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Full Opinion
WALLACE, GOVERNOR OF ALABAMA, ET AL.
v.
JAFFREE ET AL.
Supreme Court of United States.
*39 John S. Baker, Jr., argued the cause for appellants in both cases and filed briefs for appellant Wallace in No. 83-812. Thomas O. Kotouc and Thomas F. Parker IV filed briefs for appellants in No. 83-929.
Deputy Solicitor General Bator argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Lee, Assistant Attorney General Reynolds, Michael W. McConnell, and Brian K. Landsburg.
Ronnie L. Williams argued the cause and filed a brief for appellees.[]
*40 JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
At an early stage of this litigation, the constitutionality of three Alabama statutes was questioned: (1) § 16-1-20, enacted in 1978, which authorized a 1-minute period of silence in all public schools "for meditation";[1] (2) § 16-1-20.1, enacted in 1981, which authorized a period of silence "for meditation or voluntary prayer";[2] and (3) § 16-1-20.2, enacted in 1982, which authorized teachers to lead "willing students" in a prescribed prayer to "Almighty God . . . the Creator and Supreme Judge of the world."[3]
*41 At the preliminary-injunction stage of this case, the District Court distinguished § 16-1-20 from the other two statutes. It then held that there was "nothing wrong" with § 16-1-20,[4] but that §§ 16-1-20.1 and 16-1-20.2 were both invalid because the sole purpose of both was "an effort on the part of the State of Alabama to encourage a religious activity."[5] After the trial on the merits, the District Court did not change its interpretation of these two statutes, but held that they were constitutional because, in its opinion, Alabama has the power to establish a state religion if it chooses to do so.[6]
The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court's initial interpretation of the purpose of both § 16-1-20.1 and § 16-1-20.2, and held them both unconstitutional.[7] We have already affirmed the Court of Appeals' holding with respect to § 16-1-20.2.[8] Moreover, appellees have not questioned the holding that § 16-1-20 is valid.[9] Thus, the narrow question for decision is whether § 16-1-20.1, which authorizes a period of silence for "meditation or voluntary prayer," is a *42 law respecting the establishment of religion within the meaning of the First Amendment.[10]
I
Appellee Ishmael Jaffree is a resident of Mobile County, Alabama. On May 28, 1982, he filed a complaint on behalf of three of his minor children; two of them were second-grade students and the third was then in kindergarten. The complaint named members of the Mobile County School Board, various school officials, and the minor plaintiffs' three teachers as defendants.[11] The complaint alleged that the appellees brought the action "seeking principally a declaratory judgment and an injunction restraining the Defendants and each of them from maintaining or allowing the maintenance of regular religious prayer services or other forms of religious observances in the Mobile County Public Schools in violation of the First Amendment as made applicable to states by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."[12] The complaint further alleged that two of the children had been subjected to various acts of religious indoctrination "from the beginning of the school year in September, 1981";[13] that the defendant teachers had "on a daily basis" led their classes in saying certain prayers in unison;[14] that the minor children were exposed to ostracism from their peer group class members if they did not participate;[15] and that Ishmael Jaffree had repeatedly but unsuccessfully requested that the devotional services be stopped. The original complaint made no reference to any Alabama statute.
