706
Opinion of the Court
Clause." Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136, 144-145 (1987). The fact that Chapter 748 facilitates the practice of religion is not what renders it an unconstitutional establishment. Cf. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 627 (1992) (Souter, J., concurring) ("That government must remain neutral in matters of religion does not foreclose it from ever taking religion into account"); School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 299 (Brennan, J., concurring) ("[H]ostility, not neutrality, would characterize the refusal to provide chaplains and places of worship for prisoners and soldiers cut off by the State from all civilian opportunities for public communion").
But accommodation is not a principle without limits, and what petitioners seek is an adjustment to the Satmars' religiously grounded preferences 9 that our cases do not countenance. Prior decisions have allowed religious communities and institutions to pursue their own interests free from governmental interference, see Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, supra, at 336-337 (government may allow religious organizations to favor their own adherents in hiring, even for secular employment); Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 (1952) (government may allow public schools to release students during the schoolday to receive off-site religious education), but we have never hinted that an otherwise unconstitutional delegation of political power to a religious group could be saved as a religious accommodation. Petitioners' proposed accommodation singles out a particular religious sect for special treatment,10 and whatever the limits of permissible legislative accommodations may be, compare
9 The Board of Education of the Kiryas Joel Village School District explains that the Satmars prefer to live together "to facilitate individual religious observance and maintain social, cultural and religious values," but that it is not " 'against their religion' to interact with others." Brief for Petitioner in No. 93-517, p. 4, n. 1.
10 In this respect, it goes beyond even Larkin, transferring political authority to a single religious group rather than to any church or school.
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