882
Souter, J., dissenting
Evenhandedness as one element of a permissibly attenuated benefit is, of course, a far cry from evenhandedness as a sufficient condition of constitutionality for direct financial support of religious proselytization, and our cases have unsurprisingly repudiated any such attempt to cut the Establishment Clause down to a mere prohibition against unequal direct aid. See, e. g., Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S., at 682- 684 (striking portion of general aid program providing grants for construction of college and university facilities to the extent program made possible the use of funds for sectarian activities); 8 Wolman v. Walter, 433 U. S., at 252-255 (striking funding of field trips for nonpublic school students, such as are "provided to public school students in the district," because of unacceptable danger that state funds would be used to foster religion). And nowhere has the Court's adherence to the preeminence of the no-direct-funding principle over the principle of evenhandedness been as clear as in Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589 (1988).
Bowen involved consideration of the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA), a federal grant program providing funds to institutions for counseling and educational services related to adolescent sexuality and pregnancy. At the time of the litigation, 141 grants had been awarded under the AFLA to
on Bittker . . . is misplaced in this context," ante, at 860, n. 5, is not on point. Even granting that Justice Thomas's assertion of equivalence is reasonable, he cannot and does not deny the fact that the Court in Walz explicitly distinguished tax exemptions from direct money subsidies, 397 U. S., at 675, and rested its decision on that distinction. If Justice Thomas's assertion of equivalence should prevail then the Walz Court necessarily was wrong about a distinction critical to its holding. Justice Thomas can hardly use Walz coherently for support after removing the basis on which it relies.
8 Although the main opinion in Tilton was a plurality, the entire Court was unanimous on this point. See 403 U. S., at 682-684 (plurality opinion); id., at 692 (Douglas, J., joined by Black and Marshall, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 659-661 (1971) (opinion of Brennan, J.); id., at 665, n. 1 (opinion of White, J.).
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