712
Souter, J., dissenting
siastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation.' " Memorial and Remonstrance ¶ 7, reprinted in Everson, 330 U. S., at 67. In Madison's time, the manifestations were "pride and indolence in the Clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity[,] in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution," ibid.; in the 21st century, the risk is one of "corrosive secularism" to religious schools, Ball, 473 U. S., at 385, and the specific threat is to the primacy of the schools' mission to educate the children of the faithful according to the unaltered precepts of their faith. Even "[t]he 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).
The risk is already being realized. In Ohio, for example, a condition of receiving government money under the program is that participating religious schools may not "discriminate on the basis of . . . religion," Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3313.976(A)(4) (West Supp. 2002), which means the school may not give admission preferences to children who are members of the patron faith; children of a parish are generally consigned to the same admission lotteries as non-believers, §§ 3313.977(A)(1)(c)-(d). This indeed was the exact object of a 1999 amendment repealing the portion of a predecessor statute that had allowed an admission preference for "[c]hildren . . . whose parents are affiliated with any organization that provides financial support to the school, at the discretion of the school." § 3313.977(A)(1)(d) (West 1999). Nor is the State's religious antidiscrimination restriction limited to student admission policies: by its terms, a participating religious school may well be forbidden to choose a member of its own clergy to serve as teacher or principal over a layperson of a different religion claiming
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