CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

[522] Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III, and IV, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White, Stevens, Scalia, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined, the opinion of the Court with respect to Part II—B, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White, Stevens, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined, the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts II—A-1 and II—A-3, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, Scalia, and Thomas, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part II—A-2, in which Stevens, J., joined. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Rehnquist, C. J., joined, post, p. 557. Souter, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 559. Blackmun, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which O'Connor, J., joined, post, p. 577.

[523] Douglas Laycock argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Jeanne Baker, Steven R. Shapiro, and Jorge A. Duarte.

Richard G. Garrett argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Stuart H. Singer and Steven M. Goldsmith.^[*]

Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part II—A-2.^[†]

The principle that government may not enact laws that suppress religious belief or practice is so well understood that few violations are recorded in our opinions. Cf. McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618 (1978); Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67 (1953). Concerned that this fundamental nonpersecution principle of the First Amendment was implicated here, however, we granted certiorari. 503 U. S. 935 (1992).

[524] Our review confirms that the laws in question were enacted by officials who did not understand, failed to perceive, or chose to ignore the fact that their official actions violated the Nation's essential commitment to religious freedom. The challenged laws had an impermissible object; and in all events the principle of general applicability was violated because the secular ends asserted in defense of the laws were pursued only with respect to conduct motivated by religious beliefs. We invalidate the challenged enactments and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

I

A

This case involves practices of the Santeria religion, which originated in the 19th century. When hundreds of thousands of members of the Yoruba people were brought as slaves from western Africa to Cuba, their traditional African religion absorbed significant elements of Roman Catholicism. The resulting syncretion, or fusion, is Santeria, "the way of the saints." The Cuban Yoruba express their devotion to spirits, called orishas, through the iconography of Catholic saints, Catholic symbols are often present at Santeria rites, and Santeria devotees attend the Catholic sacraments. 723 F. Supp. 1467, 1469-1470 (SD Fla. 1989); 13 Encyclopedia of Religion 66 (M. Eliade ed. 1987); 1 Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience 183 (C. Lippy & P. Williams eds. 1988).

The Santeria faith teaches that every individual has a destiny from God, a destiny fulfilled with the aid and energy of the or is has. The basis of the Santeria religion is the nurture of a personal relation with the or is has, and one of the principal forms of devotion is an animal sacrifice. 13 Encyclopedia of Religion, supra, at 66. The sacrifice of animals as part of religious rituals has ancient roots. See generally 12 id., at 554-556. Animal sacrifice is mentioned throughout the Old Testament, see 14 Encyclopedia Judaica 600, 600— [525] 605 (1971), and it played an important role in the practice of Judaism before destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem, see id., at 605-612. In modern Islam, there is an annual sacrifice commemorating Abraham's sacrifice of a ram in the stead of his son. See C. Glass, Concise Encyclopedia of Islam 178 (1989); 7 Encyclopedia of Religion, supra, at 456.

According to Santeria teaching, the or is has are powerful but not immortal. They depend for survival on the sacrifice. Sacrifices are performed at birth, marriage, and death rites, for the cure of the sick, for the initiation of new members and priests, and during an annual celebration. Animals sacrificed in Santeria rituals include chickens, pigeons, doves, ducks, guinea pigs, goats, sheep, and turtles. The animals are killed by the cutting of the carotid arteries in the neck. The sacrificed animal is cooked and eaten, except after healing and death rituals. See 723 F. Supp., at 1471-1472; 13 Encyclopedia of Religion, supra, at 66; M. Gonzlez-Wippler, The Santeria Experience 105 (1982).

Santeria adherents faced widespread persecution in Cuba, so the religion and its rituals were practiced in secret. The open practice of Santeria and its rites remains infrequent. See 723 F. Supp., at 1470; 13 Encyclopedia of Religion, supra, Gonzlez-Wippler, The at 67; M. Santeria: Religion 3-4 (1989). The religion was brought to this Nation most often by exiles from the Cuban revolution. The District Court estimated that there are at least 50,000 practitioners in South Florida today. See 723 F. Supp., at 1470.

B

Petitioner Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. (Church), is a not-for-profit corporation organized under Florida law in 1973. The Church and its congregants practice the Santeria religion. The president of the Church is petitioner Ernesto Pichardo, who is also the Church's priest and holds the religious title of Italero, the second highest in the Santeria faith. In April 1987, the Church leased land in [526] the city of Hialeah, Florida, and announced plans to establish a house of worship as well as a school, cultural center, and museum. Pichardo indicated that the Church's goal was to bring the practice of the Santeria faith, including its ritual of animal sacrifice, into the open. The Church began the process of obtaining utility service and receiving the necessary licensing, inspection, and zoning approvals. Although the Church's efforts at obtaining the necessary licenses and permits were far from smooth, see 723 F. Supp., at 1477-1478, it appears that it received all needed approvals by early August 1987.

The prospect of a Santeria church in their midst was distressing to many members of the Hialeah community, and the announcement of the plans to open a Santeria church in Hialeah prompted the city council to hold an emergency public session on June 9, 1987. The resolutions and ordinances passed at that and later meetings are set forth in the Appendix following this opinion.

A summary suffices here, beginning with the enactments passed at the June 9 meeting. First, the city council adopted Resolution 87-66, which noted the "concern" expressed by residents of the city "that certain religions may propose to engage in practices which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety," and declared that "[t]he City reiterates its commitment to a prohibition against any and all acts of any and all religious groups which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety." Next, the council approved an emergency ordinance, Ordinance 87-40, which incorporated in full, except as to penalty, Florida's animal cruelty laws. Fla. Stat. ch. 828 (1987). Among other things, the incorporated state law subjected to criminal punishment "[w]hoever . . . unnecessarily or cruelly . . . kills any animal." § 828.12.

The city council desired to undertake further legislative action, but Florida law prohibited a municipality from enacting legislation relating to animal cruelty that conflicted with [527] state law. § 828.27(4). To obtain clarification, Hialeah's city attorney requested an opinion from the attorney general of Florida as to whether § 828.12 prohibited "a religious group from sacrificing an animal in a religious ritual or practice" and whether the city could enact ordinances "making religious animal sacrifice unlawful." The attorney general responded in mid-July. He concluded that the "ritual sacrifice of animals for purposes other than food consumption" was not a "necessary" killing and so was prohibited by § 828.12. Fla. Op. Atty. Gen. 87-56, Annual Report of the Atty. Gen. 146, 147, 149 (1988). The attorney general appeared to define "unnecessary" as "done without any useful motive, in a spirit of wanton cruelty or for the mere pleasure of destruction without being in any sense beneficial or useful to the person killing the animal." Id., at 149, n. 11. He advised that religious animal sacrifice was against state law, so that a city ordinance prohibiting it would not be in conflict. Id., at 151.

The city council responded at first with a hortatory enactment, Resolution 87-90, that noted its residents' "great concern regarding the possibility of public ritualistic animal sacrifices" and the state-law prohibition. The resolution declared the city policy "to oppose the ritual sacrifices of animals" within Hialeah and announced that any person or organization practicing animal sacrifice "will be prosecuted."

In September 1987, the city council adopted three substantive ordinances addressing the issue of religious animal sacrifice. Ordinance 87-52 defined "sacrifice" as "to unnecessarily kill, torment, torture, or mutilate an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption," and prohibited owning or possessing an animal "intending to use such animal for food purposes." It restricted application of this prohibition, however, to any individual or group that "kills, slaughters or sacrifices animals for any type of ritual, regardless of whether or not the flesh or blood of the animal is to be consumed." The ordinance [528] contained an exemption for slaughtering by "licensed establishment[s]" of animals "specifically raised for food purposes." Declaring, moreover, that the city council "has determined that the sacrificing of animals within the city limits is contrary to the public health, safety, welfare and morals of the community," the city council adopted Ordinance 87-71. That ordinance defined "sacrifice" as had Ordinance 87-52, and then provided that "[i]t shall be unlawful for any person, persons, corporations or associations to sacrifice any animal within the corporate limits of the City of Hialeah, Florida." The final Ordinance, 87-72, defined "slaughter" as "the killing of animals for food" and prohibited slaughter outside of areas zoned for slaughterhouse use. The ordinance provided an exemption, however, for the slaughter or processing for sale of "small numbers of hogs and/or cattle per week in accordance with an exemption provided by state law." All ordinances and resolutions passed the city council by unanimous vote. Violations of each of the four ordinances were punishable by fines not exceeding $500 or imprisonment not exceeding 60 days, or both.

Following enactment of these ordinances, the Church and Pichardo filed this action pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Named as defendants were the city of Hialeah and its mayor and members of its city council in their individual capacities. Alleging violations of petitioners' rights under, inter alia, the Free Exercise Clause, the complaint sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive and monetary relief. The District Court granted summary judgment to the individual defendants, finding that they had absolute immunity for their legislative acts and that the ordinances and resolutions adopted by the council did not constitute an official policy of harassment, as alleged by petitioners. 688 F. Supp. 1522 (SD Fla. 1988).

After a 9-day bench trial on the remaining claims, the District Court ruled for the city, finding no violation of petitioners' [529] rights under the Free Exercise Clause. 723 F. Supp. 1467 (SD Fla. 1989). (The court rejected as well petitioners' other claims, which are not at issue here.) Although acknowledging that "the ordinances are not religiously neutral," id., at 1476, and that the city's concern about animal sacrifice was "prompted" by the establishment of the Church in the city, id., at 1479, the District Court concluded that the purpose of the ordinances was not to exclude the Church from the city but to end the practice of animal sacrifice, for whatever reason practiced, id., at 1479, 1483. The court also found that the ordinances did not target religious conduct "on their face," though it noted that in any event "specifically regulating [religious] conduct" does not violate the First Amendment "when [the conduct] is deemed inconsistent with public health and welfare." Id., at 1483-1484. Thus, the court concluded that, at most, the ordinances' effect on petitioners' religious conduct was "incidental to [their] secular purpose and effect." Id., at 1484.

The District Court proceeded to determine whether the governmental interests underlying the ordinances were compelling and, if so, to balance the "governmental and religious interests." The court noted that "[t]his `balance depends upon the cost to the government of altering its activity to allow the religious practice to continue unimpeded versus the cost to the religious interest imposed by the government activity.'" Ibid., quoting Grosz v. City of Miami Beach, 721 F. 2d 729, 734 (CA11 1983), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 827 (1984). The court found four compelling interests. First, the court found that animal sacrifices present a substantial health risk, both to participants and the general public. According to the court, animals that are to be sacrificed are often kept in unsanitary conditions and are uninspected, and animal remains are found in public places. 723 F. Supp., at 1474-1475, 1485. Second, the court found emotional injury to children who witness the sacrifice of animals. Id., at 1475-1476, 1485-1486. Third, the court found compelling the city's interest [530] in protecting animals from cruel and unnecessary killing. The court determined that the method of killing used in Santeria sacrifice was "unreliable and not humane, and that the animals, before being sacrificed, are often kept in conditions that produce a great deal of fear and stress in the animal." Id., at 1472-1473, 1486. Fourth, the District Court found compelling the city's interest in restricting the slaughter or sacrifice of animals to areas zoned for slaughterhouse use. Id., at 1486. This legal determination was not accompanied by factual findings.

Balancing the competing governmental and religious interests, the District Court concluded the compelling governmental interests "fully justify the absolute prohibition on ritual sacrifice" accomplished by the ordinances. Id., at 1487. The court also concluded that an exception to the sacrifice prohibition for religious conduct would "`unduly interfere with fulfillment of the governmental interest'" because any more narrow restrictions—e.g., regulation of disposal of animal carcasses—would be unenforceable as a result of the secret nature of the Santeria religion. Id., at 1486-1487, and nn. 57-59. A religious exemption from the city's ordinances, concluded the court, would defeat the city's compelling interests in enforcing the prohibition. Id., at 1487.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in a one-paragraph per curiam opinion. Judgt. order reported at 936 F. 2d 586 (1991). Choosing not to rely on the District Court's recitation of a compelling interest in promoting the welfare of children, the Court of Appeals stated simply that it concluded the ordinances were consistent with the Constitution. App. to Pet. for Cert. A2. It declined to address the effect of Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), decided after the District Court's opinion, because the District Court "employed an arguably stricter standard" than that applied in Smith. App. to Pet. for Cert. A2, n. 1.

[531] II

The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which has been applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940), provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." (Emphasis added.) The city does not argue that Santeria is not a "religion" within the meaning of the First Amendment. Nor could it. Although the practice of animal sacrifice may seem abhorrent to some, "religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection." Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 714 (1981). Given the historical association between animal sacrifice and religious worship, see supra, at 524-525, petitioners' assertion that animal sacrifice is an integral part of their religion "cannot be deemed bizarre or incredible." Frazee v. Illinois Dept. of Employment Security, 489 U. S. 829, 834, n. 2 (1989). Neither the city nor the courts below, moreover, have questioned the sincerity of petitioners' professed desire to conduct animal sacrifices for religious reasons. We must consider petitioners' First Amendment claim.

In addressing the constitutional protection for free exercise of religion, our cases establish the general proposition that a law that is neutral and of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice. Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, supra. Neutrality and general applicability are interrelated, and, as becomes apparent in this case, failure to satisfy one requirement is a likely indication that the other has not been satisfied. A law failing to satisfy these requirements must be justified by a compelling governmental interest and must be narrowly tailored to advance [532] that interest. These ordinances fail to satisfy the Smith requirements. We begin by discussing neutrality.

A

In our Establishment Clause cases we have often stated the principle that the First Amendment forbids an official purpose to disapprove of a particular religion or of religion in general. See, e.g., Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 248 (1990) (plurality opinion); School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373, 389 (1985); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 56 (1985); Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 106-107 (1968); School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 225 (1963); Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1947). These cases, however, for the most part have addressed governmental efforts to benefit religion or particular religions, and so have dealt with a question different, at least in its formulation and emphasis, from the issue here. Petitioners allege an attempt to disfavor their religion because of the religious ceremonies it commands, and the Free Exercise Clause is dispositive in our analysis.

At a minimum, the protections of the Free Exercise Clause pertain if the law at issue discriminates against some or all religious beliefs or regulates or prohibits conduct because it is undertaken for religious reasons. See, e.g., Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 607 (1961) (plurality opinion); Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S., at 69-70. Indeed, it was "historical instances of religious persecution and intolerance that gave concern to those who drafted the Free Exercise Clause." Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 703 (1986) (opinion of Burger, C. J.). See J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §§ 991-992 (abridged ed. 1833) (reprint 1987); T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 467 (1868) (reprint 1972); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 464, and n. 2 (1961) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.); Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, 179 (1943) (Jackson, J., concurring in result); [533] Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333, 342 (1890). These principles, though not often at issue in our Free Exercise Clause cases, have played a role in some. In McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618 (1978), for example, we invalidated a state law that disqualified members of the clergy from holding certain public offices, because it"impose[d] special disabilities on the basis of . . . religious status," Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S., at 877. On the same principle, in Fowler v. Rhode Island, supra, we found that a municipal ordinance was applied in an unconstitutional manner when interpreted to prohibit preaching in a public park by a Jehovah's Witness but to permit preaching during the course of a Catholic mass or Protestant church service. See also Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, 272-273 (1951). Cf. Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228 (1982) (state statute that treated some religious denominations more favorably than others violated the Establishment Clause).

1

Although a law targeting religious beliefs as such is never permissible, McDaniel v. Paty, supra, at 626 (plurality opinion); Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 303-304, if the object of a law is to infringe upon or restrict practices because of their religious motivation, the law is not neutral, see Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, supra, at 878-879; and it is invalid unless it is justified by a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to advance that interest. There are, of course, many ways of demonstrating that the object or purpose of a law is the suppression of religion or religious conduct. To determine the object of a law, we must begin with its text, for the minimum requirement of neutrality is that a law not discriminate on its face. A law lacks facial neutrality if it refers to a religious practice without a secular meaning discernible from the language or context. Petitioners contend that three of the ordinances fail this test of facial neutrality because they use the words [534] "sacrifice" and "ritual," words with strong religious connotations. Brief for Petitioners 16-17. We agree that these words are consistent with the claim of facial discrimination, but the argument is not conclusive. The words "sacrifice" and "ritual" have a religious origin, but current use admits also of secular meanings. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1961, 1996 (1971). See also 12 Encyclopedia of Religion, at 556 ("[T]he word sacrifice ultimately became very much a secular term in common usage"). The ordinances, furthermore, define "sacrifice" in secular terms, without referring to religious practices.

We reject the contention advanced by the city, see Brief for Respondent 15, that our inquiry must end with the text of the laws at issue. Facial neutrality is not determinative. The Free Exercise Clause, like the Establishment Clause, extends beyond facial discrimination. The Clause "forbids subtle departures from neutrality," Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437, 452 (1971), and "covert suppression of particular religious beliefs," Bowen v. Roy, supra, at 703 (opinion of Burger, C. J.). Official action that targets religious conduct for distinctive treatment cannot be shielded by mere compliance with the requirement of facial neutrality. The Free Exercise Clause protects against governmental hostility which is masked as well as overt. "The Court must survey meticulously the circumstances of governmental categories to eliminate, as it were, religious gerrymanders." Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664, 696 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring).

The record in this case compels the conclusion that suppression of the central element of the Santeria worship service was the object of the ordinances. First, though use of the words "sacrifice" and "ritual" does not compel a finding of improper targeting of the Santeria religion, the choice of these words is support for our conclusion. There are further respects in which the text of the city council's enactments discloses the improper attempt to target Santeria. [535] Resolution 87-66, adopted June 9, 1987, recited that "residents and citizens of the City of Hialeah have expressed their concern that certain religions may propose to engage in practices which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety," and "reiterate[d]" the city's commitment to prohibit "any and all [such] acts of any and all religious groups." No one suggests, and on this record it cannot be maintained, that city officials had in mind a religion other than Santeria.

