Cite as: 515 U. S. 819 (1995)
Souter, J., dissenting
vidual[s]," we have found, are simply not within the contemplation of the Establishment Clause's broad prohibition. Mueller, supra, at 400; see also Witters, supra, at 493 (opinion of O'Connor, J.).7
7 Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664 (1970), is yet another example of a case in which the Court treated the general availability of a government benefit as a significant condition defining compliance with the Establishment Clause, but did not deem that condition sufficient. In upholding state property tax exemptions given to religious organizations in Walz, we noted that the law at issue was applicable to "a broad class of property owned by nonprofit [and] quasi-public corporations," id., at 673, but did not rest on that factor alone. Critical to our decision was the central principle that direct funding of religious activities is prohibited under the Establishment Clause. "It is sufficient to note that for the men who wrote the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment the 'establishment' of a religion connoted sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity." Id., at 668. We emphasized that the tax exemptions did not involve the expenditure of government funds in support of religious activities. "The grant of a tax exemption is not sponsorship since the government does not transfer part of its revenue to churches but simply abstains from demanding that the church support the state." Id., at 675. Moreover, we noted that in the property taxation context, "exemption[s] creat[e] only a minimal and remote involvement between church and state and far less than taxation of churches," and in operation "ten[d] to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating" church and state, id., at 676; and that religious property tax exemptions have been in place for over 200 years without disruption to the interests represented by the Establishment Clause, id., at 676-680.
Justice Thomas's assertion, that "[a] tax exemption in many cases is economically and functionally indistinguishable from a direct monetary subsidy," ante, at 859 (concurring opinion) (footnote omitted), assumes that the "natural" or "correct" tax base is so self-evident that any provision excusing a person or institution from taxes to which others are subjected must be a departure from the natural tax base rather than part of the definition of the tax base itself. The equivalence (asserted by Justice Thomas, ibid.) between a direct money subsidy and the tax liability avoided by an institution (because it is part of the class of institutions that defines the relevant tax base by its exclusion) was tested and dispatched long ago by Professor Bittker in Churches, Taxes and the Constitution, 78 Yale L. J. 1285 (1969). Justice Thomas's suggestion that my "reliance
881
Page: Index Previous 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007