texas' further claim that the Establishment Clause mandates, or at least favors, its sales tax exemption for religious periodicals is equally unconvincing. Not only does the exemption seem a blatant endorsement of religion, but it appears, on its face, to produce greater state entanglement with religion than the denial of an exemption. As Justice Stevens has noted: "[There exists an] overriding interest in keeping the government — whether it be the legislature or the courts — out of the business of evaluating the relative merits of differing religious claims. The risk that governmental approval of some and disapproval of others will be perceived as favoring one religion over another is an important risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude." Id., at 263, n. 2 (concurring in judgment). See Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U. S., at 604, n. 30. The prospect of inconsistent treatment and government embroilment in controversies over religious doctrine seems especially baleful where, as in the case of Texas' sales tax exemption, a statute requires that public officials determine whether some message or activity is consistent with "the teaching of the faith." See, e. g., Jones v. Wolf, 443 U. S. 595 (1979); Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U. S. 696 (1976); Presbyterian Church in U. S. v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U. S. 440 (1969).
While Texas is correct in pointing out that compliance with government regulations by religious organizations and the monitoring of their compliance by government agencies would itself enmesh the operations of church and state to some degree, we have found that such compliance would generally not impede the evangelical activities of religious groups and that the "routine and factual inquiries" commonly associated with the enforcement of tax laws "bear no resemblance to the kind of government surveillance the Court has previously held to pose an intolerable risk of government entanglement with religion." Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor, 471 U. S., at 305.
On the record before us, neither the Free Exercise Clause nor the Establishment Clause prevents Texas from withdrawing its current exemption for religious publications if it chooses not to expand it to promote some legitimate secular aim.
C
Our conclusion today is admittedly in tension with some unnecessarily sweeping statements in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 (1943), and Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573 (1944). To the extent that language in those opinions is inconsistent with our decision here, based on the evolution in our thinking about the Religion Clauses over the last 45 years, we disavow it.
In Murdock, the Court ruled that a city could not impose a flat license tax payable by "all persons canvassing for or soliciting . . . orders for goods, paintings, pictures, wares, or merchandise of any kind" on Jehovah's Witnesses who "went about from door to door . . . distributing literature and soliciting people to 'purchase' certain religious books and pamphlets." 319 U. S., at 106. In Follett, the Court ruled similarly that a Jehovah's Witness who "went from house to house distributing certain books" was exempt under the Free Exercise Clause from payment of a flat business and occupation tax on booksellers. 321 U. S., at 574. In both cases, the majority stated that the "sale" of religious pamphlets by itinerant evangelists was a form of preaching, Murdock, supra, at 109; Follett, supra, at 577, and that imposing a license or occupation tax on such a preacher was tantamount to exacting "a tax from him for the privilege of delivering a sermon." Murdock, 319 U. S., at 112. The Court acknowledged that imposing an income or property tax on preachers would not be unconstitutional. Ibid. It emphasized, however, that a flat license or occupation tax poses a greater threat to the free exercise of religion than do those other taxes, because it is "levied and collected as a condition to the pursuit of activities whose enjoyment is guaranteed by the First Amendment" and thus "restrains in advance those constitutional liberties . . . and inevitably tends to suppress their exercise." Id., at 114. See Follett, supra, at 575.
If one accepts the majority's characterization of the critical issues in Murdock and Follett, those decisions are easily compatible with our holding here. In striking down application of the town ordinance to Jehovah's Witnesses in Follett — an ordinance the Court found to be "in all material respects the same," 321 U. S., at 574, as the one whose application it restricted in Murdock — the Court declared that only a single "narrow" question was presented: "It is whether a flat license tax as applied to one who earns his livelihood as an evangelist or preacher in his home town is constitutional." 321 U. S., at 576. Regarding Follett in this light, we must agree that "we have quite a different case from that of a merchant who sells books-at a stand or on the road." Ibid. There is no doubt that the First Amendment prevents both the States and the Federal Government from imposing a special occupation tax exclusively on those who devote their days to spreading religious messages. Moreover, it is questionable whether, consistent with the Free Exercise Clause, government may exact a facially neutral license fee designed for commercial salesmen from religious missionaries whose principal work is preaching and who only occasionally sell religious tracts for small sums, so long as "the fee is not a nominal one, imposed as a regulatory measure and calculated to defray the expense of protecting those on the streets and at home against the abuses of solicitors." Murdock, supra, at 116. In such a case, equal treatment of commercial and religious solicitation might result in an unconstitutional imposition on religious activity warranting judicial relief, particularly where that activity is deemed central to a given faith, as the Court found this form of proselytizing to be in Murdock and Follett, and where the tax burden is far from negligible.