*43 On June 4, 1982, appellees filed an amended complaint seeking class certification,[16] and on June 30, 1982, they filed a second amended complaint naming the Governor of Alabama and various state officials as additional defendants. In that amendment the appellees challenged the constitutionality of three Alabama statutes: §§ 16-1-20, 16-1-20.1, and 16-1-20.2.[17]
On August 2, 1982, the District Court held an evidentiary hearing on appellees' motion for a preliminary injunction. At that hearing, State Senator Donald G. Holmes testified that he was the "prime sponsor" of the bill that was enacted in 1981 as § 16-1-20.1.[18] He explained that the bill was an "effort to return voluntary prayer to our public schools . . . it is a beginning and a step in the right direction."[19] Apart from the purpose to return voluntary prayer to public school, Senator Holmes unequivocally testified that he had "no other purpose in mind."[20] A week after the hearing, the District Court entered a preliminary injunction.[21] The court held that appellees were likely to prevail on the merits because the enactment of §§ 16-1-20.1 and 16-1-20.2 did not reflect a clearly secular purpose.[22]
*44 In November 1982, the District Court held a 4-day trial on the merits. The evidence related primarily to the 1981-1982 academic year the year after the enactment of § 16-1-20.1 and prior to the enactment of § 16-1-20.2. The District Court found that during that academic year each of the minor plaintiffs' teachers had led classes in prayer activities, even after being informed of appellees' objections to these activities.[23]
In its lengthy conclusions of law, the District Court reviewed a number of opinions of this Court interpreting the *45 Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and then embarked on a fresh examination of the question whether the First Amendment imposes any barrier to the establishment of an official religion by the State of Alabama. After reviewing at length what it perceived to be newly discovered historical evidence, the District Court concluded that "the establishment clause of the first amendment to the United States Constitution does not prohibit the state from establishing a religion."[24] In a separate opinion, the District Court dismissed appellees' challenge to the three Alabama statutes because of a failure to state any claim for which relief could be granted. The court's dismissal of this challenge was also based on its conclusion that the Establishment Clause did not bar the States from establishing a religion.[25]
*46 The Court of Appeals consolidated the two cases; not surprisingly, it reversed. The Court of Appeals noted that this Court had considered and had rejected the historical arguments *47 that the District Court found persuasive, and that the District Court had misapplied the doctrine of stare decisis.[26] The Court of Appeals then held that the teachers' religious activities violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.[27] With respect to § 16-1-20.1 and § 16-1-20.2, the Court of Appeals stated that "both statutes advance and encourage religious activities."[28] The Court of Appeals then quoted with approval the District Court's finding that § 16-1-20.1, and § 16-1-20.2, were efforts " `to encourage a religious activity. Even though these statutes are permissive in form, it is nevertheless state involvement respecting an establishment of religion.' "[29] Thus, the Court of Appeals concluded that both statutes were "specifically the type which the Supreme Court addressed in Engel [v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962)]."[30]
*48 A suggestion for rehearing en banc was denied over the dissent of four judges who expressed the opinion that the full court should reconsider the panel decision insofar as it held § 16-1-20.1 unconstitutional.[31] When this Court noted probable jurisdiction, it limited argument to the question that those four judges thought worthy of reconsideration. The judgment of the Court of Appeals with respect to the other issues presented by the appeals was affirmed. Wallace v. Jaffree, 466 U. S. 924 (1984).
II
Our unanimous affirmance of the Court of Appeals' judgment concerning § 16-1-20.2 makes it unnecessary to comment at length on the District Court's remarkable conclusion that the Federal Constitution imposes no obstacle to Alabama's establishment of a state religion. Before analyzing the precise issue that is presented to us, it is nevertheless appropriate to recall how firmly embedded in our constitutional jurisprudence is the proposition that the several States have no greater power to restrain the individual freedoms *49 protected by the First Amendment than does the Congress of the United States.
As is plain from its text, the First Amendment was adopted to curtail the power of Congress to interfere with the individual's freedom to believe, to worship, and to express himself in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.[32] Until the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution, the First Amendment's restraints on the exercise of federal power simply did not apply to the States.[33] But when the Constitution was amended to prohibit any State from depriving any person of liberty without due process of law, that Amendment imposed the same substantive limitations on the States' power to legislate that the First Amendment had always imposed on the Congress' power. This Court has confirmed and endorsed this elementary proposition of law time and time again.[34]
*50 Writing for a unanimous Court in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940), Justice Roberts explained:
". . . We hold that the statute, as construed and applied to the appellants, deprives them of their liberty without due process of law in contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment. The fundamental concept of liberty embodied in that Amendment embraces the liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws. The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect. On the one hand, it forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship. Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion."
Cantwell, of course, is but one case in which the Court has identified the individual's freedom of conscience as the central liberty that unifies the various Clauses in the First Amendment.[35] Enlarging on this theme, THE CHIEF JUSTICE recently wrote:
*51 "We begin with the proposition that the right of freedom of thought protected by the First Amendment against state action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all. See Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 633-634 (1943); id., at 645 (Murphy, J., concurring). A system which secures the right to proselytize religious, political, and ideological causes must also guarantee the concomitant right to decline to foster such concepts. The right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of the broader concept of `individual freedom of mind.' Id., at 637.
