704
Opinion of the Court
receiving the benefit of special school district laws. Early on in the development of public education in New York, the State rejected highly localized school districts for New York City when they were promoted as a way to allow separate schooling for Roman Catholic children. R. Church & M. Sedlak, Education in the United States 162, 167-169 (1976). And in more recent history, the special Act in these cases stands alone. See supra, at 701.
The general principle that civil power must be exercised in a manner neutral to religion is one the Larkin Court recognized, although it did not discuss the specific possibility of legislative favoritism along religious lines because the statute before it delegated state authority to any religious group assembled near the premises of an applicant for a liquor license, see 459 U. S., at 120-121, n. 3, as well as to a further category of institutions not identified by religion. But the principle is well grounded in our case law, as we have frequently relied explicitly on the general availability of any benefit provided religious groups or individuals in turning aside Establishment Clause challenges. In Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 673 (1970), for example, the Court sustained a property tax exemption for religious properties in part because the State had "not singled out one particular church or religious group or even churches as such," but had exempted "a broad class of property owned by nonprofit, quasi-public corporations." Accord, id., at 696-697 (opinion of Harlan, J.). And Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 608 (1988), upheld a statute enlisting a "wide spectrum of organizations" in addressing adolescent sexuality because the law was "neutral with respect to the grantee's status as a sectarian or purely secular institution." 8 See also Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U. S.
8 The Court used "sectarian" to refer to organizations akin to this school district in that they were operated in a secular manner but had a religious affiliation; it recognized that government aid may not flow to an institution " 'in which religion is so pervasive that a substantial portion of its func-
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