It becomes evident that these ordinances target Santeria sacrifice when the ordinances' operation is considered. Apart from the text, the effect of a law in its real operation is strong evidence of its object. To be sure, adverse impact will not always lead to a finding of impermissible targeting. For example, a social harm may have been a legitimate concern of government for reasons quite apart from discrimination. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S., at 442. See, e.g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879); Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333 (1890). See also Ely, Legislative and Administrative Motivation in Constitutional Law, 79 Yale L. J. 1205, 1319 (1970). The subject at hand does implicate, of course, multiple concerns unrelated to religious animosity, for example, the suffering or mistreatment visited upon the sacrificed animals and health hazards from improper disposal. But the ordinances when considered together disclose an object remote from these legitimate concerns. The design of these laws accomplishes instead a "religious gerrymander," Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, supra, at 696 (Harlan, J., concurring), an impermissible attempt to target petitioners and their religious practices.

It is a necessary conclusion that almost the only conduct subject to Ordinances 87-40, 87-52, and 87-71 is the religious exercise of Santeria church members. The texts show that they were drafted in tandem to achieve this result. We begin with Ordinance 87-71. It prohibits the sacrifice of animals, but defines sacrifice as "to unnecessarily kill . . . an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the [536] primary purpose of food consumption." The definition excludes almost all killings of animals except for religious sacrifice, and the primary purpose requirement narrows the proscribed category even further, in particular by exempting kosher slaughter, see 723 F. Supp., at 1480. We need not discuss whether this differential treatment of two religions is itself an independent constitutional violation. Cf. Larsonv. Valente, 456 U. S., at 244-246. It suffices to recite this feature of the law as support for our conclusion that Santeria alone was the exclusive legislative concern. The net result of the gerrymander is that few if any killings of animals are prohibited other than Santeria sacrifice, which is proscribed because it occurs during a ritual or ceremony and its primary purpose is to make an offering to the orishas, not food consumption. Indeed, careful drafting ensured that, although Santeria sacrifice is prohibited, killings that are no more necessary or humane in almost all other circumstances are unpunished.

Operating in similar fashion is Ordinance 87-52, which prohibits the "possess[ion], sacrifice, or slaughter" of an animal with the "inten[t] to use such animal for food purposes." This prohibition, extending to the keeping of an animal as well as the killing itself, applies if the animal is killed in "any type of ritual" and there is an intent to use the animal for food, whether or not it is in fact consumed for food. The ordinance exempts, however, "any licensed [food] establishment" with regard to "any animals which are specifically raised for food purposes," if the activity is permitted by zoning and other laws. This exception, too, seems intended to cover kosher slaughter. Again, the burden of the ordinance, in practical terms, falls on Santeria adherents but almost no others: If the killing is—unlike most Santeria sacrifices—unaccompanied by the intent to use the animal for food, then it is not prohibited by Ordinance 87-52; if the killing is specifically for food but does not occur during the course of "any type of ritual," it again falls outside the prohibition; and if [537] the killing is for food and occurs during the course of a ritual, it is still exempted if it occurs in a properly zoned and licensed establishment and involves animals "specifically raised for food purposes." A pattern of exemptions parallels the pattern of narrow prohibitions. Each contributes to the gerrymander.

Ordinance 87-40 incorporates the Florida animal cruelty statute, Fla. Stat. § 828.12 (1987). Its prohibition is broad on its face, punishing "[w]hoever . . . unnecessarily . . . kills any animal." The city claims that this ordinance is the epitome of a neutral prohibition. Brief for Respondent 13-14. The problem, however, is the interpretation given to the ordinance by respondent and the Florida attorney general. Killings for religious reasons are deemed unnecessary, whereas most other killings fall outside the prohibition. The city, on what seems to be a per se basis, deems hunting, slaughter of animals for food, eradication of insects and pests, and euthanasia as necessary. See id., at 22. There is no indication in the record that respondent has concluded that hunting or fishing for sport is unnecessary. Indeed, one of the few reported Florida cases decided under § 828.12 concludes that the use of live rabbits to train greyhounds is not unnecessary. See Kiper v. State, 310 So. 2d 42 (Fla. App.), cert. denied, 328 So. 2d 845 (Fla. 1975). Further, because it requires an evaluation of the particular justification for the killing, this ordinance represents a system of "individualized governmental assessment of the reasons for the relevant conduct," Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore.v. Smith, 494 U. S., at 884. As we noted in Smith, in circumstances in which individualized exemptions from a general requirement are available, the government "may not refuse to extend that system to cases of `religious hardship' without compelling reason." Ibid., quoting Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S., at 708 (opinion of Burger, C. J.). Respondent's application of the ordinance's test of necessity devalues religious reasons for killing by judging them to be of lesser import than nonreligious [538] reasons. Thus, religious practice is being singled out for discriminatory treatment. Id., at 722, and n. 17 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in result); id., at 708 (opinion of Burger, C. J.); United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 264, n. 3 (1982) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment).

We also find significant evidence of the ordinances' improper targeting of Santeria sacrifice in the fact that they proscribe more religious conduct than is necessary to achieve their stated ends. It is not unreasonable to infer, at least when there are no persuasive indications to the contrary, that a law which visits "gratuitous restrictions" on religious conduct, McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S., at 520 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.), seeks not to effectuate the stated governmental interests, but to suppress the conduct because of its religious motivation.

The legitimate governmental interests in protecting the public health and preventing cruelty to animals could be addressed by restrictions stopping far short of a flat prohibition of all Santeria sacrificial practice.^[*] If improper disposal, not the sacrifice itself, is the harm to be prevented, the city could have imposed a general regulation on the disposal of organic garbage. It did not do so. Indeed, counsel for the city conceded at oral argument that, under the ordinances, Santeria sacrifices would be illegal even if they occurred in licensed, inspected, and zoned slaughterhouses. Tr. of Oral Arg. 45. See also id., at 42, 48. Thus, these broad ordinances prohibit Santeria sacrifice even when it does not threaten the city's [539] interest in the public health. The District Court accepted the argument that narrower regulation would be unenforceable because of the secrecy in the Santeria rituals and the lack of any central religious authority to require compliance with secular disposal regulations. See 723 F. Supp., at 1486-1487, and nn. 58-59. It is difficult to understand, however, how a prohibition of the sacrifices themselves, which occur in private, is enforceable if a ban on improper disposal, which occurs in public, is not. The neutrality of a law is suspect if First Amendment freedoms are curtailed to prevent isolated collateral harms not themselves prohibited by direct regulation. See, e.g., Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 162 (1939).

Under similar analysis, narrower regulation would achieve the city's interest in preventing cruelty to animals. With regard to the city's interest in ensuring the adequate care of animals, regulation of conditions and treatment, regardless of why an animal is kept, is the logical response to the city's concern, not a prohibition on possession for the purpose of sacrifice. The same is true for the city's interest in prohibiting cruel methods of killing. Under federal and Florida law and Ordinance 87-40, which incorporates Florida law in this regard, killing an animal by the "simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a sharp instrument"—the method used in kosher slaughter—is approved as humane. See 7 U. S. C. § 1902(b); Fla. Stat. § 828.23(7)(b) (1991); Ordinance 87-40, § 1. The District Court found that, though Santeria sacrifice also results in severance of the carotid arteries, the method used during sacrifice is less reliable and therefore not humane. See 723 F. Supp., at 1472— 1473. If the city has a real concern that other methods are less humane, however, the subject of the regulation should be the method of slaughter itself, not a religious classification that is said to bear some general relation to it.

Ordinance 87-72—unlike the three other ordinances— does appear to apply to substantial nonreligious conduct and [540] not to be overbroad. For our purposes here, however, the four substantive ordinances may be treated as a group for neutrality purposes. Ordinance 87-72 was passed the same day as Ordinance 87-71 and was enacted, as were the three others, in direct response to the opening of the Church. It would be implausible to suggest that the three other ordinances, but not Ordinance 87-72, had as their object the suppression of religion. We need not decide whether Ordinance 87-72 could survive constitutional scrutiny if it existed separately; it must be invalidated because it functions, with the rest of the enactments in question, to suppress Santeria religious worship.

2

In determining if the object of a law is a neutral one under the Free Exercise Clause, we can also find guidance in our equal protection cases. As Justice Harlan noted in the related context of the Establishment Clause, "[n]eutrality in its application requires an equal protection mode of analysis." Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S., at 696 (concurring opinion). Here, as in equal protection cases, we may determine the city council's object from both direct and circumstantial evidence. Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 266 (1977). Relevant evidence includes, among other things, the historical background of the decision under challenge, the specific series of events leading to the enactment or official policy in question, and the legislative or administrative history, including contemporaneous statements made by members of the decisionmaking body. Id., at 267-268. These objective factors bear on the question of discriminatory object. Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 279, n. 24 (1979).

That the ordinances were enacted "`because of,' not merely `in spite of,'" their suppression of Santeria religious practice, id., at 279, is revealed by the events preceding their enactment. Although respondent claimed at oral argument [541] that it had experienced significant problems resulting from the sacrifice of animals within the city before the announced opening of the Church, Tr. of Oral Arg. 27, 46, the city council made no attempt to address the supposed problem before its meeting in June 1987, just weeks after the Church announced plans to open. The minutes and taped excerpts of the June 9 session, both of which are in the record, evidence significant hostility exhibited by residents, members of the city council, and other city officials toward the Santeria religion and its practice of animal sacrifice. The public crowd that attended the June 9 meetings interrupted statements by council members critical of Santeria with cheers and the brief comments of Pichardo with taunts. When Councilman Martinez, a supporter of the ordinances, stated that in prerevolution Cuba "people were put in jail for practicing this religion," the audience applauded. Taped excerpts of Hialeah City Council Meeting, June 9, 1987.

Other statements by members of the city council were in a similar vein. For example, Councilman Martinez, after noting his belief that Santeria was outlawed in Cuba, questioned: "[I]f we could not practice this [religion] in our homeland [Cuba], why bring it to this country?" Councilman Cardoso said that Santeria devotees at the Church "are in violation of everything this country stands for." Councilman Mejides indicated that he was "totally against the sacrificing of animals" and distinguished kosher slaughter because it had a "real purpose." The "Bible says we are allowed to sacrifice an animal for consumption," he continued, "but for any other purposes, I don't believe that the Bible allows that." The president of the city council, Councilman Echevarria, asked: "What can we do to prevent the Church from opening?"

Various Hialeah city officials made comparable comments. The chaplain of the Hialeah Police Department told the city council that Santeria was a sin, "foolishness," "an abomination to the Lord," and the worship of "demons." He advised [542] the city council: "We need to be helping people and sharing with them the truth that is found in Jesus Christ." He concluded: "I would exhort you . . . not to permit this Church to exist." The city attorney commented that Resolution 87-66 indicated: "This community will not tolerate religious practices which are abhorrent to its citizens . . . ." Ibid. Similar comments were made by the deputy city attorney. This history discloses the object of the ordinances to target animal sacrifice by Santeria worshippers because of its religious motivation.

3

In sum, the neutrality inquiry leads to one conclusion: The ordinances had as their object the suppression of religion. The pattern we have recited discloses animosity to Santeria adherents and their religious practices; the ordinances by their own terms target this religious exercise; the texts of the ordinances were gerrymandered with care to proscribe religious killings of animals but to exclude almost all secular killings; and the ordinances suppress much more religious conduct than is necessary in order to achieve the legitimate ends asserted in their defense. These ordinances are not neutral, and the court below committed clear error in failing to reach this conclusion.

B

We turn next to a second requirement of the Free Exercise Clause, the rule that laws burdening religious practice must be of general applicability. Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S., at 879-881. All laws are selective to some extent, but categories of selection are of paramount concern when a law has the incidental effect of burdening religious practice. The Free Exercise Clause "protect[s] religious observers against unequal treatment," Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136, 148 (1987) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment), and inequality results when a legislature decides that [543] the governmental interests it seeks to advance are worthy of being pursued only against conduct with a religious motivation.

The principle that government, in pursuit of legitimate interests, cannot in a selective manner impose burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief is essential to the protection of the rights guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause. The principle underlying the general applicability requirement has parallels in our First Amendment jurisprudence. See, e.g., Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U. S. 663, 669-670 (1991); University of Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U. S. 182, 201 (1990); Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 585 (1983); Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S., at 245-246; Presbyterian Church in U. S. v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U. S. 440, 449 (1969). In this case we need not define with precision the standard used to evaluate whether a prohibition is of general application, for these ordinances fall well below the minimum standard necessary to protect First Amendment rights.

Respondent claims that Ordinances 87-40, 87-52, and 87-71 advance two interests: protecting the public health and preventing cruelty to animals. The ordinances are underinclusive for those ends. They fail to prohibit nonreligious conduct that endangers these interests in a similar or greater degree than Santeria sacrifice does. The underinclusion is substantial, not inconsequential. Despite the city's proffered interest in preventing cruelty to animals, the ordinances are drafted with care to forbid few killings but those occasioned by religious sacrifice. Many types of animal deaths or kills for nonreligious reasons are either not prohibited or approved by express provision. For example, fishing—which occurs in Hialeah, see A. Khedouri & F. Khedouri, South Florida Inside Out 57 (1991)—is legal. Extermination of mice and rats within a home is also permitted. Florida law incorporated by Ordinance 87-40 sanctions [544] euthanasia of "stray, neglected, abandoned, or unwanted animals," Fla. Stat. § 828.058 (1987); destruction of animals judicially removed from their owners "for humanitarian reasons" or when the animal "is of no commercial value," § 828.073(4)(c)(2); the infliction of pain or suffering "in the interest of medical science," § 828.02; the placing of poison in one's yard or enclosure, § 828.08; and the use of a live animal "to pursue or take wildlife or to participate in any hunting," § 828.122(6)(b), and "to hunt wild hogs," § 828.122(6)(e).

The city concedes that "neither the State of Florida nor the City has enacted a generally applicable ban on the killing of animals." Brief for Respondent 21. It asserts, however, that animal sacrifice is "different" from the animal killings that are permitted by law. Ibid. According to the city, it is "self-evident" that killing animals for food is "important"; the eradication of insects and pests is "obviously justified"; and the euthanasia of excess animals "makes sense." Id., at 22. These ipse dixits do not explain why religion alone must bear the burden of the ordinances, when many of these secular killings fall within the city's interest in preventing the cruel treatment of animals.

The ordinances are also underinclusive with regard to the city's interest in public health, which is threatened by the disposal of animal carcasses in open public places and the consumption of uninspected meat, see Brief for Respondent 32, citing 723 F. Supp., at 1474-1475, 1485. Neither interest is pursued by respondent with regard to conduct that is not motivated by religious conviction. The health risks posed by the improper disposal of animal carcasses are the same whether Santeria sacrifice or some nonreligious killing preceded it. The city does not, however, prohibit hunters from bringing their kill to their houses, nor does it regulate disposal after their activity. Despite substantial testimony at trial that the same public health hazards result from improper disposal of garbage by restaurants, see 11 Record 566, [545] 590-591, restaurants are outside the scope of the ordinances. Improper disposal is a general problem that causes substantial health risks, 723 F. Supp., at 1485, but which respondent addresses only when it results from religious exercise.

The ordinances are underinclusive as well with regard to the health risk posed by consumption of uninspected meat. Under the city's ordinances, hunters may eat their kill and fishermen may eat their catch without undergoing governmental inspection. Likewise, state law requires inspection of meat that is sold but exempts meat from animals raised for the use of the owner and "members of his household and nonpaying guests and employees." Fla. Stat. § 585.88(1)(a) (1991). The asserted interest in inspected meat is not pursued in contexts similar to that of religious animal sacrifice.

Ordinance 87-72, which prohibits the slaughter of animals outside of areas zoned for slaughterhouses, is underinclusive on its face. The ordinance includes an exemption for "any person, group, or organization" that "slaughters or processes for sale, small numbers of hogs and/or cattle per week in accordance with an exemption provided by state law." See Fla. Stat. § 828.24(3) (1991). Respondent has not explained why commercial operations that slaughter "small numbers" of hogs and cattle do not implicate its professed desire to prevent cruelty to animals and preserve the public health. Although the city has classified Santeria sacrifice as slaughter, subjecting it to this ordinance, it does not regulate other killings for food in like manner.

We conclude, in sum, that each of Hialeah's ordinances pursues the city's governmental interests only against conduct motivated by religious belief. The ordinances "ha[ve] every appearance of a prohibition that society is prepared to impose upon [Santeria worshippers] but not upon itself." Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U. S. 524, 542 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). This [546] precise evil is what the requirement of general applicability is designed to prevent.

III

A law burdening religious practice that is not neutral or not of general application must undergo the most rigorous of scrutiny. To satisfy the commands of the First Amendment, a law restrictive of religious practice must advance "`interests of the highest order'" and must be narrowly tailored in pursuit of those interests. McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S., at 628, quoting Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 215 (1972). The compelling interest standard that we apply once a law fails to meet the Smith requirements is not "water[ed] . . . down" but "really means what it says." Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S., at 888. A law that targets religious conduct for distinctive treatment or advances legitimate governmental interests only against conduct with a religious motivation will survive strict scrutiny only in rare cases. It follows from what we have already said that these ordinances cannot withstand this scrutiny.

