Cite as: 512 U. S. 687 (1994)
Opinion of Souter, J.
may hold public office does not mean that a State may deliberately delegate discretionary power to an individual, institution, or community on the ground of religious identity. If New York were to delegate civic authority to "the Grand Rebbe," Larkin would obviously require invalidation (even though under McDaniel the Grand Rebbe may run for, and serve on, his local school board), and the same is true if New York delegates political authority by reference to religious belief. Where "fusion" is an issue, the difference lies in the distinction between a government's purposeful delegation on the basis of religion and a delegation on principles neutral to religion, to individuals whose religious identities are incidental to their receipt of civic authority.
Of course, Chapter 748 delegates power not by express reference to the religious belief of the Satmar community, but to residents of the "territory of the village of Kiryas Joel." 1989 N. Y. Laws, ch. 748. Thus the second (and arguably more important) distinction between these cases and Larkin is the identification here of the group to exercise civil authority in terms not expressly religious. But our analysis does not end with the text of the statute at issue, see Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 534 (1993); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 56-61 (1985); Gomil-lion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339, 341-342 (1960), and the context here persuades us that Chapter 748 effectively identifies these recipients of governmental authority by reference to doctrinal adherence, even though it does not do so expressly. We find this to be the better view of the facts because of the way the boundary lines of the school district divide residents according to religious affiliation, under the terms of an unusual and special legislative Act.
It is undisputed that those who negotiated the village boundaries when applying the general village incorporation statute drew them so as to exclude all but Satmars, and that the New York Legislature was well aware that the village remained exclusively Satmar in 1989 when it adopted Chap-
699
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007