.....
"The Court in Barnette, supra, was faced with a state statute which required public school students to participate in daily public ceremonies by honoring the flag both with words and traditional salute gestures. In overruling its prior decision in Minersville District v. Gobitis, 310 U. S. 586 (1940), the Court held that `a ceremony so touching matters of opinion and political attitude may [not] be imposed upon the individual by official authority under powers committed to any political organization under our Constitution.' 319 U. S., at 636. Compelling the affirmative act of a flag salute involved a more serious infringement upon personal liberties than the passive act of carrying the state motto on a license plate, but the difference is essentially one of degree. Here, as in Barnette, we are faced with a state measure which forces an individual, as part of his daily life indeed constantly while his automobile is in public view to be an *52 instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view he finds unacceptable. In doing so, the State `invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.' Id., at 642." Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 714-715 (1977).
Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority. At one time it was thought that this right merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Islam or Judaism.[36] But when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the *53 Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all.[37] This conclusion derives support not only from the interest in respecting the individual's freedom of conscience, but also from the conviction that religious beliefs worthy of respect are the product of free and voluntary choice by the faithful,[38]*54 and from recognition of the fact that the political interest in forestalling intolerance extends beyond intolerance among Christian sects or even intolerance among "religions" to encompass intolerance of the disbeliever and the uncertain.[39]
*55 As Justice Jackson eloquently stated in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943):
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
The State of Alabama, no less than the Congress of the United States, must respect that basic truth.
III
When the Court has been called upon to construe the breadth of the Establishment Clause, it has examined the criteria developed over a period of many years. Thus, in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971), we wrote:
"Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the Court over many years. Three such tests may be gleaned from our cases. First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion, Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 243 (1968); finally, the statute must not foster `an excessive *56 government entanglement with religion.' Walz [v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664, 674 (1970)]."
It is the first of these three criteria that is most plainly implicated by this case. As the District Court correctly recognized, no consideration of the second or third criteria is necessary if a statute does not have a clearly secular purpose.[40] For even though a statute that is motivated in part by a religious purpose may satisfy the first criterion, see, e. g., Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 296-303 (1963) (BRENNAN, J., concurring), the First Amendment requires that a statute must be invalidated if it is entirely motivated by a purpose to advance religion.[41]
In applying the purpose test, it is appropriate to ask "whether government's actual purpose is to endorse or disapprove of religion."[42] In this case, the answer to that question is dispositive. For the record not only provides us with an unambiguous affirmative answer, but it also reveals that the enactment of § 16-1-20.1 was not motivated by any clearly secular purpose indeed, the statute had no secular purpose.
IV
The sponsor of the bill that became § 16-1-20.1, Senator Donald Holmes, inserted into the legislative record apparently *57 without dissent a statement indicating that the legislation was an "effort to return voluntary prayer" to the public schools.[43] Later Senator Holmes confirmed this purpose before the District Court. In response to the question whether he had any purpose for the legislation other than returning voluntary prayer to public schools, he stated: "No, I did not have no other purpose in mind."[44] The State did not present evidence of any secular purpose.[45]
*58 The unrebutted evidence of legislative intent contained in the legislative record and in the testimony of the sponsor of § 16-1-20.1 is confirmed by a consideration of the relationship between this statute and the two other measures that were considered in this case. The District Court found that the 1981 statute and its 1982 sequel had a common, nonsecular purpose. The wholly religious character of the later enactment is plainly evident from its text. When the differences between § 16-1-20.1 and its 1978 predecessor, § 16-1-20, are examined, it is equally clear that the 1981 statute has the same wholly religious character.
There are only three textual differences between § 16-1-20.1 and § 16-1-20: (1) the earlier statute applies only to grades one through six, whereas § 16-1-20.1 applies to all grades; (2) the earlier statute uses the word "shall" whereas § 16-1-20.1 uses the word "may"; (3) the earlier statute refers *59 only to "meditation" whereas § 16-1-20.1 refers to "meditation or voluntary prayer." The first difference is of no relevance in this litigation because the minor appellees were in kindergarten or second grade during the 1981-1982 academic year. The second difference would also have no impact on this litigation because the mandatory language of § 16-1-20 continued to apply to grades one through six.[46] Thus, the only significant textual difference is the addition of the words "or voluntary prayer."