First, even were the governmental interests compelling, the ordinances are not drawn in narrow terms to accomplish those interests. As we have discussed, see supra, at 538-540, 543-546, all four ordinances are overbroad or underinclusive in substantial respects. The proffered objectives are not pursued with respect to analogous nonreligious conduct, and those interests could be achieved by narrower ordinances that burdened religion to a far lesser degree. The absence of narrow tailoring suffices to establish the invalidity of the ordinances. See Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221, 232 (1987).

Respondent has not demonstrated, moreover, that, in the context of these ordinances, its governmental interests are compelling. Where government restricts only conduct protected by the First Amendment and fails to enact feasible [547] measures to restrict other conduct producing substantial harm or alleged harm of the same sort, the interest given in justification of the restriction is not compelling. It is established in our strict scrutiny jurisprudence that "a law cannot be regarded as protecting an interest `of the highest order'. . . when it leaves appreciable damage to that supposedly vital interest unprohibited." Florida Star v. B. J. F., supra, at 541-542 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (citation omitted). See Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State Crime Victims Bd., 502 U. S. 105, 119-120 (1991). Cf. Florida Star v. B. J. F., supra, at 540— 541; Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., 443 U. S. 97, 104— 105 (1979); id., at 110 (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment). As we show above, see supra, at 543-546, the ordinances are underinclusive to a substantial extent with respect to each of the interests that respondent has asserted, and it is only conduct motivated by religious conviction that bears the weight of the governmental restrictions. There can be no serious claim that those interests justify the ordinances.

IV

The Free Exercise Clause commits government itself to religious tolerance, and upon even slight suspicion that proposals for state intervention stem from animosity to religion or distrust of its practices, all officials must pause to remember their own high duty to the Constitution and to the rights it secures. Those in office must be resolute in resisting importunate demands and must ensure that the sole reasons for imposing the burdens of law and regulation are secular. Legislators may not devise mechanisms, overt or disguised, designed to persecute or oppress a religion or its practices. The laws here in question were enacted contrary to these constitutional principles, and they are void.

Reversed.

[548] APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT

City of Hialeah, Florida, Resolution No. 87-66, adopted June 9, 1987, provides:

"WHEREAS, residents and citizens of the City of Hialeah have expressed their concern that certain religions may propose to engage in practices which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety, and

"WHEREAS, the Florida Constitution, Article I, Declaration of Rights, Section 3, Religious Freedom, specifically states that religious freedom shall not justify practices inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety.

"NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIALEAH, FLORIDA, that:

"1. The City reiterates its commitment to a prohibition against any and all acts of any and all religious groups which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety."

City of Hialeah, Florida, Ordinance No. 87-40, adopted June 9, 1987, provides:

"WHEREAS, the citizens of the City of Hialeah, Florida, have expressed great concern over the potential for animal sacrifices being conducted in the City of Hialeah; and

"WHEREAS, Section 828.27, Florida Statutes, provides that `nothing contained in this section shall prevent any county or municipality from enacting any ordinance relating to animal control or cruelty to animals which is identical to the provisions of this Chapter . . . except as to penalty.'

"NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIALEAH, FLORIDA, that:

[549] "Section 1. The Mayor and City Council of the City of Hialeah, Florida, hereby adopt Florida Statute, Chapter 828—'Cruelty to Animals' (copy attached hereto and made a part hereof), in its entirety (relating to animal control or cruelty to animals), except as to penalty.

"Section 2. Repeal of Ordinances in Conflict.

"All ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict.

"Section 3. Penalties.

"Any person, firm or corporation convicted of violating the provisions of this ordinance shall be punished by a fine, not exceeding $500.00, or by a jail sentence, not exceeding sixty (60) days, or both, in the discretion of the Court.

"Section 4. Inclusion in Code.

"The provisions of this Ordinance shall be included and incorporated in the Code of the City of Hialeah, as an addition or amendment thereto, and the sections of this Ordinance shall be re-numbered to conform to the uniform numbering system of the Code.

"Section 5. Severability Clause.

"If any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph or section of this Ordinance shall be declared invalid or unconstitutional by the judge or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity or unconstitutionality shall not effect any of the remaining phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs or sections of this ordinance.

"Section 6. Effective Date.

"This Ordinance shall become effective when passed by the City Council of the City of Hialeah and signed by the Mayor of the City of Hialeah."

City of Hialeah Resolution No. 87-90, adopted August 11, 1987, provides:

"WHEREAS, the residents and citizens of the City of Hialeah, Florida, have expressed great concern regarding [550] the possibility of public ritualistic animal sacrifices in the City of Hialeah, Florida; and

"WHEREAS, the City of Hialeah, Florida, has received an opinion from the Attorney General of the State of Florida, concluding that public ritualistic animal sacrifices is [sic] a violation of the Florida State Statute on Cruelty to Animals; and

"WHEREAS, the Attorney General further held that the sacrificial killing of animals other than for the primary purpose of food consumption is prohibited under state law; and

"WHEREAS, the City of Hialeah, Florida, has enacted an ordinance mirroring state law prohibiting cruelty to animals.

"NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIALEAH, FLORIDA, that:

"Section 1. It is the policy of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Hialeah, Florida, to oppose the ritual sacrifices of animals within the City of Hialeah, Florida [sic]. Any individual or organization that seeks to practice animal sacrifice in violation of state and local law will be prosecuted."

City of Hialeah, Florida, Ordinance No. 87-52, adopted September 8, 1987, provides:

"WHEREAS, the residents and citizens of the City of Hialeah, Florida, have expressed great concern regarding the possibility of public ritualistic animal sacrifices within the City of Hialeah, Florida; and

"WHEREAS, the City of Hialeah, Florida, has received an opinion from the Attorney General of the State of Florida, concluding that public ritualistic animal sacrifice, other than for the primary purpose of food consumption, is a violation of state law; and

[551] "WHEREAS, the City of Hialeah, Florida, has enacted an ordinance (Ordinance No. 87-40), mirroring the state law prohibiting cruelty to animals.

"WHEREAS, the City of Hialeah, Florida, now wishes to specifically prohibit the possession of animals for slaughter or sacrifice within the City of Hialeah, Florida.

"NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIALEAH, FLORIDA, that:

"Section 1. Chapter 6 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Hialeah, Florida, is hereby amended by adding thereto two (2) new Sections 6-8 `Definitions' and 6-9 `Prohibition Against Possession Of Animals For Slaughter Or Sacrifice', which is to read as follows:

"Section 6-8. Definitions

"1. Animal—any living dumb creature.

"2. Sacrifice—to unnecessarily kill, torment, torture, or mutilate an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption.

"3. Slaughter—the killing of animals for food.

"Section 6-9. Prohibition Against Possession of Animals for Slaughter Or Sacrifice.

"1. No person shall own, keep or otherwise possess, sacrifice, or slaughter any sheep, goat, pig, cow or the young of such species, poultry, rabbit, dog, cat, or any other animal, intending to use such animal for food purposes.

"2. This section is applicable to any group or individual that kills, slaughters or sacrifices animals for any type of ritual, regardless of whether or not the flesh or blood of the animal is to be consumed.

"3. Nothing in this ordinance is to be interpreted as prohibiting any licensed establishment from slaughtering for food purposes any animals which are specifically [552] raised for food purposes where such activity is properly zoned and/or permitted under state and local law and under rules promulgated by the Florida Department of Agriculture.

"Section 2. Repeal of Ordinance in Conflict.

"All ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict.

"Section 3. Penalties.

"Any person, firm or corporation convicted of violating the provisions of this ordinance shall be punished by a fine, not exceeding $500.00, or by a jail sentence, not exceeding sixty (60) days, or both, in the discretion of the Court.

"Section 4. Inclusion in Code.

"The provisions of this Ordinance shall be included and incorporated in the Code of the City of Hialeah, as an addition or amendment thereto, and the sections of this Ordinance shall be re-numbered to conform to the uniform numbering system of the Code.

"Section 5. Severability Clause.

"If any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph or section of this Ordinance shall be declared invalid or unconstitutional by the judgement or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity or unconstitutionality shall not effect any of the remaining phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs or sections of this ordinance.

"Section 6. Effective Date.

"This Ordinance shall become effective when passed by the City Council of the City of Hialeah and signed by the Mayor of the City of Hialeah."

City of Hialeah, Florida, Ordinance No. 87-71, adopted September 22, 1987, provides:

"WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Hialeah, Florida, has determined that the sacrificing of animals [553] within the city limits is contrary to the public health, safety, welfare and morals of the community; and

"WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Hialeah, Florida, desires to have qualified societies or corporations organized under the laws of the State of Florida, to be authorized to investigate and prosecute any violation(s) of the ordinance herein after set forth, and for the registration of the agents of said societies.

"NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIALEAH, FLORIDA, that:

"Section 1. For the purpose of this ordinance, the word sacrifice shall mean: to unnecessarily kill, torment, torture, or mutilate an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption.

"Section 2. For the purpose of this ordinance, the word animal shall mean: any living dumb creature.

"Section 3. It shall be unlawful for any person, persons, corporations or associations to sacrifice any animal within the corporate limits of the City of Hialeah, Florida.

"Section 4. All societies or associations for the prevention of cruelty to animals organized under the laws of the State of Florida, seeking to register with the City of Hialeah for purposes of investigating and assisting in the prosecution of violations and provisions [sic] of this Ordinance, shall apply to the City Council for authorization to so register and shall be registered with the Office of the Mayor of the City of Hialeah, Florida, following approval by the City Council at a public hearing in accordance with rules and regulations (i. e., criteria) established by the City Council by resolution, and shall thereafter, be empowered to assist in the prosection of any violation of this Ordinance.

[554] "Section 5. Any society or association for the prevention of cruelty to animals registered with the Mayor of the City of Hialeah, Florida, in accordance with the provisions of Section 4 hereinabove, may appoint agents for the purposes of investigating and assisting in the prosecution of violations and provisions [sic] of this Ordinance, or any other laws of the City of Hialeah, Florida, for the purpose of protecting animals and preventing any act prohibited hereunder.

"Section 6. Repeal of Ordinances in Conflict.

"All ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict.

"Section 7. Penalties.

"Any person, firm or corporation convicted of violating the provisions of this ordinance shall be punished by a fine, not exceeding $500.00, or by a jail sentence, not exceeding sixty (60) days, or both, in the discretion of the Court.

"Section 8. Inclusion in Code.

"The provisions of this Ordinance shall be included and incorporated in the Code of the City of Hialeah, as an addition or amendment thereto, and the sections of this Ordinance shall be re-numbered to conform to the uniform numbering system of the Code.

"Section 9. Severability Clause.

"If any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph or section of this Ordinance shall be declared invalid or unconstitutional by the judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity or unconstitutionality shall not effect any of the remaining phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs or sections of this Ordinance.

"Section 10. Effective Date.

"This Ordinance shall become effective when passed by the City Council of the City of Hialeah and signed by the Mayor of the City of Hialeah."

[555] City of Hialeah, Florida, Ordinance No. 87-72, adopted September 22, 1987, provides:

"WHEREAS, the City Council of the City of Hialeah, Florida, has determined that the slaughtering of animals on the premises other than those properly zoned as a slaughter house, is contrary to the public health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Hialeah, Florida.

"NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HIALEAH, FLORIDA, that:

"Section 1. For the purpose of this Ordinance, the word slaughter shall mean: the killing of animals for food.

"Section 2. For the purpose of this Ordinance, the word animal shall mean: any living dumb creature.

"Section 3. It shall be unlawful for any person, persons, corporations or associations to slaughter any animal on any premises in the City of Hialeah, Florida, except those properly zoned as a slaughter house, and meeting all the health, safety and sanitation codes prescribed by the City for the operation of a slaughter house.

"Section 4. All societies or associations for the prevention of cruelty to animals organized under the laws of the State of Florida, seeking to register with the City of Hialeah for purposes of investigating and assisting in the prosecution of violations and provisions [sic] of this Ordinance, shall apply to the City Council for authorization to so register and shall be registered with the Office of the Mayor of the City of Hialeah, Florida, following approval by the City Council at a public hearing in accordance with rules and regulations (i. e., criteria) established by the City Council by resolution, and shall thereafter, be empowered to assist in the prosection of any violations of this Ordinance.

[556] "Section 5. Any society or association for the prevention of cruelty to animals registered with the Mayor of the City of Hialeah, Florida, in accordance with the provisions of Section 4 hereinabove, may appoint agents for the purposes of investigating and assisting in the prosecution of violations and provisions [sic] of this Ordinance, or any other laws of the City of Hialeah, Florida, for the purpose of protecting animals and preventing any act prohibited hereunder.

"Section 6. This Ordinance shall not apply to any person, group, or organization that slaughters, or processes for sale, small numbers of hogs and/or cattle per week in accordance with an exemption provided by state law.

"Section 7. Repeal of Ordinances in Conflict.

"All ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such conflict.

"Section 8. Penalties.

"Any person, firm or corporation convicted of violating the provisions of this ordinance shall be punished by a fine, not exceeding $500.00, or by a jail sentence, not exceeding sixty (60) days, or both, in the discretion of the Court.

"Section 9. Inclusion in Code.

"The provisions of this Ordinance shall be included and incorporated in the Code of the City of Hialeah, as an addition or amendment thereto, and the sections of this Ordinance shall be re-numbered to conform to the uniform numbering system of the Code.

"Section 10. Severability Clause.

"If any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph or section of this Ordinance shall be declared invalid or unconstitutional by the judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity or unconstitutionality shall not effect any of the remaining phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs or sections of this ordinance.

[557] "Section 11. Effective Date.

"This Ordinance shall become effective when passed by the City Council of the City of Hialeah and signed by the Mayor of the City of Hialeah."

Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

The Court analyzes the "neutrality" and the "general applicability" of the Hialeah ordinances in separate sections (Parts II—A and II—B, respectively), and allocates various invalidating factors to one or the other of those sections. If it were necessary to make a clear distinction between the two terms, I would draw a line somewhat different from the Court's. But I think it is not necessary, and would frankly acknowledge that the terms are not only "interrelated," ante, at 531, but substantially overlap.

The terms "neutrality" and "general applicability" are not to be found within the First Amendment itself, of course, but are used in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), and earlier cases to describe those characteristics which cause a law that prohibits an activity a particular individual wishes to engage in for religious reasons nonetheless not to constitute a "law . . . prohibiting the free exercise" of religion within the meaning of the First Amendment. In my view, the defect of lack of neutrality applies primarily to those laws that by their terms impose disabilities on the basis of religion (e.g., a law excluding members of a certain sect from public benefits, cf. McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618 (1978)), see Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 703-704 (1986) (opinion of Burger, C. J.); whereas the defect of lack of general applicability applies primarily to those laws which, though neutral in their terms, through their design, construction, or enforcement target the practices of a particular religion for discriminatory treatment, see Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67 (1953). But certainly a law that is not of general applicability (in the sense [558] I have described) can be considered "nonneutral"; and certainly no law that is nonneutral (in the relevant sense) can be thought to be of general applicability. Because I agree with most of the invalidating factors set forth in Part II of the Court's opinion, and because it seems to me a matter of no consequence under which rubric ("neutrality," Part II—A, or "general applicability," Part II—B) each invalidating factor is discussed, I join the judgment of the Court and all of its opinion except section 2 of Part II—A.

I do not join that section because it departs from the opinion's general focus on the object of the laws at issue to consider the subjective motivation of the lawmakers, i. e., whether the Hialeah City Council actually intended to disfavor the religion of Santeria. As I have noted elsewhere, it is virtually impossible to determine the singular "motive" of a collective legislative body, see, e.g., Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578, 636-639 (1987) (dissenting opinion), and this Court has a long tradition of refraining from such inquiries, see, e.g., Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 130-131 (1810) (Marshall, C. J.); United States v. O'Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 383-384 (1968).

Perhaps there are contexts in which determination of legislative motive must be undertaken. See, e.g., United States v. Lovett, 328 U. S. 303 (1946). But I do not think that is true of analysis under the First Amendment (or the Fourteenth, to the extent it incorporates the First). See Edwards v. Aguillard, supra, at 639 (Scalia, J., dissenting). The First Amendment does not refer to the purposes for which legislators enact laws, but to the effects of the laws enacted: "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion] . . . ." This does not put us in the business of invalidating laws by reason of the evil motives of their authors. Had the Hialeah City Council set out resolutely to suppress the practices of Santeria, but ineptly adopted ordinances that failed to do so, I do not see how those laws could be said to "prohibi[t] the free exercise" of [559] religion. Nor, in my view, does it matter that a legislature consists entirely of the purehearted, if the law it enacts in fact singles out a religious practice for special burdens. Had the ordinances here been passed with no motive on the part of any councilman except the ardent desire to prevent cruelty to animals (as might in fact have been the case), they would nonetheless be invalid.

Justice Souter, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

This case turns on a principle about which there is no disagreement, that the Free Exercise Clause bars government action aimed at suppressing religious belief or practice. The Court holds that Hialeah's animal-sacrifice laws violate that principle, and I concur in that holding without reservation.

Because prohibiting religious exercise is the object of the laws at hand, this case does not present the more difficult issue addressed in our last free-exercise case, Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), which announced the rule that a "neutral, generally applicable" law does not run afoul of the Free Exercise Clause even when it prohibits religious exercise in effect. The Court today refers to that rule in dicta, and despite my general agreement with the Court's opinion I do not join Part II, where the dicta appear, for I have doubts about whether the Smith rule merits adherence. I write separately to explain why the Smith rule is not germane to this case and to express my view that, in a case presenting the issue, the Court should reexamine the rule Smith declared.