Insofar as the Court's holdings in Murdock and Follett are limited to these points, they are plainly consistent with our decision today.- The sales tax that Texas imposes is not an occupation tax levied on religious missionaries. Nor is it a flat tax that "restrains iii. advance," 319 U. S., at 114, the free exercise.of religioriN' On the contrary, because the tax is equal to a small fraction of the value of each sale and payable by the buyer, it poses little danger of stamping out missionary work involving the sale of religious publications, and in view of its generality it can hardly be viewed as a covert attempt to curtail religious activity. We therefore see no inconsistency between our former decisions and our present holding.
To the extent that our opinions in Murdock and Follett might be read, however, to suggest that the States and the Federal Government may never tax the sale of religious or other publications, we reject those dicta. Our intervening decisions make clear that even if the denial of tax benefits "will inevitably have a substantial impact" on religious groups, the refusal to grant such benefits does not offend the Free Exercise Clause when it does not prevent those groups "from observing their religious tenets." Bob Jones Univer sity v. United States, 461 U. S., at 603-604. In Murdock and Follett, the application of a flat license or occupation tax to Jehovah's Witnesses arguably did prevent adherents of that sect from acting in accordance with some of their central religious beliefs, in the absence of any overriding government interest in denying them an exemption. In the much more common circumstances exemplified by this case, however, taxes or regulations would not subject religious organizations to undue burdens and the government's interest in their uniform application is far weightier. Hence, there is no bar to Texas' imposing a general sales tax on religious publications.
V
We conclude that Texas' sales tax exemption for religious publications violates the First Amendment, as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, the judgment of the Texas Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
Justice O'Connor's concurrence in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 (1985), properly emphasized this point:
"[T]he Establishment Clause is infringed when the government makes adherence to religion relevant to a person's standing in the political community. Direct government action endorsing religion or a particular religious practice is invalid under this approach because it 'sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.' [Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 688 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring).] Under this view, Lemon's inquiry as to the purpose and effect of a statute requires courts to examine whether government's purpose is to endorse religion and whether the statute actually conveys a message of endorsement." Id., at 69.
See also Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 701 (1984) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent "religious chauvinism" that tells "minority religious groups, as well as . . . those who may reject all religion, . . . that their views are not similarly worthy of public recognition nor entitled to public support").
Although we found it "unnecessary to justify the tax exemption on the social welfare services or 'good works' that some churches perform for parishioners and others," Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S., at 674, we in no way intimated that the exemption would have been valid had it applied only to the property of religious groups or had it lacked a permissible secular objective. Rather, we concluded that the State might reasonably have determined that religious groups generally contribute to the cultural and moral improvement of the community, perform useful social services, and enhance a desirable pluralism of viewpoint and enterprise, just as do the host of other nonprofit organizations that qualified for the exemption. It is because the set of organizations defined by these secular objectives was so large that we saw no need to inquire into the secular benefits provided by religious groups that sought to avail themselves of the exemption. In addition, we noted that inquiry into the particular contributions of each religious group "would introduce an element of governmental evaluation and standards as to the worth of particular social welfare programs, thus producing a kind of continuing day-to-day relationship which the policy of neutrality seeks to minimize." Ibid. We therefore upheld the State's classification of religious organizations among the socially beneficial associations whose activities it desired to foster. Had the State defined the class of subsidized activities more narrowly — to encompass only "charitable" works, for example — more searching scrutiny would have been necessary, notwithstanding the greater intermingling of government and religion that would likely result. Cf. id., at 697, n. 1 (opinion of Harlan, J.); Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U. S. 574, 591-592, and n. 18 (1983).
