Cite as: 508 U. S. 520 (1993)
Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment
will not and must not stop at religiously motivated activity. Cf. Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U. S. 374, 390 (1978) (invalidating certain restrictions on marriage as "grossly underinclusive with respect to [their] purpose"); Supreme Court of N. H. v. Piper, 470 U. S. 274, 285, n. 19 (1985) (a rule excluding nonresidents from the bar of New Hampshire "is under-inclusive . . . because it permits lawyers who move away from the State to retain their membership in the bar").
In this case, the ordinances at issue are both overinclusive and underinclusive in relation to the state interests they purportedly serve. They are overinclusive, as the majority correctly explains, because the "legitimate governmental interests in protecting the public health and preventing cruelty to animals could be addressed by restrictions stopping far short of a flat prohibition of all Santeria sacrificial practice." Ante, at 538. They are underinclusive as well, because "[d]espite the city's proffered interest in preventing cruelty to animals, the ordinances are drafted with care to forbid few killings but those occasioned by religious sacrifice." Ante, at 543. Moreover, the "ordinances are also underinclusive with regard to the city's interest in public health . . . ." Ante, at 544.
When a law discriminates against religion as such, as do the ordinances in this case, it automatically will fail strict scrutiny under Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 402-403, 407 (1963) (holding that governmental regulation that imposes a burden upon religious practice must be narrowly tailored to advance a compelling state interest). This is true because a law that targets religious practice for disfavored treatment both burdens the free exercise of religion and, by definition, is not precisely tailored to a compelling governmental interest.
Thus, unlike the majority, I do not believe that "[a] law burdening religious practice that is not neutral or not of general application must undergo the most rigorous of scrutiny." Ante, at 546. In my view, regulation that targets religion in this way, ipso facto, fails strict scrutiny. It is for this reason
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