716
Souter, J., dissenting
expense simply cannot be cordoned from taxpayer politics, and every major religion currently espouses social positions that provoke intense opposition. Not all taxpaying Protestant citizens, for example, will be content to underwrite the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church condemning the death penalty.25 Nor will all of America's Muslims acquiesce in paying for the endorsement of the religious Zionism taught in many religious Jewish schools, which combines "a nationalistic sentiment" in support of Israel with a "deeply religious" element.26 Nor will every secular taxpayer be content to support Muslim views on differential treatment of the sexes,27 or, for that matter, to fund the espousal of a wife's obligation of obedience to her husband, presumably taught in any schools adopting the articles of faith of the Southern Baptist Convention.28 Views like these, and innumerable others, have been safe in the sectarian pulpits and classrooms of this Nation not only because the Free Exercise Clause protects them directly, but because the ban on supporting religious establishment has protected free exercise, by keeping it relatively private. With the arrival of vouchers in religious schools, that privacy will go, and along with it will go confidence that religious disagreement will stay moderate.
* * *
If the divisiveness permitted by today's majority is to be avoided in the short term, it will be avoided only by action
25 See R. Martino, Abolition of the Death Penalty (Nov. 2, 1999) ("The position of the Holy See, therefore, is that authorities, even for the most serious crimes, should limit themselves to non-lethal means of punishment") (citing John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, n. 56).
26 H. Donin, To Be a Jew 15 (1972).
27 See R. Martin, Islamic Studies 224 (2d ed. 1996) (interpreting the Koran to mean that "[m]en are responsible to earn a living and provide for their families; women bear children and run the household").
28 See The Baptist Faith and Message, Art. XVIII, available at www. sbc.net/ bfm/ bfm2000.asp#xviii (available in Clerk of Court's case file) ("A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ").
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