Cite as: 515 U. S. 753 (1995)
Opinion of Souter, J.
free, 472 U. S. 38, 70 (1985) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (emphasis deleted), and held that "[t]he Establishment Clause, at the very least, prohibits government from appearing to take a position on questions of religious belief," 492 U. S., at 593-594.
Allegheny's endorsement test cannot be dismissed, as Justice Scalia suggests, as applying only to situations in which there is an allegation that the Establishment Clause has been violated through "expression by the government itself" or "government action . . . discriminat[ing] in favor of private religious expression." Ante, at 764 (emphasis deleted). Such a distinction would, in all but a handful of cases, make meaningless the "effect-of-endorsing" part of Allegheny's test. Effects matter to the Establishment Clause, and one, principal way that we assess them is by asking whether the practice in question creates the appearance of endorsement to the reasonable observer. See Allegheny, supra, at 630, 635- 636 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Witters v. Washington Dept. of Servs. for Blind, 474 U. S. 481, 493 (1986) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see also Allegheny, supra, at 593- 594, 599-600 (majority opinion); Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 690 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring). If a reasonable observer would perceive a religious display in a government forum as government speech endorsing religion, then the display has made "religion relevant, in . . . public perception, to status in the political community." Id., at 692 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Unless we are to retreat entirely to government intent and abandon consideration of effects, it makes no sense to recognize a public perception of endorsement as a harm only in that subclass of cases in which the government owns the display. Indeed, the Court stated in Allegheny that "once the judgment has been made that a particular proclamation of Christian belief, when disseminated from a particular location on government property, has the effect of demonstrating the government's endorsement
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