The dissent's accusation that we have distorted or misdescribed the Court's holding in Walz, post, at 33-38, is simply mistaken. The Court expressly stated in Walz that the legislative purpose of New York's property tax exemption was not to accommodate religion. Rather, "New York, in common with the other States, has determined that certain entities that exist in a harmonious relationship to the community at large, and that foster its 'moral or mental improvement,' should not be inhibited in their activities by property taxation or the hazard of loss of those properties for nonpayment of taxes." 397 U. S., at 672. Churches, we found, were reasonably classified among a diverse array of nonprofit groups that promoted this end. But it was only because churches, along with numerous other groups, produced these public benefits that we approved their exemption from property tax. The Court said quite plainly: "The State has an affirmative policy that considers these groups as beneficial and stabilizing influences in community life and finds this classification useful, desirable, and in the public interest. Qualification for tax exemption is not perpetual or immutable: some tax-exempt groups lose that status w'hen their activities take them outside the classification and new entities can come into being and qualify for exemption." Id., at 673. Although the concurring opinions in Walz amplified this point, the opinion for the Court relied on it as well in determining that the tax exemption possessed a valid secular purpose.
Nor is our'reading of Walz by any means novel. Indeed, it has been the Court's accepted understanding of the holding in Walz for almost 20 years. In Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437, 454 (1971), we said: "'Neutrality' in matters of religion is not inconsistent with 'benevolence' by way of exemptions from onerous duties, Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S., at 669, so long as an exemption is tailored broadly enough that it reflects valid secular purposes." We read Walz to stand for the same proposition in Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 793-794 (1973). "Without intimating whether this factor alone might have controlling significance in another context in some future case," we noted that the breadth of an exemption for religious groups is unquestionably an "important factor" in assessing its constitutionality. Id., at 794. Our opinion today builds on established precedents; it does not repudiate them.
The fact that Texas grants other sales tax exemptions (e. g., for sales of food, agricultural items, and property used in the manufacture of articles for ultimate sale) for different purposes does not rescue the exemption for religious periodicals from invalidation. What is crucial is that any subsidy afforded religious organizations be warranted by some overarching secular purpose that justifies like benefits for nonreligious groups. There is no evidence in the record, and Texas does not argue in its brief to this Court, that the exemption for religious periodicals was grounded in some secular legislative policy that motivated similar tax breaks for nonreligious activi ties. It certainly appears that the exemption was intended to benefit religion alone.
Not only did the property tax exemption sustained in Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664 (1970), extend to a large number of nonreligious organizations that ostensibly served an expressly articulated secular objective that religious groups could reasonably be thought to advance as well; it also failed to single out religious proselytizing as an activity deserving of public assistance.
Texas' sales and use tax provides a model of such an exemption when it frees, inter alia, organizations "created for religious, educational, or charitable purposes" from the payment of sales and use tax on items they purchase, rent, or consume. Tex. Tax Code Ann. § 151.310(a)(1) (1982). In view of this provision, the special exemption for publications carrying religious messages suggests even more strongly the State's sponsorship of religion.
In light of this holding, we need not address Texas Monthly's contention that the sales tax exemption also violates the Free Press Clause as we interpreted it in Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221 (1987).
Contrary to the dissent's claims, post, at 29-30, 38, 42, we in no way suggest that all benefits conferred exclusively upon religious groups or upon individuals on account of their religious beliefs are forbidden by the Establishment Clause unless they are mandated by the Free Exercise Clause. Our decisions in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 (1952), and Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327 (1987), offer two examples. Similarly, if the Air Force provided a sufficiently broad exemption from its dress requirements for servicemen whose religious faiths commanded them to wear certain headgear or other attire, see Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U. S. 503 (1986), that exemption presumably would not be invalid under the Establishment Clause even though this Court has not found it to be required by the Free Exercise Clause.