I

According to Smith, if prohibiting the exercise of religion results from enforcing a "neutral, generally applicable" law, the Free Exercise Clause has not been offended. Id., at 878-880. I call this the Smith rule to distinguish it from the noncontroversial principle, also expressed in Smith though [560] established long before, that the Free Exercise Clause is offended when prohibiting religious exercise results from a law that is not neutral or generally applicable. It is this noncontroversial principle, that the Free Exercise Clause requires neutrality and general applicability, that is at issue here. But before turning to the relationship of Smith to this case, it will help to get the terms in order, for the significance of the Smith rule is not only in its statement that the Free Exercise Clause requires no more than "neutrality" and "general applicability," but also in its adoption of a particular, narrow conception of free-exercise neutrality.

That the Free Exercise Clause contains a "requirement for governmental neutrality," Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 220 (1972), is hardly a novel proposition; though the term does not appear in the First Amendment, our cases have used it as shorthand to describe, at least in part, what the Clause commands. See, e.g., Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization of Cal., 493 U. S. 378, 384 (1990); Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 717 (1981); Yoder, supra, at 220; Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 792-793 (1973); School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 222 (1963); see also McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618, 627-629 (1978) (plurality opinion) (invalidating a nonneutral law without using the term). Nor is there anything unusual about the notion that the Free Exercise Clause requires general applicability, though the Court, until today, has not used exactly that term in stating a reason for invalidation. See Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67 (1953); cf. Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U. S. 575, 585 (1983); Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228, 245-246 (1982).^[1]

[561] While general applicability is, for the most part, selfexplanatory, free-exercise neutrality is not self-revealing. Cf. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 627 (1992) (Souter, J., concurring) (considering Establishment Clause neutrality). A law that is religion neutral on its face or in its purpose may lack neutrality in its effect by forbidding something that religion requires or requiring something that religion forbids. Cf. McConnell & Posner, An Economic Approach to Issues of Religious Freedom, 56 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1, 35 (1989) ("[A] regulation is not neutral in an economic sense if, whatever its normal scope or its intentions, it arbitrarily imposes greater costs on religious than on comparable nonreligious activities"). A secular law, applicable to all, that prohibits consumption of alcohol, for example, will affect members of religions that require the use of wine differently from members of other religions and nonbelievers, disproportionately burdening the practice of, say, Catholicism or Judaism. Without an exemption for sacramental wine, Prohibition may fail the test of religion neutrality.^[2]

It does not necessarily follow from that observation, of course, that the First Amendment requires an exemption from Prohibition; that depends on the meaning of neutrality as the Free Exercise Clause embraces it. The point here is the unremarkable one that our common notion of neutrality is broad enough to cover not merely what might be called formal neutrality, which as a free-exercise requirement [562] would only bar laws with an object to discriminate against religion, but also what might be called substantive neutrality, which, in addition to demanding a secular object, would generally require government to accommodate religious differences by exempting religious practices from formally neutral laws. See generally Laycock, Formal, Substantive, and Disaggregated Neutrality Toward Religion, 39 DePaul L. Rev. 993 (1990). If the Free Exercise Clause secures only protection against deliberate discrimination, a formal requirement will exhaust the Clause's neutrality command; if the Free Exercise Clause, rather, safeguards a right to engage in religious activity free from unnecessary governmental interference, the Clause requires substantive, as well as formal, neutrality.^[3]

Though Smith used the term "neutrality" without a modifier, the rule it announced plainly assumes that free-exercise neutrality is of the formal sort. Distinguishing between laws whose "object" is to prohibit religious exercise and those that prohibit religious exercise as an "incidental effect," Smith placed only the former within the reaches of the Free Exercise Clause; the latter, laws that satisfy formal neutrality, Smith would subject to no free-exercise scrutiny at all, even when they prohibit religious exercise in application. 494 U. S., at 878. The four Justices who rejected the Smith rule, by contrast, read the Free Exercise Clause as embracing what I have termed substantive neutrality. The enforcement of a law "neutral on its face," they said, may "nonetheless offend [the Free Exercise Clause's] requirement [563] for government neutrality if it unduly burdens the free exercise of religion." Id., at 896 (opinion of O'Connor, J., joined by Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun, JJ.) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The rule these Justices saw as flowing from free-exercise neutrality, in contrast to the Smith rule, "requir[es] the government to justify any substantial burden on religiously motivated conduct by a compelling state interest and by means narrowly tailored to achieve that interest." Id., at 894 (emphasis added).

The proposition for which the Smith rule stands, then, is that formal neutrality, along with general applicability, are sufficient conditions for constitutionality under the Free Exercise Clause. That proposition is not at issue in this case, however, for Hialeah's animal-sacrifice ordinances are not neutral under any definition, any more than they are generally applicable. This case, rather, involves the noncontroversial principle repeated in Smith, that formal neutrality and general applicability are necessary conditions for freeexercise constitutionality. It is only "this fundamental nonpersecution principle of the First Amendment [that is] implicated here," ante, at 523, and it is to that principle that the Court adverts when it holds that Hialeah's ordinances "fail to satisfy the Smith requirements," ante, at 532. In applying that principle the Court does not tread on troublesome ground.

In considering, for example, whether Hialeah's animalsacrifice laws violate free-exercise neutrality, the Court rightly observes that "[a]t a minimum, the protections of the Free Exercise Clause pertain if the law at issue discriminates against some or all religious beliefs or regulates or prohibits conduct because it is undertaken for religious reasons," ibid., and correctly finds Hialeah's laws to fail those standards. The question whether the protections of the Free Exercise Clause also pertain if the law at issue, though nondiscriminatory in its object, has the effect nonetheless of placing a burden on religious exercise is not before the Court [564] today, and the Court's intimations on the matter are therefore dicta.

The Court also rightly finds Hialeah's laws to fail the test of general applicability, and as the Court "need not define with precision the standard used to evaluate whether a prohibition is of general application, for these ordinances fall well below the minimum standard necessary to protect First Amendment rights," ante, at 543, it need not discuss the rules that apply to prohibitions found to be generally applicable. The question whether "there are areas of conduct protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and thus beyond the power of the State to control, even under regulations of general applicability," Yoder, 406 U. S., at 220, is not before the Court in this case, and, again, suggestions on that score are dicta.

II

In being so readily susceptible to resolution by applying the Free Exercise Clause's "fundamental nonpersecution principle," ante, at 523, this is far from a representative freeexercise case. While, as the Court observes, the Hialeah City Council has provided a rare example of a law actually aimed at suppressing religious exercise, ante, at 523-524, Smith was typical of our free-exercise cases, involving as it did a formally neutral, generally applicable law. The rule Smith announced, however, was decidedly untypical of the cases involving the same type of law. Because Smith left those prior cases standing, we are left with a free-exercise jurisprudence in tension with itself, a tension that should be addressed, and that may legitimately be addressed, by reexamining the Smith rule in the next case that would turn upon its application.

A

In developing standards to judge the enforceability of formally neutral, generally applicable laws against the mandates of the Free Exercise Clause, the Court has addressed [565] the concepts of neutrality and general applicability by indicating, in language hard to read as not foreclosing the Smithrule, that the Free Exercise Clause embraces more than mere formal neutrality, and that formal neutrality and general applicability are not sufficient conditions for freeexercise constitutionality:

"In a variety of ways we have said that `[a] regulation neutral on its face may, in its application, nonetheless offend the constitutional requirement for governmental neutrality if it unduly burdens the free exercise of religion.'" Thomas, 450 U. S., at 717 (quoting Yoder, supra, at 220).

"[T]o agree that religiously grounded conduct must often be subject to the broad police power of the State is not to deny that there are areas of conduct protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and thus beyond the power of the State to control, even under regulations of general applicability." 450 U. S., at 717.

Not long before the Smith decision, indeed, the Court specifically rejected the argument that "neutral and uniform" requirements for governmental benefits need satisfy only a reasonableness standard, in part because "[s]uch a test has no basis in precedent." Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136, 141 (1987) (internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, we have said, "[o]ur cases have established that `[t]he free exercise inquiry asks whether government has placed a substantial burden on the observation of a central religious belief or practice and, if so, whether a compelling governmental interest justifies the burden.'" Swaggart Ministries, 493 U. S., at 384-385 (quoting Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U. S. 680, 699 (1989)).

Thus we have applied the same rigorous scrutiny to burdens on religious exercise resulting from the enforcement of formally neutral, generally applicable laws as we have applied to burdens caused by laws that single out religious exercise: [566] "`only those interests of the highest order and those not otherwise served can overbalance legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion.'" McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S., at 628 (plurality opinion) (quoting Yoder, supra, at 215). Compare McDaniel, supra, at 628-629 (plurality opinion) (applying that test to a law aimed at religious conduct) with Yoder, supra, at 215-229 (applying that test to a formally neutral, general law). Other cases in which the Court has applied heightened scrutiny to the enforcement of formally neutral, generally applicable laws that burden religious exercise include Hernandez v. Commissioner, supra, at 699; Frazee v. Illinois Dept. of Employment Security, 489 U. S. 829, 835 (1989); Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n, supra, at 141; Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U. S. 574, 604 (1983); United States v.Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 257-258 (1982); Thomas, supra, at 718; Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 403 (1963); and Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 304-307 (1940).

Though Smith sought to distinguish the free-exercise cases in which the Court mandated exemptions from secular laws of general application, see 494 U. S., at 881-885, I am not persuaded. Wisconsin v. Yoder, and Cantwell v. Connecticut, according to Smith, were not true free-exercise cases but "hybrid[s]" involving "the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections, such as freedom of speech and of the press, or the right of parents. . . to direct the education of their children." Smith, supra, at 881, 882. Neither opinion, however, leaves any doubt that "fundamental claims of religious freedom [were] at stake." Yoder, supra, at 221; see also Cantwell, supra, at 303-307.^[4] [567] And the distinction Smith draws strikes me as ultimately untenable. If a hybrid claim is simply one in which another constitutional right is implicated, then the hybrid exception would probably be so vast as to swallow the Smith rule, and, indeed, the hybrid exception would cover the situation exemplified by Smith, since free speech and associational rights are certainly implicated in the peyote ritual. But if a hybrid claim is one in which a litigant would actually obtain an exemption from a formally neutral, generally applicable law under another constitutional provision, then there would have been no reason for the Court in what Smith calls the hybrid cases to have mentioned the Free Exercise Clause at all.

Smith sought to confine the remaining free-exercise exemption victories, which involved unemployment compensation [568] systems, see Frazee, supra; Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136 (1987); Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707 (1981); and Sherbert, supra, as "stand[ing] for the proposition that where the State has in place a system of individual exemptions, it may not refuse to extend that system to cases of `religious hardship' without compelling reason." 494 U. S., at 884. But prior to Smith the Court had already refused to accept that explanation of the unemployment compensation cases. See Hobbie, supra, at 142, n. 7; Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 715-716 (1986) (opinion of Blackmun, J.); id., at 727-732 (opinion of O'Connor, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ.); id., at 733 (White, J., dissenting). And, again, the distinction fails to exclude Smith: "If Smith is viewed as an unemployment compensation case, the distinction is obviously spurious. If Smith is viewed as a hypothetical criminal prosecution for peyote use, there would be an individual governmental assessment of the defendants' motives and actions in the form of a criminal trial." McConnell, Free Exercise Revisionism and the Smith Decision, 57 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1109, 1124 (1990). Smith also distinguished the unemployment compensation cases on the ground that they did not involve "an across-the-board criminal prohibition on a particular form of conduct." 494 U. S., at 884. But even Chief Justice Burger's plurality opinion in Bowen v. Roy, on which Smith drew for its analysis of the unemployment compensation cases, would have applied its reasonableness test only to "denial of government benefits" and not to "governmental action or legislation that criminalizes religiously inspired activity or inescapably compels conduct that some find objectionable for religious reasons," Bowen v. Roy, supra, at 706 (opinion of Burger, C. J., joined by Powell and Rehnquist, JJ.); to the latter category of governmental action, it would have applied the test employed in Yoder, which involved an across-the-board criminal prohibition and which Chief Justice Burger's opinion treated as an ordinary freeexercise [569] case. See Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S., at 706-707; id., at 705, n. 15; Yoder, 406 U. S., at 218; see also McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S., at 628, n. 8 (noting cases in which courts considered claims for exemptions from general criminal prohibitions, cases the Court thought were "illustrative of the general nature of free-exercise protections and the delicate balancing required by our decisions in [Sherbert and Yoder, ] when an important state interest is shown").

As for the cases on which Smith primarily relied as establishing the rule it embraced, Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879), and Minersville School Dist. v. Gobitis, 310 U. S. 586 (1940), see Smith, supra, at 879, their subsequent treatment by the Court would seem to require rejection of the Smith rule. Reynolds, which in upholding the polygamy conviction of a Mormon stressed the evils it saw as associated with polygamy, see 98 U. S., at 166 ("polygamy leads to the patriarchal principle, and . . . fetters the people in stationary despotism"); id., at 165, 168, has been read as consistent with the principle that religious conduct may be regulated by general or targeting law only if the conduct "pose[s] some substantial threat to public safety, peace or order." Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S., at 403; see also United States v. Lee, 455 U. S., at 257-258; Bob Jones University, 461 U. S., at 603; Yoder, supra, at 230. And Gobitis, after three Justices who originally joined the opinion renounced it for disregarding the government's constitutional obligation "to accommodate itself to the religious views of minorities," Jones v. Opelika, 316 U. S. 584, 624 (1942) (opinion of Black, Douglas, and Murphy, JJ.), was explicitly overruled in West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943); see also id., at 643-644 (Black and Douglas, JJ., concurring).

Since holding in 1940 that the Free Exercise Clause applies to the States, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, the Court repeatedly has stated that the Clause sets strict limits on the government's power to burden religious exercise, whether it is a law's object to do so or its unanticipated [570] effect. Smith responded to these statements by suggesting that the Court did not really mean what it said, detecting in at least the most recent opinions a lack of commitment to the compelling-interest test in the context of formally neutral laws. Smith, supra, at 884-885. But even if the Court's commitment were that palid, it would argue only for moderating the language of the test, not for eliminating constitutional scrutiny altogether. In any event, I would have trouble concluding that the Court has not meant what it has said in more than a dozen cases over several decades, particularly when in the same period it repeatedly applied the compelling-interest test to require exemptions, even in a case decided the year before Smith. See Frazee v. Illinois Dept. of Employment Security, 489 U. S. 829 (1989).^[5] In sum, it seems to me difficult to escape the conclusion [571] that, whatever Smith `s virtues, they do not include a comfortable fit with settled law.

B

The Smith rule, in my view, may be reexamined consistently with principles of stare decisis. To begin with, the Smith rule was not subject to "full-dress argument" prior to its announcement. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 676-677 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting). The State of Oregon in Smith contended that its refusal to exempt religious peyote use survived the strict scrutiny required by "settled free exercise principles," inasmuch as the State had "a compelling interest in regulating" the practice of peyote use and could not "accommodate the religious practice without compromising [572] its interest." Brief for Petitioners in Smith, O. T. 1989, No. 88-1213, p. 5; see also id., at 5-36; Reply Brief for Petitioners in Smith, pp. 6-20. Respondents joined issue on the outcome of strict scrutiny on the facts before the Court, see Brief for Respondents in Smith, pp. 14-41, and neither party squarely addressed the proposition the Court was to embrace, that the Free Exercise Clause was irrelevant to the dispute. Sound judicial decisionmaking requires "both a vigorous prosecution and a vigorous defense" of the issues in dispute, Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 419 (1978), and a constitutional rule announced sua sponte is entitled to less deference than one addressed on full briefing and argument. Cf. Ladner v. United States, 358 U. S. 169, 173 (1958) (declining to address "an important and complex" issue concerning the scope of collateral attack upon criminal sentences because it had received "only meagre argument" from the parties, and the Court thought it "should have the benefit of a full argument before dealing with the question").

The Smith rule's vitality as precedent is limited further by the seeming want of any need of it in resolving the question presented in that case. Justice O'Connor reached the same result as the majority by applying, as the parties had requested, "our established free exercise jurisprudence," 494 U. S., at 903, and the majority never determined that the case could not be resolved on the narrower ground, going instead straight to the broader constitutional rule. But the Court's better practice, one supported by the same principles of restraint that underlie the rule of stare decisis, is not to "`formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied.'" Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (quoting Liverpool, New York & Philadelphia S. S. Co. v. Commissioners of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33, 39 (1885)). While I am not suggesting that the Smith Court lacked the power to announce its rule, I think a rule of law unnecessary to the outcome of a case, especially one not put [573] into play by the parties, approaches without more the sort of "dicta . . . which may be followed if sufficiently persuasive but which are not controlling." Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602, 627 (1935); see also Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441, 454-455 (1972).

I do not, of course, mean to imply that a broad constitutional rule announced without full briefing and argument necessarily lacks precedential weight. Over time, such a decision may become "part of the tissue of the law," Radovich v. National Football League, 352 U. S. 445, 455 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting), and may be subject to reliance in a way that new and unexpected decisions are not. Cf. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 854-855 (1992). Smith, however, is not such a case. By the same token, by pointing out Smith `s recent vintage I do not mean to suggest that novelty alone is enough to justify reconsideration. "[S]tare decisis, " as Justice Frankfurter wrote, "is a principle of policy and not a mechanical formula," Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 119 (1940), and the decision whether to adhere to a prior decision, particularly a constitutional decision, is a complex and difficult one that does not lend itself to resolution by application of simple, categorical rules, but that must account for a variety of often competing considerations.

