764
Opinion of Scalia, J.
"promotes" or "favors" a religious display by giving it the same access to a public forum that all other displays enjoy. And as a matter of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, we have consistently held that it is no violation for government to enact neutral policies that happen to benefit religion. See, e. g., Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 608 (1988); Witters v. Washington Dept. of Servs. for Blind, 474 U. S. 481, 486-489 (1986); Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388 (1983); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961). Where we have tested for endorsement of religion, the subject of the test was either expression by the government itself, Lynch, supra, or else government action alleged to discriminate in favor of private religious expression or activity, Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U. S. 687, 708-710 (1994); Allegheny, supra. The test petitioners propose, which would attribute to a neutrally behaving government private religious expression, has no antecedent in our jurisprudence, and would better be called a "transferred endorsement" test.
Petitioners rely heavily on Allegheny and Lynch, but each is easily distinguished. In Allegheny we held that the display of a privately sponsored crèche on the "Grand Staircase" of the Allegheny County Courthouse violated the Establishment Clause. That staircase was not, however, open to all on an equal basis, so the county was favoring sectarian religious expression. 492 U. S., at 599-600, and n. 50 ("The Grand Staircase does not appear to be the kind of location in which all were free to place their displays"). We expressly distinguished that site from the kind of public forum at issue here, and made clear that if the staircase were available to all on the same terms, "the presence of the crèche in that location for over six weeks would then not serve to associate the government with the crèche." Ibid. (emphasis added). In Lynch we held that a city's display of a crèche did not violate the Establishment Clause because, in context, the
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