The legislative intent to return prayer to the public schools is, of course, quite different from merely protecting every student's right to engage in voluntary prayer during an appropriate moment of silence during the schoolday. The 1978 statute already protected that right, containing nothing that prevented any student from engaging in voluntary prayer during a silent minute of meditation.[47] Appellants have not identified any secular purpose that was not fully served by § 16-1-20 before the enactment of § 16-1-20.1. Thus, only two conclusions are consistent with the text of § 16-1-20.1: (1) the statute was enacted to convey a message of state endorsement and promotion of prayer; or (2) the statute was enacted for no purpose. No one suggests that the statute was nothing but a meaningless or irrational act.[48]
We must, therefore, conclude that the Alabama Legislature intended to change existing law[49] and that it was motivated *60 by the same purpose that the Governor's answer to the second amended complaint expressly admitted; that the statement inserted in the legislative history revealed; and that Senator Holmes' testimony frankly described. The legislature enacted § 16-1-20.1, despite the existence of § 16-1-20 for the sole purpose of expressing the State's endorsement of prayer activities for one minute at the beginning of each schoolday. The addition of "or voluntary prayer" indicates that the State intended to characterize prayer as a favored practice. Such an endorsement is not consistent with the established principle that the government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.[50]
The importance of that principle does not permit us to treat this as an inconsequential case involving nothing more than a few words of symbolic speech on behalf of the political majority.[51] For whenever the State itself speaks on a religious *61 subject, one of the questions that we must ask is "whether the government intends to convey a message of endorsement or disapproval of religion."[52] The well-supported concurrent findings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals that § 16-1-20.1 was intended to convey a message of state approval of prayer activities in the public schools make it unnecessary, and indeed inappropriate, to evaluate the practical significance of the addition of the words "or voluntary prayer" to the statute. Keeping in mind, as we must, "both the fundamental place held by the Establishment Clause in our constitutional scheme and the myriad, subtle ways in which Establishment Clause values can be eroded,"[53] we conclude that § 16-1-20.1 violates the First Amendment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
*62 JUSTICE POWELL, concurring.
I concur in the Court's opinion and judgment that Ala. Code § 16-1-20.1 (Supp. 1984) violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. My concurrence is prompted by Alabama's persistence in attempting to institute state-sponsored prayer in the public schools by enacting three successive statutes.[1] I agree fully with JUSTICE O'CONNOR'S assertion that some moment-of-silence statutes may be constitutional,[2] a suggestion set forth in the Court's opinion as well. Ante, at 59.
*63 I write separately to express additional views and to respond to criticism of the three-pronged Lemon test.[3]Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971), identifies standards that have proved useful in analyzing case after case both in our decisions and in those of other courts. It is the only coherent test a majority of the Court has ever adopted. Only once since our decision in Lemon, supra, have we addressed an Establishment Clause issue without resort to its three-pronged test. See Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983).[4]Lemon, supra, has not been overruled or its test modified. Yet, continued criticism of it could encourage other courts to feel free to decide Establishment Clause cases on an ad hoc basis.[5]
*64 The first inquiry under Lemon is whether the challenged statute has a "secular legislative purpose." Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, at 612. As JUSTICE O'CONNOR recognizes, this secular purpose must be "sincere"; a law will not pass constitutional muster if the secular purpose articulated by the legislature is merely a "sham." Post, at 75 (concurring in judgment). In Stone v. Graham, 449 U. S. 39 (1980) (per curiam), for example, we held that a statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools violated the Establishment Clause, even though the Kentucky Legislature asserted that its goal was educational. We have not interpreted the first prong of Lemon, supra, however, as requiring that a statute have "exclusively secular" objectives.[6]Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 681, n. 6 (1984). If such a requirement existed, much conduct and legislation approved by this Court in the past would have been invalidated. See, e. g., Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970) (New York's property tax exemption for religious organizations upheld); Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1 (1947) (holding that a township may reimburse parents for the cost of transporting their children to parochial schools).