The considerations of full briefing, necessity, and novelty thus do not exhaust the legitimate reasons for reexamining prior decisions, or even for reexamining the Smith rule. One important further consideration warrants mention here, however, because it demands the reexamination I have in mind. Smith presents not the usual question of whether to follow a constitutional rule, but the question of which constitutional rule to follow, for Smith refrained from overruling prior free-exercise cases that contain a free-exercise rule fundamentally at odds with the rule Smith declared. Smith, indeed, announced its rule by relying squarely upon [574] the precedent of prior cases. See 494 U. S., at 878 ("Our decisions reveal that the . . . reading" of the Free Exercise Clause contained in the Smith rule "is the correct one"). Since that precedent is nonetheless at odds with the Smith rule, as I have discussed above, the result is an intolerable tension in free-exercise law which may be resolved, consistently with principles of stare decisis, in a case in which the tension is presented and its resolution pivotal.

While the tension on which I rely exists within the body of our extant case law, a rereading of that case law will not, of course, mark the limits of any enquiry directed to reexamining the Smith rule, which should be reviewed in light not only of the precedent on which it was rested but also of the text of the Free Exercise Clause and its origins. As for text, Smith did not assert that the plain language of the Free Exercise Clause compelled its rule, but only that the rule was "a permissible reading" of the Clause. Ibid. Suffice it to say that a respectable argument may be made that the pre-Smith law comes closer to fulfilling the language of the Free Exercise Clause than the rule Smith announced. "[T]he Free Exercise Clause . . . , by its terms, gives special protection to the exercise of religion," Thomas, 450 U. S., at 713, specifying an activity and then flatly protecting it against government prohibition. The Clause draws no distinction between laws whose object is to prohibit religious exercise and laws with that effect, on its face seemingly applying to both.

Nor did Smith consider the original meaning of the Free Exercise Clause, though overlooking the opportunity was no unique transgression. Save in a handful of passing remarks, the Court has not explored the history of the Clause since its early attempts in 1879 and 1890, see Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S., at 162-166, and Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333, 342 (1890), attempts that recent scholarship makes clear were incomplete. See generally McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, [575] 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1409 (1990).^[6] The curious absence of history from our free-exercise decisions creates a stark contrast with our cases under the Establishment Clause, where historical analysis has been so prominent.^[7]

This is not the place to explore the history that a century of free-exercise opinions have overlooked, and it is enough to note that, when the opportunity to reexamine Smith presents itself, we may consider recent scholarship raising serious questions about the Smith rule's consonance with the original understanding and purpose of the Free Exercise Clause. See McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, supra; Durham, Religious Liberty and the Call of Conscience, 42 DePaul L. Rev. 71, 79-85 (1992); see also Office of Legal Policy, U. S. Dept. of Justice, Report to the Attorney General, Religious Liberty under the Free Exercise Clause 38-42 (1986) (predating Smith ). There appears to be a strong argument from the [576] Clause's development in the First Congress, from its origins in the post-Revolution state constitutions and pre-Revolution colonial charters, and from the philosophy of rights to which the Framers adhered, that the Clause was originally understood to preserve a right to engage in activities necessary to fulfill one's duty to one's God, unless those activities threatened the rights of others or the serious needs of the State. If, as this scholarship suggests, the Free Exercise Clause's original "purpose [was] to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions thereof by civil authority," School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 223, then there would be powerful reason to interpret the Clause to accord with its natural reading, as applying to all laws prohibiting religious exercise in fact, not just those aimed at its prohibition, and to hold the neutrality needed to implement such a purpose to be the substantive neutrality of our pre-Smith cases, not the formal neutrality sufficient for constitutionality under Smith.^[8]

[577] The scholarship on the original understanding of the Free Exercise Clause is, to be sure, not uniform. See, e.g., Hamburger, A Constitutional Right of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective, 60 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 915 (1992); Bradley, Beguiled: Free Exercise Exemptions and the Siren Song of Liberalism, 20 Hofstra L. Rev. 245 (1991). And there are differences of opinion as to the weight appropriately accorded original meaning. But whether or not one considers the original designs of the Clause binding, the interpretive significance of those designs surely ranks in the hierarchy of issues to be explored in resolving the tension inherent in free-exercise law as it stands today.

III

The extent to which the Free Exercise Clause requires government to refrain from impeding religious exercise defines nothing less than the respective relationships in our constitutional democracy of the individual to government and to God. "Neutral, generally applicable" laws, drafted as they are from the perspective of the nonadherent, have the unavoidable potential of putting the believer to a choice between God and government. Our cases now present competing answers to the question when government, while pursuing secular ends, may compel disobedience to what one believes religion commands. The case before us is rightly decided without resolving the existing tension, which remains for another day when it may be squarely faced.

Justice Blackmun, with whom Justice O'Connor joins, concurring in the judgment.

The Court holds today that the city of Hialeah violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments when it passed a set of restrictive ordinances explicitly directed at petitioners' religious practice. With this holding I agree. I write separately to emphasize that the First Amendment's protection of religion extends beyond those rare occasions on which the government explicitly targets religion (or a particular religion) [578] for disfavored treatment, as is done in this case. In my view, a statute that burdens the free exercise of religion "may stand only if the law in general, and the State's refusal to allow a religious exemption in particular, are justified by a compelling interest that cannot be served by less restrictive means." Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 907 (1990) (dissenting opinion). The Court, however, applies a different test. It applies the test announced in Smith, under which "a law that is neutral and of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice." Ante, at 531. I continue to believe that Smith was wrongly decided, because it ignored the value of religious freedom as an affirmative individual liberty and treated the Free Exercise Clause as no more than an antidiscrimination principle. See 494 U. S., at 908-909. Thus, while I agree with the result the Court reaches in this case, I arrive at that result by a different route.

When the State enacts legislation that intentionally or unintentionally places a burden upon religiously motivated practice, it must justify that burden by "showing that it is the least restrictive means of achieving some compelling state interest." Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 718 (1981). See also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 215 (1972). A State may no more create an underinclusive statute, one that fails truly to promote its purported compelling interest, than it may create an over inclusive statute, one that encompasses more protected conduct than necessary to achieve its goal. In the latter circumstance, the broad scope of the statute is unnecessary to serve the interest, and the statute fails for that reason. In the former situation, the fact that allegedly harmful conduct falls outside the statute's scope belies a governmental assertion that it has genuinely pursued an interest "of the highest order." Ibid. If the State's goal is important enough to prohibit religiously motivated activity, it [579] will not and must not stop at religiously motivated activity. Cf. Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U. S. 374, 390 (1978) (invalidating certain restrictions on marriage as "grossly underinclusive with respect to [their] purpose"); Supreme Court of N. H. v. Piper, 470 U. S. 274, 285, n. 19 (1985) (a rule excluding nonresidents from the bar of New Hampshire "is underinclusive . . . because it permits lawyers who move away from the State to retain their membership in the bar").

In this case, the ordinances at issue are both over inclusive and underinclusive in relation to the state interests they purportedly serve. They are over inclusive, as the majority correctly explains, because the "legitimate governmental interests in protecting the public health and preventing cruelty to animals could be addressed by restrictions stopping far short of a flat prohibition of all Santeria sacrificial practice." Ante, at 538. They are underinclusive as well, because "[d]espite the city's proffered interest in preventing cruelty to animals, the ordinances are drafted with care to forbid few killings but those occasioned by religious sacrifice." Ante, at 543. Moreover, the "ordinances are also underinclusive with regard to the city's interest in public health . . . ." Ante, at 544.

When a law discriminates against religion as such, as do the ordinances in this case, it automatically will fail strict scrutiny under Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 402-403, 407 (1963) (holding that governmental regulation that imposes a burden upon religious practice must be narrowly tailored to advance a compelling state interest). This is true because a law that targets religious practice for disfavored treatment both burdens the free exercise of religion and, by definition, is not precisely tailored to a compelling governmental interest.

Thus, unlike the majority, I do not believe that "[a] law burdening religious practice that is not neutral or not of general application must undergo the most rigorous of scrutiny." Ante, at 546. In my view, regulation that targets religion in this way, ipso facto, fails strict scrutiny. It is for this reason [580] that a statute that explicitly restricts religious practices violates the First Amendment. Otherwise, however, "[t]he First Amendment . . . does not distinguish between laws that are generally applicable and laws that target particular religious practices." Smith, 494 U. S., at 894 (opinion concurring in judgment).

It is only in the rare case that a state or local legislature will enact a law directly burdening religious practice as such. See ibid. Because respondent here does single out religion in this way, the present case is an easy one to decide.

A harder case would be presented if petitioners were requesting an exemption from a generally applicable anticruelty law. The result in the case before the Court today, and the fact that every Member of the Court concurs in that result, does not necessarily reflect this Court's views of the strength of a State's interest in prohibiting cruelty to animals. This case does not present, and I therefore decline to reach, the question whether the Free Exercise Clause would require a religious exemption from a law that sincerely pursued the goal of protecting animals from cruel treatment. The number of organizations that have filed amicus briefs on behalf of this interest,^[*] however, demonstrates that it is not a concern to be treated lightly.

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[*] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for Americans United for Separation of Church and State et al. by Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr., Steven T. McFarland, Bradley P. Jacob, and Michael W. McConnell; for the Council on Religious Freedom by Lee Boothby, Robert W. Nixon, Walter E. Carson, and Rolland Truman; and for the Rutherford Institute by John W. Whitehead.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the International Society for Animal Rights et al. by Henry Mark Holzer; for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals et al. by Gary L. Francione; and for the Washington Humane Society by E. Edward Bruce.

Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the United States Catholic Conference by Mark E. Chopko and John A. Liekweg; for the Humane Society of the United States et al. by Peter Buscemi, Maureen Beyers, Roger A. Kindler, and Eugene Underwood, Jr.; for the Institute for Animal Rights Law et al. by Henry Mark Holzer; and for the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs by Nathan Lewin and Dennis Rapps.

[†] The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join all but Part II—A-2 of this opinion. Justice White joins all but Part II—A of this opinion. Justice Souter joins only Parts I, III, and IV of this opinion.

[*] Respondent advances the additional governmental interest in prohibiting the slaughter or sacrifice of animals in areas of the city not zoned for slaughterhouses, see Brief for Respondent 28-31, and the District Court found this interest to be compelling, see 723 F. Supp. 1467, 1486 (SD Fla. 1989). This interest cannot justify Ordinances 87-40, 87-52, and 87-71, for they apply to conduct without regard to where it occurs. Ordinance 87-72 does impose a locational restriction, but this asserted governmental interest is a mere restatement of the prohibition itself, not a justification for it. In our discussion, therefore, we put aside this asserted interest.

[1] A law that is not generally applicable according to the Court's definition (one that "selective[ly] impose[s] burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief," ante, at 543) would, it seems to me, fail almost any test for neutrality. Accordingly, the cases stating that the Free Exercise Clause requires neutrality are also fairly read for the proposition that the Clause requires general applicability.

[2] Our cases make clear, to look at this from a different perspective, that an exemption for sacramental wine use would not deprive Prohibition of neutrality. Rather, "[s]uch an accommodation [would] `reflec[t] nothing more than the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences.'" Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 235, n. 22 (1972) (quoting Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 409 (1963)); see also Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 627 (1992) (Souter, J.,concurring). The prohibition law in place earlier this century did in fact exempt "wine for sacramental purposes." National Prohibition Act, Title II, § 3, 41 Stat. 308.

[3] One might further distinguish between formal neutrality and facial neutrality. While facial neutrality would permit discovery of a law's object or purpose only by analysis of the law's words, structure, and operation, formal neutrality would permit enquiry also into the intentions of those who enacted the law. Compare ante, at 540-542 (opinion of Kennedy, J.,joined by Stevens, J.) with ante, p. 557 (opinion of Scalia, J., joined by Rehnquist, C. J.). For present purposes, the distinction between formal and facial neutrality is less important than the distinction between those conceptions of neutrality and substantive neutrality.

[4] Yoder, which involved a challenge by Amish parents to the enforcement against them of a compulsory school attendance law, mentioned the parental rights recognized in Pierce v.Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510 (1925), as Smith pointed out. See Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S., at 881, n. 1 (citing Yoder, 406 U. S., at 233). But Yoder did so only to distinguish Pierce, which involved a substantive due process challenge to a compulsory school attendance law and which required merely a showing of "`reasonable[ness].'" 406 U. S., at 233 (quoting Pierce, supra, at 535). Where parents make a "free exercise claim," the Yoder Court said, the Pierce reasonableness test is inapplicable and the State's action must be measured by a stricter test, the test developed under the Free Exercise Clause and discussed at length earlier in the opinion. See 406 U. S., at 233; id., at 213-229. Quickly after the reference to parental rights, the Yoder opinion makes clear that the case involves "the central values underlying the Religion Clauses." Id., at 234. The Yoders raised only a free-exercise defense to their prosecution under the school-attendance law, id., at 209, and n. 4; certiorari was granted only on the free-exercise issue, id., at 207; and the Court plainly understood the case to involve "conduct protected by the Free Exercise Clause" even against enforcement of a "regulatio[n] of general applicability," id.,at 220.

As for Cantwell, Smith pointed out that the case explicitly mentions freedom of speech. See 494 U. S., at 881, n. 1 (citing Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S., at 307). But the quote to which Smith refers occurs in a portion of the Cantwell opinion (titled: "[s]econd, " and dealing with a breach-of-peace conviction for playing phonograph records, see 310 U. S., at 307) that discusses an entirely different issue from the section of Cantwell that Smith cites as involving a "neutral, generally applicable law" (titled: "[f]irst, " and dealing with a licensing system for solicitations, see Cantwell, supra, at 303-307). See Smith, supra, at 881.

[5] Though Smith implied that the Court, in considering claims for exemptions from formally neutral, generally applicable laws, has applied a "water[ed] down" version of strict scrutiny, 494 U. S., at 888, that appraisal confuses the cases in which we purported to apply strict scrutiny with the cases in which we did not. We did not purport to apply strict scrutiny in several cases involving discrete categories of governmental action in which there are special reasons to defer to the judgment of the political branches, and the opinions in those cases said in no uncertain terms that traditional heightened scrutiny applies outside those categories. See O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U. S. 342, 349 (1987) ("[P]rison regulations. . . are judged under a `reasonableness' test less restrictive than that ordinarily applied to alleged infringements of fundamental constitutional rights"); Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U. S. 503, 507 (1986) ("Our review of military regulations challenged on First Amendment grounds is far more deferential than constitutional review of similar laws or regulations designed for civilian society"); see also Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361, 385-386 (1974); Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437, 462 (1971). We also did not purport to apply strict scrutiny in several cases in which the claimants failed to establish a constitutionally cognizable burden on religious exercise, and again the opinions in those cases left no doubt that heightened scrutiny applies to the enforcement of formally neutral, general laws that do burden free exercise. See Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization of Cal., 493 U. S. 378, 384-385 (1990) ("Our cases have established that [t]he free exercise inquiry asks whether government has placed a substantial burden on the observation of a central religious belief or practice and, if so, whether a compelling governmental interest justifies the burden") (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn., 485 U. S. 439, 450 (1988) ("[T]his Court has repeatedly held that indirect coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions, are subject to [the] scrutiny" employed in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963); see also Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 606-607 (1961) (plurality opinion). Among the cases in which we have purported to apply strict scrutiny, we have required free-exercise exemptions more often than we have denied them. Compare Frazee v. Illinois Dept. of Employment Security, 489 U. S. 829 (1989); Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136 (1987); Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707 (1981); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940), with Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U. S. 680 (1989); Bob Jones Univ. v. United States, 461 U. S. 574 (1983); United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252 (1982). And of the three cases in which we found that denial of an exemption survived strict scrutiny (all tax cases), one involved the government's "fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education," Bob Jones University, supra, at 604; in a second the Court "doubt[ed] whether the alleged burden . . . [was] a substantial one," Hernandez, supra, at 699; and the Court seemed to be of the same view in the third, see Lee, supra, at 261, n. 12. These cases, I think, provide slim grounds for concluding that the Court has not been true to its word.

[6] Reynolds denied the free-exercise claim of a Mormon convicted of polygamy, and Davis v. Beason upheld against a free-exercise challenge a law denying the right to vote or hold public office to members of organizations that practice or encourage polygamy. Exactly what the two cases took from the Free Exercise Clause's origins is unclear. The cases are open to the reading that the Clause sometimes protects religious conduct from enforcement of generally applicable laws, see supra, at 569 (citing cases); that the Clause never protects religious conduct from the enforcement of generally applicable laws, see Smith, 494 U. S., at 879; or that the Clause does not protect religious conduct at all, see Yoder, 406 U. S., at 247 (Douglas, J., dissenting in part); McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1409, 1488, and n. 404 (1990).

[7] See Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 425-436 (1962); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 431-443 (1961); Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 8-16 (1947); see also Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 612-616, 622— 626 (1992) (Souter, J., concurring); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 91-107 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 232-239 (1963) (Brennan, J., concurring); McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 459-495 (Frankfurter, J., concurring); Everson, supra, at 31-43 (Rutledge, J., dissenting).

[8] The Court today observes that "historical instances of religious persecution and intolerance . . . gave concern to those who drafted the Free Exercise Clause." Ante, at 532 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). That is no doubt true, and of course it supports the proposition for which it was summoned, that the Free Exercise Clause forbids religious persecution. But the Court's remark merits this observation: the fact that the Framers were concerned about victims of religious persecution by no means demonstrates that the Framers intended the Free Exercise Clause to forbid only persecution, the inference the Smith rule requires. On the contrary, the eradication of persecution would mean precious little to a member of a formerly persecuted sect who was nevertheless prevented from practicing his religion by the enforcement of "neutral, generally applicable" laws. If what drove the Framers was a desire to protect an activity they deemed special, and if "the [Framers] were well aware of potential conflicts between religious conviction and social duties," A. Adams & C. Emmerich, A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty 61 (1990), they may well have hoped to bar not only prohibitions of religious exercise fueled by the hostility of the majority, but prohibitions flowing from the indifference or ignorance of the majority as well.

