Cite as: 536 U. S. 639 (2002)
Breyer, J., dissenting
ever government had allied itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable result had been that it had incurred the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs." Id., at 431.
See also Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 588 (1992) (striking down school-sanctioned prayer at high school graduation ceremony because "potential for divisiveness" has "particular relevance" in school environment); School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 307 (1963) (Goldberg, J., concurring) (Bible-reading program violated Establishment Clause in part because it gave rise "to those very divisive influences and inhibitions of freedom" that come with government efforts to impose religious influence on "young impressionable [school] children").
In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971), the Court held that the Establishment Clause forbids state funding, through salary supplements, of religious school teachers. It did so in part because of the "threat" that this funding would create religious "divisiveness" that would harm "the normal political process." Id., at 622. The Court explained:
"[P]olitical debate and division . . . are normal and healthy manifestations of our democratic system of government, but political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which [the First Amendment's religious clauses were] . . . intended to protect." Ibid.
And in Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 794 (1973), the Court struck down a state statute that, much like voucher programs, provided aid for parents whose children attended religious schools, explaining that the "assistance of the sort here involved carries grave potential for . . . continuing political strife over aid to religion."
When it decided these 20th-century Establishment Clause cases, the Court did not deny that an earlier American soci-
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