*65 The record before us, however, makes clear that Alabama's purpose was solely religious in character. Senator Donald Holmes, the sponsor of the bill that became Alabama Code § 16-1-20.1 (Supp. 1984), freely acknowledged that the purpose of this statute was "to return voluntary prayer" to the public schools. See ante, at 57, n. 43. I agree with JUSTICE O'CONNOR that a single legislator's statement, particularly if made following enactment, is not necessarily sufficient to establish purpose. See post, at 77 (concurring in judgment). But, as noted in the Court's opinion, the religious purpose of § 16-1-20.1 is manifested in other evidence, including the sequence and history of the three Alabama statutes. See ante, at 58-60.
I also consider it of critical importance that neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals found a secular purpose, while both agreed that the purpose was to advance religion. In its first opinion (enjoining the enforcement of § 16-1-20.1 pending a hearing on the merits), the District Court said that the statute did "not reflect a clearly secular purpose." Jaffree v. James, 544 F. Supp. 727, 732 (SD Ala. 1982). Instead, the District Court found that the enactment of the statute was an "effort on the part of the State of Alabama to encourage a religious activity."[7]Ibid. The Court of Appeals likewise applied the Lemon test and found "a lack of secular purpose on the part of the Alabama Legislature." *66 705 F. 2d 1526, 1535 (CA11 1983). It held that the objective of § 16-1-20.1 was the "advancement of religion." Ibid. When both courts below are unable to discern an arguably valid secular purpose, this Court normally should hesitate to find one.
I would vote to uphold the Alabama statute if it also had a clear secular purpose. See Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 394-395 (1983) (the Court is "reluctan[t] to attribute unconstitutional motives to the States, particularly when a plausible secular purpose for the State's program may be discerned from the face of the statute"). Nothing in the record before us, however, identifies a clear secular purpose, and the State also has failed to identify any nonreligious reason for the statute's enactment.[8] Under these circumstances, the Court is required by our precedents to hold that the statute fails the first prong of the Lemon test and therefore violates the Establishment Clause.
Although we do not reach the other two prongs of the Lemon test, I note that the "effect" of a straightforward moment-of-silence statute is unlikely to "advanc[e] or inhibi[t] religion."[9] See Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 243 (1968). Nor would such a statute "foster `an excessive government entanglement with religion.' " Lemon *67 v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 612-613, quoting Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S., at 674.
I join the opinion and judgment of the Court.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, concurring in the judgment.
Nothing in the United States Constitution as interpreted by this Court or in the laws of the State of Alabama prohibits public school students from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the schoolday. Alabama has facilitated voluntary silent prayers of students who are so inclined by enacting Ala. Code § 16-1-20 (Supp. 1984), which provides a moment of silence in appellees' schools each day. The parties to these proceedings concede the validity of this enactment. At issue in these appeals in the constitutional validity of an additional and subsequent Alabama statute, Ala. Code § 16-1-20.1 (Supp. 1984), which both the District Court and the Court of Appeals concluded was enacted solely to officially encourage prayer during the moment of silence. I agree with the judgment of the Court that, in light of the findings of the courts below and the history of its enactment, § 16-1-20.1 of the Alabama Code violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In my view, there can be little doubt that the purpose and likely effect of this subsequent enactment is to endorse and sponsor voluntary prayer in the public schools. I write separately to identify the peculiar features of the Alabama law that render it invalid, and to explain why moment of silence laws in other States do not necessarily manifest the same infirmity. I also write to explain why neither history nor the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment validates the Alabama law struck down by the Court today.
I
The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, coupled with the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of ordered liberty, preclude both the Nation and the States from making any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting *68 the free exercise thereof. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940). Although a distinct jurisprudence has enveloped each of these Clauses, their common purpose is to secure religious liberty. See Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 430 (1962). On these principles the Court has been and remains unanimous.