[*] See Brief for Washington Humane Society in support of Respondent; Brief for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance, and Foundation for Animal Rights Advocacy in support of Respondent; Brief for Humane Society of the United States, American Humane Association, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Inc., and Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in support of Respondent; Brief for the International Society for Animal Rights, Citizens for Animals, Farm Animal Reform Movement, In Defense of Animals, Performing Animal Welfare Society, and Student Action Corps for Animals in support of Respondent; and Brief for the Institute for Animal Rights Law, American Fund for Alternatives to Animal Research, Farm Sanctuary, Jews for Animal Rights, United Animal Nations, and United Poultry Concerns in support of Respondent.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[441] Andrew J. Pincus argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Fried, Acting Assistant Attorney General Marzulla, Deputy Solicitor General Ayer, Robert L. Klarquist, and Jacques B. Gelin.

Marilyn B. Miles argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief for the Indian respondents was Stephen V. Quesenberry. John K. Van de Kamp, Attorney General, R. H. Connett, Assistant Attorney General, and Edna Walz, Deputy Attorney General filed a brief for respondent State of California.^[*]

JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case requires us to consider whether the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause prohibits the Government from permitting timber harvesting in, or constructing a road through, a portion of a National Forest that has traditionally [442] been used for religious purposes by members of three American Indian tribes in northwestern California. We conclude that it does not.

I

As part of a project to create a paved 75-mile road linking two California towns, Gasquet and Orleans, the United States Forest Service has upgraded 49 miles of previously unpaved roads on federal land. In order to complete this project (the G-O road), the Forest Service must build a 6-mile paved segment through the Chimney Rock section of the Six Rivers National Forest. That section of the forest is situated between two other portions of the road that are already complete.

In 1977, the Forest Service issued a draft environmental impact statement that discussed proposals for upgrading an existing unpaved road that runs through the Chimney Rock area. In response to comments on the draft statement, the Forest Service commissioned a study of American Indian cultural and religious sites in the area. The Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation adjoins the Six Rivers National Forest, and the Chimney Rock area has historically been used for religious purposes by Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa Indians. The commissioned study, which was completed in 1979, found that the entire area "is significant as an integral and indispensible part of Indian religious conceptualization and practice." App. 181. Specific sites are used for certain rituals, and "successful use of the [area] is dependent upon and facilitated by certain qualities of the physical environment, the most important of which are privacy, silence, and an undisturbed natural setting." Ibid. (footnote omitted). The study concluded that constructing a road along any of the available routes "would cause serious and irreparable damage to the sacred areas which are an integral and necessary part of the belief systems and lifeway of Northwest California Indian peoples." Id., at 182. Accordingly, the report recommended that the G-O road not be completed.

[443] In 1982, the Forest Service decided not to adopt this recommendation, and it prepared a final environmental impact statement for construction of the road. The Regional Forester selected a route that avoided archeological sites and was removed as far as possible from the sites used by contemporary Indians for specific spiritual activities. Alternative routes that would have avoided the Chimney Rock area altogether were rejected because they would have required the acquisition of private land, had serious soil stability problems, and would in any event have traversed areas having ritualistic value to American Indians. See id., at 217-218. At about the same time, the Forest Service adopted a management plan allowing for the harvesting of significant amounts of timber in this area of the forest. The management plan provided for one-half mile protective zones around all the religious sites identified in the report that had been commissioned in connection with the G-O road.

After exhausting their administrative remedies, respondents — an Indian organization, individual Indians, nature organizations and individual members of those organizations, and the State of California — challenged both the road-building and timber-harvesting decisions in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Respondents claimed that the Forest Service's decisions violated the Free Exercise Clause, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), 86 Stat. 896, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq., the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 83 Stat. 852, 42 U. S. C. § 4321 et seq., several other federal statutes, and governmental trust responsibilities to Indians living on the Hoopa Valley Reservation.

After a trial, the District Court issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the Government from constructing the Chimney Rock section of the G-O road or putting the timber-harvesting management plan into effect. See Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn. v. Peterson, 565 F. Supp. 586 (1983). The court found that both actions would violate [444] the Free Exercise Clause because they "would seriously damage the salient visual, aural, and environmental qualities of the high country." Id., at 594-595. The court also found that both proposed actions would violate the FWPCA, and that the environmental impact statements for construction of the road were deficient under the NEPA. Finally, the court concluded that both projects would breach the Government's trust responsibilities to protect water and fishing rights reserved to the Hoopa Valley Indians.

While an appeal was pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Congress enacted the California Wilderness Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98-425, 98 Stat. 1619. Under that statute, much of the property covered by the Forest Service's management plan is now designated a wilderness area, which means that commercial activities such as timber harvesting are forbidden. The statute exempts a narrow strip of land, coinciding with the Forest Service's proposed route for the remaining segment of the G-O road, from the wilderness designation. The legislative history indicates that this exemption was adopted "to enable the completion of the Gasquet-Orleans Road project if the responsible authorities so decide." S. Rep. No. 98-582, p. 29 (1984). The existing unpaved section of road, however, lies within the wilderness area and is therefore now closed to general traffic.

A panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn. v. Peterson, 795 F. 2d 688 (1986). The panel unanimously rejected the District Court's conclusion that the Government's proposed actions would breach its trust responsibilities to Indians on the Hoopa Valley Reservation. The panel also vacated the injunction to the extent that it had been rendered moot by the California Wilderness Act, which now prevents timber harvesting in certain areas covered by the District Court's order. The District Court's decision, to the extent that it rested on statutory grounds, was otherwise unanimously affirmed.

[445] By a divided decision, the District Court's constitutional ruling was also affirmed. Relying primarily on the Forest Service's own commissioned study, the majority found that construction of the Chimney Rock section of the G-O road would have significant, though largely indirect, adverse effects on Indian religious practices. The majority concluded that the Government had failed to demonstrate a compelling interest in the completion of the road, and that it could have abandoned the road without thereby creating "a religious preserve for a single group in violation of the establishment clause." Id., at 694. The majority apparently applied the same analysis to logging operations that might be carried out in portions of the Chimney Rock area not covered by the California Wilderness Act. See id., at 692-693 ("Because most of the high country has now been designated by Congress as a wilderness area, the issue of logging becomes less significant, although it does not disappear").

The dissenting judge argued that certain of the adverse effects on the Indian respondents' religious practices could be eliminated by less drastic measures than a ban on building the road, and that other actual or suggested adverse effects did not pose a serious threat to the Indians' religious practices. He also concluded that the injunction against timber harvesting needed to be reconsidered in light of the California Wilderness Act: "It is not clear whether the district court would have issued an injunction based upon the development of the remaining small parcels. Accordingly, I would remand to allow the district court to reevaluate its injunction in light of the Act." Id., at 704.

II

We begin by noting that the courts below did not articulate the bases of their decisions with perfect clarity. A fundamental and longstanding principle of judicial restraint requires that courts avoid reaching constitutional questions in advance of the necessity of deciding them. See Three [446] Affiliated Tribes of Ft. Berthold Reservation v. Wold Engineering, P. C., 467 U. S. 138, 157-158 (1984); see also, e. g., Jean v. Nelson, 472 U. S. 846, 854 (1985); Gulf Oil Co. v. Bernard, 452 U. S. 89, 99 (1981); Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 346-348 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring). This principle required the courts below to determine, before addressing the constitutional issue, whether a decision on that question could have entitled respondents to relief beyond that to which they were entitled on their statutory claims. If no additional relief would have been warranted, a constitutional decision would have been unnecessary and therefore inappropriate.

Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals explained or expressly articulated the necessity for their constitutional holdings. Were we persuaded that those holdings were unnecessary, we could simply vacate the relevant portions of the judgment below without discussing the merits of the constitutional issue. The structure and wording of the District Court's injunctive order, however, suggest that the statutory holdings would not have supported all the relief granted. The order is divided into four sections. Two of those sections deal with a 31,100-acre tract referred to as the Blue Creek Roadless Area. The injunction prohibits the Forest Service from engaging in timber harvesting or road building anywhere on the tract "unless and until" compliance with the NEPA and the FWPCA have been demonstrated. 565 F. Supp., at 606-607. The sections of the injunction dealing with the smaller Chimney Rock area (i. e., the area affected by the First Amendment challenge) are worded differently. The Forest Service is permanently enjoined, without any qualifying language, from constructing the proposed portion of the G-O road "and/or any alternative route" through that area; similarly, the injunction forbids timber harvesting or the construction of logging roads in the Chimney Rock area pursuant to the Forest Service's proposed management plan "or any other land management plan." [447] Id., at 606 (emphasis added). These differences in wording suggest, without absolutely implying, that an injunction covering the Chimney Rock area would in some way have been conditional, or narrower in scope, if the District Court had not decided the First Amendment issue as it did. Similarly, the silence of the Court of Appeals as to the necessity of reaching the First Amendment issue may have reflected its understanding that the District Court's injunction necessarily rested in part on constitutional grounds.

Because it appears reasonably likely that the First Amendment issue was necessary to the decisions below, we believe that it would be inadvisable to vacate and remand without addressing that issue on the merits. This conclusion is strengthened by considerations of judicial economy. The Government, which petitioned for certiorari on the constitutional issue alone, has informed us that it believes it can cure the statutory defects identified below, intends to do so, and will not challenge the adverse statutory rulings. Tr. of Oral Arg. 9-10. In this circumstance, it is difficult to see what principle would be vindicated by sending this case on what would almost certainly be a brief round trip to the courts below.

III

A

The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment provides that "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]." It is undisputed that the Indian respondents' beliefs are sincere and that the Government's proposed actions will have severe adverse effects on the practice of their religion. Those respondents contend that the burden on their religious practices is heavy enough to violate the Free Exercise Clause unless the Government can demonstrate a compelling need to complete the G-O road or to engage in timber harvesting in the Chimney Rock area. We disagree.

[448] In Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693 (1986), we considered a challenge to a federal statute that required the States to use Social Security numbers in administering certain welfare programs. Two applicants for benefits under these programs contended that their religious beliefs prevented them from acceding to the use of a Social Security number for their 2-year-old daughter because the use of a numerical identifier would " `rob the spirit' of [their] daughter and prevent her from attaining greater spiritual power." Id., at 696. Similarly, in this case, it is said that disruption of the natural environment caused by the G-O road will diminish the sacredness of the area in question and create distractions that will interfere with "training and ongoing religious experience of individuals using [sites within] the area for personal medicine and growth . . . and as integrated parts of a system of religious belief and practice which correlates ascending degrees of personal power with a geographic hierarchy of power." App. 181. Cf. id., at 178 ("Scarred hills and mountains, and disturbed rocks destroy the purity of the sacred areas, and [Indian] consultants repeatedly stressed the need of a training doctor to be undistracted by such disturbance"). The Court rejected this kind of challenge in Roy:

"The Free Exercise Clause simply cannot be understood to require the Government to conduct its own internal affairs in ways that comport with the religious beliefs of particular citizens. Just as the Government may not insist that [the Roys] engage in any set form of religious observance, so [they] may not demand that the Government join in their chosen religious practices by refraining from using a number to identify their daughter. . . .

". . . The Free Exercise Clause affords an individual protection from certain forms of governmental compulsion; it does not afford an individual a right to dictate the conduct of the Government's internal procedures." 476 U. S., at 699-700.

[449] The building of a road or the harvesting of timber on publicly owned land cannot meaningfully be distinguished from the use of a Social Security number in Roy. In both cases, the challenged Government action would interfere significantly with private persons' ability to pursue spiritual fulfillment according to their own religious beliefs. In neither case, however, would the affected individuals be coerced by the Government's action into violating their religious beliefs; nor would either governmental action penalize religious activity by denying any person an equal share of the rights, benefits, and privileges enjoyed by other citizens.

We are asked to distinguish this case from Roy on the ground that the infringement on religious liberty here is "significantly greater," or on the ground that the Government practice in Roy was "purely mechanical" whereas this case involves "a case-by-case substantive determination as to how a particular unit of land will be managed." Brief for Indian Respondents 33-34. Similarly, we are told that this case can be distinguished from Roy because "the government action is not at some physically removed location where it places no restriction on what a practitioner may do." Brief for Respondent State of California 18. The State suggests that the Social Security number in Roy "could be characterized as interfering with Roy's religious tenets from a subjective point of view, where the government's conduct of `its own internal affairs' was known to him only secondhand and did not interfere with his ability to practice his religion." Id., at 19 (footnote omitted; internal citation omitted). In this case, however, it is said that the proposed road will "physically destro[y] the environmental conditions and the privacy without which the [religious] practices cannot be conducted." Ibid.

These efforts to distinguish Roy are unavailing. This Court cannot determine the truth of the underlying beliefs that led to the religious objections here or in Roy, see Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136, 144, n. 9 (1987), and accordingly cannot weigh the adverse effects [450] on the appellees in Roy and compare them with the adverse effects on the Indian respondents. Without the ability to make such comparisons, we cannot say that the one form of incidental interference with an individual's spiritual activities should be subjected to a different constitutional analysis than the other.

Respondents insist, nonetheless, that the courts below properly relied on a factual inquiry into the degree to which the Indians' spiritual practices would become ineffectual if the G-O road were built. They rely on several cases in which this Court has sustained free exercise challenges to government programs that interfered with individuals' ability to practice their religion. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972) (compulsory school-attendance law); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963) (denial of unemployment benefits to applicant who refused to accept work requiring her to violate the Sabbath); Thomas v. Review Board, Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707 (1981) (denial of unemployment benefits to applicant whose religion forbade him to fabricate weapons); Hobbie, supra (denial of unemployment benefits to religious convert who resigned position that required her to work on the Sabbath).

Even apart from the inconsistency between Roy and respondents' reading of these cases, their interpretation will not withstand analysis. It is true that this Court has repeatedly held that indirect coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions, are subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment. Thus, for example, ineligibility for unemployment benefits, based solely on a refusal to violate the Sabbath, has been analogized to a fine imposed on Sabbath worship. Sherbert, supra, at 404. This does not and cannot imply that incidental effects of government programs, which may make it more difficult to practice certain religions but which have no tendency to coerce individuals into acting contrary to their religious beliefs, require government to bring forward a compelling justification [451] for its otherwise lawful actions. The crucial word in the constitutional text is "prohibit": "For the Free Exercise Clause is written in terms of what the government cannot do to the individual, not in terms of what the individual can exact from the government." Sherbert, supra, at 412 (Douglas, J., concurring).

Whatever may be the exact line between unconstitutional prohibitions on the free exercise of religion and the legitimate conduct by government of its own affairs, the location of the line cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector's spiritual development. The Government does not dispute, and we have no reason to doubt, that the logging and road-building projects at issue in this case could have devastating effects on traditional Indian religious practices. Those practices are intimately and inextricably bound up with the unique features of the Chimney Rock area, which is known to the Indians as the "high country." Individual practitioners use this area for personal spiritual development; some of their activities are believed to be critically important in advancing the welfare of the Tribe, and indeed, of mankind itself. The Indians use this area, as they have used it for a very long time, to conduct a wide variety of specific rituals that aim to accomplish their religious goals. According to their beliefs, the rituals would not be efficacious if conducted at other sites than the ones traditionally used, and too much disturbance of the area's natural state would clearly render any meaningful continuation of traditional practices impossible. To be sure, the Indians themselves were far from unanimous in opposing the G-O road, see App. 180, and it seems less than certain that construction of the road will be so disruptive that it will doom their religion. Nevertheless, we can assume that the threat to the efficacy of at least some religious practices is extremely grave.

Even if we assume that we should accept the Ninth Circuit's prediction, according to which the G-O road will "virtually destroy the . . . Indians' ability to practice their religion," [452] 795 F. 2d, at 693 (opinion below), the Constitution simply does not provide a principle that could justify upholding respondents' legal claims. However much we might wish that it were otherwise, government simply could not operate if it were required to satisfy every citizen's religious needs and desires. A broad range of government activities — from social welfare programs to foreign aid to conservation projects — will always be considered essential to the spiritual well-being of some citizens, often on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs. Others will find the very same activities deeply offensive, and perhaps incompatible with their own search for spiritual fulfillment and with the tenets of their religion. The First Amendment must apply to all citizens alike, and it can give to none of them a veto over public programs that do not prohibit the free exercise of religion. The Constitution does not, and courts cannot, offer to reconcile the various competing demands on government, many of them rooted in sincere religious belief, that inevitably arise in so diverse a society as ours. That task, to the extent that it is feasible, is for the legislatures and other institutions. Cf. The Federalist No. 10 (suggesting that the effects of religious factionalism are best restrained through competition among a multiplicity of religious sects).