All of these cases, however, involve legislative exemptions that did not, or would not, impose substantial burdens on nonbeneficiaries while allowing others to act according to their religious beliefs, or that were designed to alleviate government intrusions that might significantly deter adherents of a particular faith from conduct protected by the Free Exercise Clause. New York City's decision to release students from public schools so that they might obtain religious instruction elsewhere, which we upheld in Zorach, was found not to coerce students who wished to remain behind to alter their religious beliefs, nor did it impose monetary costs on their parents or other taxpayers who opposed, or were indifferent to, the religious instruction given to students who were released. The hypothetical Air Force uniform exemption also would not place a monetary burden on those required to conform to the dress code or subject them to any appreciable privation. And the ápplication of Title VII's exemption for religious organizations that we approved in Corporation of Presiding Bishop, though it had some adverse effect on those holding or seeking employment with those organizations (if not on taxpayers generally), prevented potentially serious encroachments on protected religious freedoms.
Texas' tax exemption, by contrast, does not remove a demonstrated and possibly grave imposition on religious activity sheltered by the Free Exercise Clause. Moreover, it burdens nonbeneficiaries by increasing their tax bills by whatever amount is needed to offset the benefit bestowed on subscribers to religious publications. The fact that such exemptions are of long standing cannot shield them from the strictures of the Establishment Clause. As we said in Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S., at 678, "no one acquires a vested or protected right in violation of the Constitution by long use, even when that span of time covers our entire national existence and indeed predates it."
At trial, Texas' Supervisor for Sales Tax Policy testified that the Comptroller's Office did not in fact heed the statutory command to grant exemptions only for publications that promulgated the teaching of a particular faith; instead, the Office allowed'religious publishers or distributors to determine whether their publications qualified for the exemption. App. 60-61. Although this approach undoubtedly reduced the degree of state entanglement in religious affairs from that which would have resulted from strict application of the statute, we cannot attach great significance to current administrative practice. That practice has not been embodied in the regulation corresponding to the statutory exemption, which repeats almost verbatim the words of the statute. 34 Tex. Admin. Code § 3.299(d) (1986). It is, moreover, at odds with the plain statutory language. It would appear open to future administrators to subject the content of religious publications to more exacting scrutiny.
In Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S., at 109, n. 7, the Court noted that Seventh-day Adventist missionaries, who sold religious literature while proselytizing door to door in a manner akin to Jehovah's Witnesses, earned on average only $65 per month in 1941, half of which they were permitted to keep in order to pay their traveling and living expenses. The license fee whose application was challenged in Murdock amounted to $1.50 for one day, $7 for one week, $12 for two weeks, and $20 for three weeks. Id., at 106. If towns were permitted to levy such fees from itinerant preachers whose average earnings totaled only $32.50 per month before income taxes because their sales of religious literature were merely incidental to their primary evangelical mission, then they could easily throttle such missionary work. A Seventh-day Adventist who spent each day in a different town would have to pay $45 in fees over the course of a 30-day month; if his income were only $32.50, he could not even afford the necessary licenses, let alone support himself once he had met his legal obligations.
For example, in Murdock, supra, at 111, the Court wrote: "The constitutional rights of those spreading their religious beliefs through the spoken and printed word are not to be gauged by standards governing retailers or wholesalers of books. The right to use the press for expressing one's views is not to be measured by the protection afforded commercial handbills. . . . Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion are available to all, not merely to those who can pay their own way." In our view, this passage suggests nothing more than that commercial speech is on a different footing for constitutional purposes than other types of speech. Reading it to bar all taxes that might impede the dissemination of printed messages other than commercial advertisements would go well beyond the language of the passage and be difficult to reconcile with the Court's approval of income and property taxes levied on preachers (and presumably political pamphleteers or literary authors). 319 U. S., at 112. In any event, we reject this broad reading, whether or not the Coui't intended the passage to bear that meaning.
Thus, the Court noted in Murdock, supra, at 109, that the proselytizing done by Jehovah's Witnesses "is as evangelical as the revival meeting" and "occupies the same high estate under the First Amendment as do worship in the churches and preaching from the pulpits." The Court further emphasized that the dissemination of their views in this manner was not adventitious to Jehovah's Witnesses' primary beliefs, but rather was regarded by them as a duty imposed on them by God. 319 U. S., at 108. For its part, the city defended its tax as a legitimate levy on commercial activity, id., at 110, and apparently never contended that exceptions for religious evangelists would cause administrative difficulties or produce excessive state entanglement with religion.