Cite as: 521 U. S. 203 (1997)
Souter, J., dissenting
As is explained elsewhere, the flat ban on subsidization antedates the Bill of Rights and has been an unwavering rule in Establishment Clause cases, qualified only by the conclusion two Terms ago that state exactions from college students are not the sort of public revenues subject to the ban. See Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 868-876 (1995) (Souter, J., dissenting); see also id., at 850 (O’Connor, J., concurring). The rule expresses the hard lesson learned over and over again in the American past and in the experiences of the countries from which we have come, that religions supported by governments are compromised just as surely as the religious freedom of dissenters is burdened when the government supports religion. "When the government favors a particular religion or sect, the disadvantage to all others is obvious, but even the favored religion may fear being 'taint[ed] . . . with a corrosive secularism.' The favored religion may be compromised as political figures reshape the religion's beliefs for their own purposes; it may be reformed as government largesse brings government regulation." Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 608 (1992) (Blackmun, J., concurring) (quoting Ball, supra, at 385); see also Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments 1785, in The Complete Madison 299, 309 (S. Padover ed. 1953) ("Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Gov[ernment]"); M. Howe, The Garden and the Wilderness 6 (1965) (noting Roger Williams's view that "worldly corruptions . . . might consume the churches if sturdy fences against the wilderness were not maintained"). The ban against state endorsement of religion addresses the same historical lessons. Governmental approval of religion tends to reinforce the religious message (at least in the short run) and, by the same token, to carry a message of exclusion to those of less favored views. See, e. g., Ball, supra, at 390 ("[A]n important concern of the effects test is whether the symbolic union of church and state effected by the challenged governmental action is sufficiently
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