One need not look far beyond the present case to see why the analysis in Roy, but not respondents' proposed extension of Sherbert and its progeny, offers a sound reading of the Constitution. Respondents attempt to stress the limits of the religious servitude that they are now seeking to impose on the Chimney Rock area of the Six Rivers National Forest. While defending an injunction against logging operations and the construction of a road, they apparently do not at present object to the area's being used by recreational visitors, other Indians, or forest rangers. Nothing in the principle for which they contend, however, would distinguish this case from another lawsuit in which they (or similarly situated religious objectors) might seek to exclude all human activity but [453] their own from sacred areas of the public lands. The Indian respondents insist that "[p]rivacy during the power quests is required for the practitioners to maintain the purity needed for a successful journey." Brief for Indian Respondents 8 (emphasis added; citation to record omitted). Similarly: "The practices conducted in the high country entail intense meditation and require the practitioner to achieve a profound awareness of the natural environment. Prayer seats are oriented so there is an unobstructed view, and the practitioner must be surrounded by undisturbed naturalness." Id., at 8, n. 4 (emphasis added; citations to record omitted). No disrespect for these practices is implied when one notes that such beliefs could easily require de facto beneficial ownership of some rather spacious tracts of public property. Even without anticipating future cases, the diminution of the Government's property rights, and the concomitant subsidy of the Indian religion, would in this case be far from trivial: the District Court's order permanently forbade commercial timber harvesting, or the construction of a two-lane road, anywhere within an area covering a full 27 sections (i. e. more than 17,000 acres) of public land.

The Constitution does not permit government to discriminate against religions that treat particular physical sites as sacred, and a law prohibiting the Indian respondents from visiting the Chimney Rock area would raise a different set of constitutional questions. Whatever rights the Indians may have to the use of the area, however, those rights do not divest the Government of its right to use what is, after all, its land. Cf. Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S., at 724-727 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (distinguishing between the Government's use of information in its possession and the Government's requiring an individual to provide such information).

B

Nothing in our opinion should be read to encourage governmental insensitivity to the religious needs of any citizen. [454] The Government's rights to the use of its own land, for example, need not and should not discourage it from accommodating religious practices like those engaged in by the Indian respondents. Cf. Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 422-423 (Harlan, J., dissenting). It is worth emphasizing, therefore, that the Government has taken numerous steps in this very case to minimize the impact that construction of the G-O road will have on the Indians' religious activities. First, the Forest Service commissioned a comprehensive study of the effects that the project would have on the cultural and religious value of the Chimney Rock area. The resulting 423-page report was so sympathetic to the Indians' interests that it has constituted the principal piece of evidence relied on by respondents throughout this litigation.

Although the Forest Service did not in the end adopt the report's recommendation that the project be abandoned, many other ameliorative measures were planned. No sites where specific rituals take place were to be disturbed. In fact, a major factor in choosing among alternative routes for the road was the relation of the various routes to religious sites: the route selected by the Regional Forester is, he noted, "the farthest removed from contemporary spiritual sites; thus, the adverse audible intrusions associated with the road would be less than all other alternatives." App. 102. Nor were the Forest Service's concerns limited to "audible intrusions." As the dissenting judge below observed, 10 specific steps were planned to reduce the visual impact of the road on the surrounding country. See 795 F. 2d, at 703 (Beezer, J., dissenting in part).

Except for abandoning its project entirely, and thereby leaving the two existing segments of road to dead-end in the middle of a National Forest, it is difficult to see how the Government could have been more solicitous. Such solicitude accords with "the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions [455] of the American Indian . . . including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites." American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), Pub. L. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469, 42 U. S. C. § 1996.

Respondents, however, suggest that AIRFA goes further and in effect enacts their interpretation of the First Amendment into statutory law. Although this contention was rejected by the District Court, they seek to defend the judgment below by arguing that AIRFA authorizes the injunction against completion of the G-O road. This argument is without merit. After reciting several legislative findings, AIRFA "resolves" upon the policy quoted above. A second section of the statute, 92 Stat. 470, required an evaluation of federal policies and procedures, in consultation with native religious leaders, of changes necessary to protect and preserve the rights and practices in question. The required report dealing with this evaluation was completed and released in 1979. Reply Brief for Petitioners 2, n. 3. Nowhere in the law is there so much as a hint of any intent to create a cause of action or any judicially enforceable individual rights.

What is obvious from the face of the statute is confirmed by numerous indications in the legislative history. The sponsor of the bill that became AIRFA, Representative Udall, called it "a sense of Congress joint resolution," aimed at ensuring that "the basic right of the Indian people to exercise their traditional religious practices is not infringed without a clear decision on the part of the Congress or the administrators that such religious practices must yield to some higher consideration." 124 Cong. Rec. 21444 (1978). Representative Udall emphasized that the bill would not "confer special religious rights on Indians," would "not change any existing State or Federal law," and in fact "has no teeth in it." Id., at 21444-21445.

[456] C

The dissent proposes an approach to the First Amendment that is fundamentally inconsistent with the principles on which our decision rests. Notwithstanding the sympathy that we all must feel for the plight of the Indian respondents, it is plain that the approach taken by the dissent cannot withstand analysis. On the contrary, the path towards which it points us is incompatible with the text of the Constitution, with the precedents of this Court, and with a responsible sense of our own institutional role.

The dissent begins by asserting that the "constitutional guarantee we interpret today . . . is directed against any form of government action that frustrates or inhibits religious practice." Post, at 459 (emphasis added). The Constitution, however, says no such thing. Rather, it states: "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]." U. S. Const., Amdt. 1 (emphasis added).

As we explained above, Bowen v. Roy rejected a First Amendment challenge to Government activities that the religious objectors sincerely believed would " ` "rob the spirit" of [their] daughter and prevent her from attaining greater spiritual power.' " See supra, at 448 (quoting Roy, 476 U. S., at 696). The dissent now offers to distinguish that case by saying that the Government was acting there "in a purely internal manner," whereas land-use decisions "are likely to have substantial external effects." Post, at 470. Whatever the source or meaning of the dissent's distinction, it has no basis in Roy. Robbing the spirit of a child, and preventing her from attaining greater spiritual power, is both a "substantial external effect" and one that is remarkably similar to the injury claimed by respondents in the case before us today. The dissent's reading of Roy would effectively overrule that decision, without providing any compelling justification for doing so.

The dissent also misreads Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972). The statute at issue in that case prohibited the [457] Amish parents, on pain of criminal prosecution, from providing their children with the kind of education required by the Amish religion. Id., at 207-209, 223. The statute directly compelled the Amish to send their children to public high schools "contrary to the Amish religion and way of life." Id., at 209. The Court acknowledged that the statute might be constitutional, despite its coercive nature, if the State could show with sufficient "particularity how its admittedly strong interest in compulsory education would be adversely affected by granting an exemption to the Amish." Id., at 236 (citation omitted). The dissent's out-of-context quotations notwithstanding, there is nothing whatsoever in the Yoder opinion to support the proposition that the "impact" on the Amish religion would have been constitutionally problematic if the statute at issue had not been coercive in nature. Cf. post, at 466.

Perceiving a "stress point in the longstanding conflict between two disparate cultures," the dissent attacks us for declining to "balanc[e] these competing and potentially irreconcilable interests, choosing instead to turn this difficult task over to the Federal Legislature." Post, at 473. Seeing the Court as the arbiter, the dissent proposes a legal test under which it would decide which public lands are "central" or "indispensable" to which religions, and by implication which are "dispensable" or "peripheral," and would then decide which government programs are "compelling" enough to justify "infringement of those practices." Post, at 475. We would accordingly be required to weigh the value of every religious belief and practice that is said to be threatened by any government program. Unless a "showing of `centrality,' " post, at 474, is nothing but an assertion of centrality, see post, at 475, the dissent thus offers us the prospect of this Court's holding that some sincerely held religious beliefs and practices are not "central" to certain religions, despite protestations to the contrary from the religious objectors who brought the lawsuit. In other words, the dissent's approach would [458] require us to rule that some religious adherents misunderstand their own religious beliefs. We think such an approach cannot be squared with the Constitution or with our precedents, and that it would cast the Judiciary in a role that we were never intended to play.

IV

The decision of the court below, according to which the First Amendment precludes the Government from completing the G-O road or from permitting timber harvesting in the Chimney Rock area, is reversed. In order that the District Court's injunction may be reconsidered in light of this holding, and in the light of any other relevant events that may have intervened since the injunction issued, the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE KENNEDY took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL and JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, dissenting.

" `[T]he Free Exercise Clause,' " the Court explains today, " `is written in terms of what the government cannot do to the individual, not in terms of what the individual can exact from the government.' " Ante, at 451 (quoting Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 412 (1963) (Douglas, J., concurring)). Pledging fidelity to this unremarkable constitutional principle, the Court nevertheless concludes that even where the Government uses federal land in a manner that threatens the very existence of a Native American religion, the Government is simply not "doing" anything to the practitioners of that faith. Instead, the Court believes that Native Americans who request that the Government refrain from destroying their religion effectively seek to exact from the Government de facto beneficial ownership of federal property. These two astonishing conclusions follow naturally from the Court's determination [459] that federal land-use decisions that render the practice of a given religion impossible do not burden that religion in a manner cognizable under the Free Exercise Clause, because such decisions neither coerce conduct inconsistent with religious belief nor penalize religious activity. The constitutional guarantee we interpret today, however, draws no such fine distinctions between types of restraints on religious exercise, but rather is directed against any form of governmental action that frustrates or inhibits religious practice. Because the Court today refuses even to acknowledge the constitutional injury respondents will suffer, and because this refusal essentially leaves Native Americans with absolutely no constitutional protection against perhaps the gravest threat to their religious practices, I dissent.

I

For at least 200 years and probably much longer, the Yurok, Karok, and Tolowa Indians have held sacred an approximately 25-square-mile area of land situated in what is today the Blue Creek Unit of Six Rivers National Forest in northwestern California. As the Government readily concedes, regular visits to this area, known to respondent Indians as the "high country," have played and continue to play a "critical" role in the religious practices and rituals of these Tribes. Brief for Petitioners 3. Those beliefs, only briefly described in the Court's opinion, are crucial to a proper understanding of respondents' claims.

As the Forest Service's commissioned study, the Theodoratus Report, explains, for Native Americans religion is not a discrete sphere of activity separate from all others, and any attempt to isolate the religious aspects of Indian life "is in reality an exercise which forces Indian concepts into non-Indian categories." App. 110; D. Theodoratus, Cultural Resources of the Chimney Rock Section, Gasquet-Orleans Road, Six Rivers National Forest (1979). Thus, for most Native Americans, "[t]he area of worship cannot be delineated from [460] social, political, cultur[al], and other areas o[f] Indian lifestyle." American Indian Religious Freedom, Hearings on S. J. Res. 102 before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 95th Cong., 2d Sess., 86 (1978) (statement of Barney Old Coyote, Crow Tribe). A pervasive feature of this lifestyle is the individual's relationship with the natural world; this relationship, which can accurately though somewhat incompletely be characterized as one of stewardship, forms the core of what might be called, for want of a better nomenclature, the Indian religious experience. While traditional Western religions view creation as the work of a deity "who institutes natural laws which then govern the operation of physical nature," tribal religions regard creation as an ongoing process in which they are morally and religiously obligated to participate. U. S. Federal Agencies Task Force, American Indian Religious Freedom Act Report 11 (1979) (Task Force Report). Native Americans fulfill this duty through ceremonies and rituals designed to preserve and stabilize the earth and to protect humankind from disease and other catastrophes. Failure to conduct these ceremonies in the manner and place specified, adherents believe, will result in great harm to the earth and to the people whose welfare depends upon it. Id., at 10.

In marked contrast to traditional Western religions, the belief systems of Native Americans do not rely on doctrines, creeds, or dogmas. Established or universal truths — the mainstay of Western religions — play no part in Indian faith. Ceremonies are communal efforts undertaken for specific purposes in accordance with instructions handed down from generation to generation. Commentaries on or interpretations of the rituals themselves are deemed absolute violations of the ceremonies, whose value lies not in their ability to explain the natural world or to enlighten individual believers but in their efficacy as protectors and enhancers of tribal existence. Ibid. Where dogma lies at the heart of Western religions, Native American faith is inextricably [461] bound to the use of land. The site-specific nature of Indian religious practice derives from the Native American perception that land is itself a sacred, living being. See Suagee, American Indian Religious Freedom and Cultural Resources Management: Protecting Mother Earth's Caretakers, 10 Am. Ind. L. Rev. 1, 10 (1982). Rituals are performed in prescribed locations not merely as a matter of traditional orthodoxy, but because land, like all other living things, is unique, and specific sites possess different spiritual properties and significance. Within this belief system, therefore, land is not fungible; indeed, at the time of the Spanish colonization of the American Southwest, "all . . . Indians held in some form a belief in a sacred and indissoluble bond between themselves and the land in which their settlements were located." E. Spicer, Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960, p. 576 (1962).

For respondent Indians, the most sacred of lands is the high country where, they believe, prehuman spirits moved with the coming of humans to the Earth. Because these spirits are seen as the source of religious power, or "medicine," many of the tribes' rituals and practices require frequent journeys to the area. Thus, for example, religious leaders preparing for the complex of ceremonies that underlie the Tribes' World Renewal efforts must travel to specific sites in the high country in order to attain the medicine necessary for successful renewal. Similarly, individual tribe members may seek curative powers for the healing of the sick, or personal medicine for particular purposes such as good luck in singing, hunting, or love. A period of preparation generally precedes such visits, and individuals must select trails in the sacred area according to the medicine they seek and their abilities, gradually moving to increasingly more powerful sites, which are typically located at higher altitudes. Among the most powerful of sites are Chimney Rock, Doctor Rock, and Peak 8, all of which are elevated rock outcroppings.

[462] According to the Theodoratus Report, the qualities "of silence, the aesthetic perspective, and the physical attributes, are an extension of the sacredness of [each] particular site." App. 148. The act of medicine making is akin to meditation: the individual must integrate physical, mental, and vocal actions in order to communicate with the prehuman spirits. As a result, "successful use of the high country is dependent upon and facilitated by certain qualities of the physical environment, the most important of which are privacy, silence, and an undisturbed natural setting." Id., at 181. Although few Tribe members actually make medicine at the most powerful sites, the entire Tribe's welfare hinges on the success of the individual practitioners.

Beginning in 1972, the Forest Service began preparing a multiple-use management plan for the Blue Creek Unit. The plan's principal features included the harvesting of 733 million board feet of Douglas fir over an 80-year period and the completion of a 6-mile segment of paved road running between two northern California towns, Gasquet and Orleans (the G-O road). The road's primary purpose was to provide a route for hauling the timber harvested under the management plan; in addition, it would enhance public access to the Six Rivers and other national forests, and allow for more efficient maintenance and fire control by the Forest Service itself. In the mid-1970's, the Forest Service circulated draft environmental impact statements evaluating the effects of several proposed routes for the final segment of the G-O road, including at least two that circumnavigated the high country altogether. Ultimately, however, the Service settled on a route running along the Chimney Rock Corridor, which traverses the Indians' sacred lands.

Respondent Indians brought suit to enjoin implementation of the plan, alleging that the road construction and timber harvesting would impermissibly interfere with their religious practices in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First [463] Amendment.^[1] Following a trial, the District Court granted the requested injunctive relief. The court found that "use of the high country is essential to [respondents'] `World Renewal' ceremonies . . . which constitute the heart of the Northwest Indian religious belief system," and that " `[i]ntrusions on the sanctity of the Blue Creek high country are . . . potentially destructive of the very core of Northwest [Indian] religious beliefs and practices.' " Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn. v. Peterson, 565 F. Supp. 586, 594-595 (ND Cal. 1983) (quoting the Theodoratus Report, at 420). Concluding that these burdens on respondents' religious practices were sufficient to trigger the protections of the Free Exercise Clause, the court found that the interests served by the G-O road and the management plan were insufficient to justify those burdens. In particular, the court found that the road would not improve access to timber resources in the Blue Creek Unit and indeed was unnecessary to the harvesting of that timber; that it would not significantly improve the administration of the Six Rivers National Forest; and that it would increase recreational access only marginally, and at the expense of the very pristine environment that makes the area suitable for primitive recreational use in the first place. 565 F. Supp., at 595-596. The court further found that the unconnected segments of the road had independent utility,^[2] and that although completion of the [464] Chimney Rock segment would reduce timber-hauling costs, it would not generate new jobs but would instead merely shift work from one area of the region to another. Id., at 596. Finally, in enjoining the proposed harvesting activities, the court found that the Blue Creek Unit's timber resources were but a small fraction of those located in the entire National Forest and that the local timber industry would not suffer seriously if access to this fraction were foreclosed. Ibid.

While the case was pending on appeal before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Congress passed the California Wilderness Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98-425, 98 Stat. 1619, which designates most of the Blue Creek Unit a wilderness area, and thus precludes logging and all other commercial activities in most of the area covered by the Forest Service's management plan. Thereafter, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's determination that the proposed harvesting and construction activities violated respondents' constitutional rights. Recognizing that the high country is "indispensable" to the religious lives of the approximately 5,000 Tribe members who reside in the area, Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn. v. Peterson, 795 F. 2d 688, 692 (1986), the court concluded "that the proposed government operations would virtually destroy the . . . Indians' ability to practice their religion." Id., at 693 (emphasis added).^[3] Like the lower court, the Court of Appeals found [465] the Government's interests in building the road and permitting limited timber harvesting — interests which of course were considerably undermined by passage of the California Wilderness Act — did not justify the destruction of respondents' religion. Id., at 695.

