570
Opinion of Souter, J.
pated effect. Smith responded to these statements by suggesting that the Court did not really mean what it said, detecting in at least the most recent opinions a lack of commitment to the compelling-interest test in the context of formally neutral laws. Smith, supra, at 884-885. But even if the Court's commitment were that palid, it would argue only for moderating the language of the test, not for eliminating constitutional scrutiny altogether. In any event, I would have trouble concluding that the Court has not meant what it has said in more than a dozen cases over several decades, particularly when in the same period it repeatedly applied the compelling-interest test to require exemptions, even in a case decided the year before Smith. See Frazee v. Illinois Dept. of Employment Security, 489 U. S. 829 (1989).5 In sum, it seems to me difficult to escape the con-5 Though Smith implied that the Court, in considering claims for exemptions from formally neutral, generally applicable laws, has applied a "water[ed] down" version of strict scrutiny, 494 U. S., at 888, that appraisal confuses the cases in which we purported to apply strict scrutiny with the cases in which we did not. We did not purport to apply strict scrutiny in several cases involving discrete categories of governmental action in which there are special reasons to defer to the judgment of the political branches, and the opinions in those cases said in no uncertain terms that traditional heightened scrutiny applies outside those categories. See O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U. S. 342, 349 (1987) ("[P]rison regulations . . . are judged under a 'reasonableness' test less restrictive than that ordinarily applied to alleged infringements of fundamental constitutional rights"); Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U. S. 503, 507 (1986) ("Our review of military regulations challenged on First Amendment grounds is far more deferential than constitutional review of similar laws or regulations designed for civilian society"); see also Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361, 385-386 (1974); Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437, 462 (1971). We also did not purport to apply strict scrutiny in several cases in which the claimants failed to establish a constitutionally cognizable burden on religious exercise, and again the opinions in those cases left no doubt that heightened scrutiny applies to the enforcement of formally neutral, general laws that do burden free exercise. See Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization of Cal., 493 U. S. 378, 384-385 (1990) ("Our cases have established that [t]he free exercise inquiry asks whether government
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