872
Souter, J., dissenting
of Ed. of School Dist. No. 71, Champaign Cty., 333 U. S. 203, 228 (1948).
"[G]overnment and religion have discrete interests which are mutually best served when each avoids too close a proximity to the other. It is not only the nonbeliever who fears the injection of sectarian doctrines and controversies into the civil polity, but in as high degree it is the devout believer who fears the secularization of a creed which becomes too deeply involved with and dependent upon the government." School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 259 (1963) (Brennan, J., concurring).
See also Rosenberger, supra, at 890-891 (Souter, J., dissenting).
Third, government establishment of religion is inextricably linked with conflict. Everson, supra, at 8-11 (relating colonists' understanding of recent history of religious persecution in countries with established religion); Engel, supra, at 429 (discussing struggle among religions for government approval); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 623 (1971). In our own history, the turmoil thus produced has led to a rejection of the idea that government should subsidize religious education, id., at 645-649 (opinion of Brennan, J.) (discussing history of rejection of support for religious schools); McCollum, supra, at 214-217 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.), a position that illustrates the Court's understanding that any implicit endorsement of religion is unconstitutional, see County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 592-594 (1989).2
2 The plurality mistakes my recognition of this fundamental concern. Ante, at 825-826. The Court may well have moved away from considering the political divisiveness threatened by particular instances of aid as a practical criterion for applying the Establishment Clause case by case, but we have never questioned its importance as a motivating concern behind the Establishment Clause, nor could we change history to find that sectarian conflict did not influence the Framers who wrote it.
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