As these cases once again demonstrate, however, "it is far easier to agree on the purpose that underlies the First Amendment's Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses than to obtain agreement on the standards that should govern their application." Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664, 694 (1970) (opinion of Harlan, J.). It once appeared that the Court had developed a workable standard by which to identify impermissible government establishments of religion. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971). Under the now familiar Lemon test, statutes must have both a secular legislative purpose and a principal or primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and in addition they must not foster excessive government entanglement with religion. Id., at 612-613. Despite its initial promise, the Lemon test has proved problematic. The required inquiry into "entanglement" has been modified and questioned, see Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 403, n. 11 (1983), and in one case we have upheld state action against an Establishment Clause challenge without applying the Lemon test at all. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983). The author of Lemon himself apparently questions the test's general applicability. See Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 679 (1984). JUSTICE REHNQUIST today suggests that we abandon Lemon entirely, and in the process limit the reach of the Establishment Clause to state discrimination between sects and government designation of a particular church as a "state" or "national" one. Post, at 108-113.
Perhaps because I am new to the struggle, I am not ready to abandon all aspects of the Lemon test. I do believe, however, that the standards announced in Lemon should be *69 reexamined and refined in order to make them more useful in achieving the underlying purpose of the First Amendment. We must strive to do more than erect a constitutional "signpost," Hunt v. McNair, 413 U. S. 734, 741 (1973), to be followed or ignored in a particular case as our predilections may dictate. Instead, our goal should be "to frame a principle for constitutional adjudication that is not only grounded in the history and language of the first amendment, but one that is also capable of consistent application to the relevant problems." Choper, Religion in the Public Schools: A Proposed Constitutional Standard, 47 Minn. L. Rev. 329, 332-333 (1963) (footnotes omitted). Last Term, I proposed a refinement of the Lemon test with this goal in mind. Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S., at 687-689 (concurring opinion).
The Lynch concurrence suggested that the religious liberty protected by the Establishment Clause is infringed when the government makes adherence to religion relevant to a person's standing in the political community. Direct government action endorsing religion or a particular religious practice is invalid under this approach because it "sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." Id., at 688. Under this view, Lemon's inquiry as to the purpose and effect of a statute requires courts to examine whether government's purpose is to endorse religion and whether the statute actually conveys a message of endorsement.
The endorsement test is useful because of the analytic content it gives to the Lemon-mandated inquiry into legislative purpose and effect. In this country, church and state must necessarily operate within the same community. Because of this coexistence, it is inevitable that the secular interests of government and the religious interests of various sects and their adherents will frequently intersect, conflict, and combine. A statute that ostensibly promotes a secular interest *70 often has an incidental or even a primary effect of helping or hindering a sectarian belief. Chaos would ensue if every such statute were invalid under the Establishment Clause. For example, the State could not criminalize murder for fear that it would thereby promote the Biblical command against killing. The task for the Court is to sort out those statutes and government practices whose purpose and effect go against the grain of religious liberty protected by the First Amendment.
The endorsement test does not preclude government from acknowledging religion or from taking religion into account in making law and policy. It does preclude government from conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred. Such an endorsement infringes the religious liberty of the nonadherent, for "[w]hen the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion in plain." Engel v. Vitale, supra, at 431. At issue today is whether state moment of silence statutes in general, and Alabama's moment of silence statute in particular, embody an impermissible endorsement of prayer in public schools.
A
Twenty-five states permit or require public school teachers to have students observe a moment of silence in their classrooms.[1] A few statutes provide that the moment of silence *71 is for the purpose of meditation alone. See Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15-522 (1984); Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-16a (1983); R. I. Gen. Laws § 16-12-3.1 (1981). The typical statute, however, calls for a moment of silence at the beginning of the schoolday during which students may meditate, pray, or reflect on the activities of the day. See, e. g., Ark. Stat. Ann. § 80-1607.1 (1980); Ga. Code Ann. § 20-2-1050 (1982); Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 122, ¶ 771 (1983); Ind. Code § 20-10.1-7-11 (1982); Kan. Stat. Ann. § 72-5308a (1980); Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 24, § 15-1516.1 (Purdon Supp. 1984-1985). Federal trial courts have divided on the constitutionality of these moment of silence laws. Compare Gaines v. Anderson, 421 F. Supp. 337 (Mass. 1976) (upholding statute), with May v. Cooperman, 572 F. Supp. 1561 (NJ 1983) (striking down statute); Duffy v. Las Cruces Public Schools, Additional Information