Cite as: 536 U. S. 639 (2002)
Breyer, J., dissenting
schools), but by drawing fairly clear lines of separation between church and state—at least where the heartland of religious belief, such as primary religious education, is at issue.
II
The principle underlying these cases—avoiding religiously based social conflict—remains of great concern. As religiously diverse as America had become when the Court decided its major 20th-century Establishment Clause cases, we are exponentially more diverse today. America boasts more than 55 different religious groups and subgroups with a significant number of members. Graduate Center of the City University of New York, B. Kosmin, E. Mayer, & A. Keysar, American Religious Identification Survey 12-13 (2001). Major religions include, among others, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs. Ibid. And several of these major religions contain different subsidiary sects with different religious beliefs. See Lester, Oh, Gods!, The Atlantic Monthly 37 (Feb. 2002). Newer Christian immigrant groups are "expressing their Christianity in languages, customs, and independent churches that are barely recognizable, and often controversial, for European-ancestry Catholics and Protestants." H. Ebaugh & J. Chafetz, Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Immigrant Congregations 4 (abridged student ed. 2002).
Under these modern-day circumstances, how is the "equal opportunity" principle to work—without risking the "struggle of sect against sect" against which Justice Rutledge warned? School voucher programs finance the religious education of the young. And, if widely adopted, they may well provide billions of dollars that will do so. Why will different religions not become concerned about, and seek to influence, the criteria used to channel this money to religious schools? Why will they not want to examine the implementation of the programs that provide this money—to determine, for ex-
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