II

The Court does not for a moment suggest that the interests served by the G-O road are in any way compelling, or that they outweigh the destructive effect construction of the road will have on respondents' religious practices. Instead, the Court embraces the Government's contention that its prerogative as landowner should always take precedence over a claim that a particular use of federal property infringes religious practices. Attempting to justify this rule, the Court argues that the First Amendment bars only outright prohibitions, indirect coercion, and penalties on the free exercise of religion. All other "incidental effects of government programs," it concludes, even those "which may make it more difficult to practice certain religions but which have no tendency to coerce individuals into acting contrary to their religious beliefs," simply do not give rise to constitutional concerns. See ante, at 450. Since our recognition nearly half a century ago that restraints on religious conduct implicate the concerns of the Free Exercise Clause, see Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (1944), we have never suggested that the protections of the guarantee are limited to so narrow a range of governmental burdens. The land-use decision challenged here will restrain respondents from practicing their religion as surely and as completely as any of the governmental actions we have struck down in the past, and the Court's efforts simply to define away respondents' injury [466] as nonconstitutional are both unjustified and ultimately unpersuasive.

A

The Court ostensibly finds support for its narrow formulation of religious burdens in our decisions in Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n of Fla., 480 U. S. 136 (1987), Thomas v. Review Bd., Indiana Employment Security Division, 450 U. S. 707 (1981), and Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963). In those cases, the laws at issue forced individuals to choose between adhering to specific religious tenets and forfeiting unemployment benefits on the one hand, and accepting work repugnant to their religious beliefs on the other. The religions involved, therefore, lent themselves to the coercion analysis the Court espouses today, for they proscribed certain conduct such as munitions work (Thomas) or working on Saturdays (Sherbert, Hobbie) that the unemployment benefits laws effectively compelled. In sustaining the challenges to these laws, however, we nowhere suggested that such coercive compulsion exhausted the range of religious burdens recognized under the Free Exercise Clause.

Indeed, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972), we struck down a state compulsory school attendance law on free exercise grounds not so much because of the affirmative coercion the law exerted on individual religious practitioners, but because of "the impact that compulsory high school attendance could have on the continued survival of Amish communities." Id., at 209 (emphasis added). Like respondents here, the Amish view life as pervasively religious and their faith accordingly dictates their entire lifestyle. See id., at 210. Detailed as their religious rules are, however, the parents in Yoder did not argue that their religion expressly proscribed public education beyond the eighth grade; rather, they objected to the law because "the values . . . of the modern secondary school are in sharp conflict with the fundamental mode of life mandated by the Amish religion." Id., at 217 (emphasis added). By exposing Amish children "to a [467] `worldly' influence in conflict with their beliefs," and by removing those children "from their community, physically and emotionally, during the crucial and formative adolescent period of life" when Amish beliefs are inculcated, id., at 211, the compulsory school law posed "a very real threat of undermining the Amish community and religious practice." Id., at 218. Admittedly, this threat arose from the compulsory nature of the law at issue, but it was the "impact" on religious practice itself, not the source of that impact, that led us to invalidate the law.

I thus cannot accept the Court's premise that the form of the government's restraint on religious practice, rather than its effect, controls our constitutional analysis. Respondents here have demonstrated that construction of the G-O road will completely frustrate the practice of their religion, for as the lower courts found, the proposed logging and construction activities will virtually destroy respondents' religion, and will therefore necessarily force them into abandoning those practices altogether. Indeed, the Government's proposed activities will restrain religious practice to a far greater degree here than in any of the cases cited by the Court today. None of the religious adherents in Hobbie, Thomas, and Sherbert, for example, claimed or could have claimed that the denial of unemployment benefits rendered the practice of their religions impossible; at most, the challenged laws made those practices more expensive. Here, in stark contrast, respondents have claimed — and proved — that the desecration of the high country will prevent religious leaders from attaining the religious power or medicine indispensable to the success of virtually all their rituals and ceremonies. Similarly, in Yoder the compulsory school law threatened to "undermin[e] the Amish community and religious practice," and thus to force adherents to "abandon belief. . . or . . . to migrate to some other and more tolerant region." 406 U. S., at 218. Here the threat posed by the desecration of sacred lands that are indisputably essential to [468] respondents' religious practices is both more direct and more substantial than that raised by a compulsory school law that simply exposed Amish children to an alien value system. And of course respondents here do not even have the option, however unattractive it might be, of migrating to more hospitable locales; the site-specific nature of their belief system renders it nontransportable.

Ultimately, the Court's coercion test turns on a distinction between governmental actions that compel affirmative conduct inconsistent with religious belief, and those governmental actions that prevent conduct consistent with religious belief. In my view, such a distinction is without constitutional significance. The crucial word in the constitutional text, as the Court itself acknowledges, is "prohibit," see ante, at 451, a comprehensive term that in no way suggests that the intended protection is aimed only at governmental actions that coerce affirmative conduct.^[4] Nor does the Court's distinction comport with the principles animating the constitutional guarantee: religious freedom is threatened no less by governmental action that makes the practice of one's chosen faith impossible than by governmental programs that pressure one to engage in conduct inconsistent with religious beliefs. The Court attempts to explain the line it draws by arguing that the protections of the Free Exercise Clause "cannot depend on measuring the effects of a governmental action on a religious objector's spiritual development," ibid., [469] for in a society as diverse as ours, the Government cannot help but offend the "religious needs and desires" of some citizens. Ante, at 452. While I agree that governmental action that simply offends religious sensibilities may not be challenged under the Clause, we have recognized that laws that affect spiritual development by impeding the integration of children into the religious community or by increasing the expense of adherence to religious principles — in short, laws that frustrate or inhibit religious practice — trigger the protections of the constitutional guarantee. Both common sense and our prior cases teach us, therefore, that governmental action that makes the practice of a given faith more difficult necessarily penalizes that practice and thereby tends to prevent adherence to religious belief. The harm to the practitioners is the same regardless of the manner in which the government restrains their religious expression, and the Court's fear that an "effects" test will permit religious adherents to challenge governmental actions they merely find "offensive" in no way justifies its refusal to recognize the constitutional injury citizens suffer when governmental action not only offends but actually restrains their religious practices. Here, respondents have demonstrated that the Government's proposed activities will completely prevent them from practicing their religion, and such a showing, no less than those made out in Hobbie, Thomas, Sherbert, and Yoder, entitles them to the protections of the Free Exercise Clause.

B

Nor can I agree with the Court's assertion that respondents' constitutional claim is foreclosed by our decision in Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693 (1986). There, applicants for certain welfare benefits objected to the use of a Social Security number in connection with the administration of their 2-year-old daughter's application for benefits, contending that such use would "rob the [child's] spirit" and thus interfere with her spiritual development. In rejecting that challenge, [470] we stated that "[t]he Free Exercise Clause simply cannot be understood to require the Government to conduct its own internal affairs in ways that comport with the religious beliefs of particular citizens." Id., at 699 (emphasis added); see also id., at 716-717 (STEVENS, J., concurring in part) ("[T]he Free Exercise Clause does not give an individual the right to dictate the Government's method of recordkeeping"). Accordingly, we explained that Roy could

"no more prevail on his religious objection to the Government's use of a Social Security number for his daughter than he could on a sincere religious objection to the size or color of the Government's filing cabinets. The Free Exercise Clause affords an individual protection from certain forms of governmental compulsion; it does not afford an individual a right to dictate the conduct of the Government's internal procedures." Id., at 700 (emphasis added).

Today the Court professes an inability to differentiate Roy from the present case, suggesting that "[t]he building of a road or the harvesting of timber on publicly owned land cannot meaningfully be distinguished from the use of a Social Security number." Ante, at 449. I find this inability altogether remarkable. In Roy, we repeatedly stressed the "internal" nature of the Government practice at issue: noting that Roy objected to "the widespread use of the social security number by the federal or state governments in their computer systems," 476 U. S., at 697 (citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added), we likened the use of such recordkeeping numbers to decisions concerning the purchase of office equipment. When the Government processes information, of course, it acts in a purely internal manner, and any free exercise challenge to such internal recordkeeping in effect seeks to dictate how the Government conducts its own affairs.

Federal land-use decisions, by contrast, are likely to have substantial external effects that government decisions concerning [471] office furniture and information storage obviously will not, and they are correspondingly subject to public scrutiny and public challenge in a host of ways that office equipment purchases are not.^[5] Indeed, in the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA), 42 U. S. C. § 1996, Congress expressly recognized the adverse impact land-use decisions and other governmental actions frequently have on the site-specific religious practices of Native Americans, and the Act accordingly directs agencies to consult with Native American religious leaders before taking actions that might impair those practices. Although I agree that the Act does not create any judicially enforceable rights, see ante, at 455, the absence of any private right of action in no way undermines the statute's significance as an express congressional determination that federal land management decisions are not "internal" Government "procedures," but are instead governmental actions that can and indeed are likely to burden Native American religious practices. That such decisions should be subject to constitutional challenge, and potential constitutional limitations, should hardly come as a surprise.

The Court today, however, ignores Roy's emphasis on the internal nature of the Government practice at issue there, [472] and instead construes that case as further support for the proposition that governmental action that does not coerce conduct inconsistent with religious faith simply does not implicate the concerns of the Free Exercise Clause. That such a reading is wholly untenable, however, is demonstrated by the cruelly surreal result it produces here: governmental action that will virtually destroy a religion is nevertheless deemed not to "burden" that religion. Moreover, in AIRFA Congress explicitly acknowledged that federal "policies and regulations" could and often did "intrud[e] upon [and] interfer[e] with" site-specific Native American religious ceremonies, Pub. L. 95-341, 92 Stat. 469, and in Roy we recognized that this Act — "with its emphasis on protecting the freedom to believe, express, and exercise a religion — accurately identifies the mission of the Free Exercise Clause itself." 476 U. S., at 700. Ultimately, in Roy we concluded that, however much the Government's recordkeeping system may have offended Roy's sincere religious sensibilities, he could not challenge that system under the Free Exercise Clause because the Government's practice did not "in any degree impair Roy's `freedom to believe, express, and exercise' his religion." Id., at 700-701 (quoting AIRFA, 42 U. S. C. § 1996) (emphasis added). That determination distinguishes the injury at issue here, which the Court finds so "remarkably similar" to Roy's, ante, at 456, for respondents have made an uncontroverted showing that the proposed construction and logging activities will impair their freedom to exercise their religion in the greatest degree imaginable, and Congress has "accurately identifie[d]" such injuries as falling within the scope of the Free Exercise Clause. The Court's reading of Roy, therefore, simply cannot be squared with our endorsement — in that very same case — of this congressional determination. More important, it lends no support to the Court's efforts to narrow both the reach and promise of the Free Exercise Clause itself.

[473] C

In the final analysis, the Court's refusal to recognize the constitutional dimension of respondents' injuries stems from its concern that acceptance of respondents' claim could potentially strip the Government of its ability to manage and use vast tracts of federal property. See ante, at 452-453. In addition, the nature of respondents' site-specific religious practices raises the specter of future suits in which Native Americans seek to exclude all human activity from such areas. Ibid. These concededly legitimate concerns lie at the very heart of this case, which represents yet another stress point in the longstanding conflict between two disparate cultures — the dominant Western culture, which views land in terms of ownership and use, and that of Native Americans, in which concepts of private property are not only alien, but contrary to a belief system that holds land sacred. Rather than address this conflict in any meaningful fashion, however, the Court disclaims all responsibility for balancing these competing and potentially irreconcilable interests, choosing instead to turn this difficult task over to the Federal Legislature. Such an abdication is more than merely indefensible as an institutional matter: by defining respondents' injury as "nonconstitutional," the Court has effectively bestowed on one party to this conflict the unilateral authority to resolve all future disputes in its favor, subject only to the Court's toothless exhortation to be "sensitive" to affected religions. In my view, however, Native Americans deserve — and the Constitution demands — more than this.

Prior to today's decision, several Courts of Appeals had attempted to fashion a test that accommodates the competing "demands" placed on federal property by the two cultures. Recognizing that the Government normally enjoys plenary authority over federal lands, the Courts of Appeals required Native Americans to demonstrate that any land-use decisions they challenged involved lands that were "central" or "indispensable" to their religious practices. See, e. g., Northwest [474] Indian Cemetery Protective Assn. v. Peterson, 795 F. 2d 688 (CA9 1986) (case below); Wilson v. Block, 228 U. S. App. D. C. 166, 708 F. 2d 735, cert. denied, 464 U. S. 956 (1983); Badoni v. Higginson, 638 F. 2d 172 (CA10 1980), cert. denied, 452 U. S. 954 (1981); Sequoyah v. TVA, 620 F. 2d 1159 (CA6), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 953 (1980); Crow v. Gullet, 541 F. Supp. 785 (SD 1982), aff'd, 706 F. 2d 856 (CA8), cert. denied, 464 U. S. 977 (1983). Although this requirement limits the potential number of free exercise claims that might be brought to federal land management decisions, and thus forestalls the possibility that the Government will find itself ensnared in a host of Lilliputian lawsuits, it has been criticized as inherently ethnocentric, for it incorrectly assumes that Native American belief systems ascribe religious significance to land in a traditionally Western hierarchical manner. See Michaelsen, American Indian Religious Freedom Litigation: Promise and Perils, 3 J. Law & Rel. 47 (1985); Pepper, Conundrum of the Free Exercise Clause — Some Reflections on Recent Cases, 9 N. Ky. L. Rev. 265, 283-284 (1982). It is frequently the case in constitutional litigation, however, that courts are called upon to balance interests that are not readily translated into rough equivalents. At their most absolute, the competing claims that both the Government and Native Americans assert in federal land are fundamentally incompatible, and unless they are tempered by compromise, mutual accommodation will remain impossible.

I believe it appropriate, therefore, to require some showing of "centrality" before the Government can be required either to come forward with a compelling justification for its proposed use of federal land or to forgo that use altogether. "Centrality," however, should not be equated with the survival or extinction of the religion itself. In Yoder, for example, we treated the objection to the compulsory school attendance of adolescents as "central" to the Amish faith even though such attendance did not prevent or otherwise render the practice of that religion impossible, and instead simply [475] threatened to "undermine" that faith. Because of their perceptions of and relationship with the natural world, Native Americans consider all land sacred. Nevertheless, the Theodoratus Report reveals that respondents here deemed certain lands more powerful and more directly related to their religious practices than others. Thus, in my view, while Native Americans need not demonstrate, as respondents did here, that the Government's land-use decision will assuredly eradicate their faith, I do not think it is enough to allege simply that the land in question is held sacred. Rather, adherents challenging a proposed use of federal land should be required to show that the decision poses a substantial and realistic threat of frustrating their religious practices. Once such a showing is made, the burden should shift to the Government to come forward with a compelling state interest sufficient to justify the infringement of those practices.

The Court today suggests that such an approach would place courts in the untenable position of deciding which practices and beliefs are "central" to a given faith and which are not, and invites the prospect of judges advising some religious adherents that they "misunderstand their own religious beliefs." Ante, at 458. In fact, however, courts need not undertake any such inquiries: like all other religious adherents, Native Americans would be the arbiters of which practices are central to their faith, subject only to the normal requirement that their claims be genuine and sincere. The question for the courts, then, is not whether the Native American claimants understand their own religion, but rather whether they have discharged their burden of demonstrating, as the Amish did with respect to the compulsory school law in Yoder, that the land-use decision poses a substantial and realistic threat of undermining or frustrating their religious practices. Ironically, the Court's apparent solicitude for the integrity of religious belief and its desire to forestall the possibility that courts might second-guess the [476] claims of religious adherents leads to far greater inequities than those the Court postulates: today's ruling sacrifices a religion at least as old as the Nation itself, along with the spiritual well-being of its approximately 5,000 adherents, so that the Forest Service can build a 6-mile segment of road that two lower courts found had only the most marginal and speculative utility, both to the Government itself and to the private lumber interests that might conceivably use it.

Similarly, the Court's concern that the claims of Native Americans will place "religious servitudes" upon vast tracts of federal property cannot justify its refusal to recognize the constitutional injury respondents will suffer here. It is true, as the Court notes, that respondents' religious use of the high country requires privacy and solitude. The fact remains, however, that respondents have never asked the Forest Service to exclude others from the area. Should respondents or any other group seek to force the Government to protect their religious practices from the interference of private parties, such a demand would implicate not only the concerns of the Free Exercise Clause, but also those of the Establishment Clause as well. That case, however, is most assuredly not before us today, and in any event cannot justify the Court's refusal to acknowledge that the injuries respondents will suffer as a result of the Government's proposed activities are sufficient to state a constitutional cause of action.

III

Today, the Court holds that a federal land-use decision that promises to destroy an entire religion does not burden the practice of that faith in a manner recognized by the Free Exercise Clause. Having thus stripped respondents and all other Native Americans of any constitutional protection against perhaps the most serious threat to their age-old religious practices, and indeed to their entire way of life, the Court assures us that nothing in its decision "should be read to encourage governmental insensitivity to the religious [477] needs of any citizen." Ante, at 453. I find it difficult, however, to imagine conduct more insensitive to religious needs than the Government's determination to build a marginally useful road in the face of uncontradicted evidence that the road will render the practice of respondents' religion impossible. Nor do I believe that respondents will derive any solace from the knowledge that although the practice of their religion will become "more difficult" as a result of the Government's actions, they remain free to maintain their religious beliefs. Given today's ruling, that freedom amounts to nothing more than the right to believe that their religion will be destroyed. The safeguarding of such a hollow freedom not only makes a mockery of the " `policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the[ir] traditional religions,' " ante, at 454 (quoting AIRFA), it fails utterly to accord with the dictates of the First Amendment.

I dissent.

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[*] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Hawaii et al. by Kenneth O. Eikenberry, Attorney General of Washington, Timothy R. Malone, Nixon Handy, and Mark S. Green, Assistant Attorneys General, Warren Price III, Attorney General of Hawaii, Roger A. Tellinghuisen, Attorney General of South Dakota, and David Wilkinson, Attorney General of Utah; for the Colorado Mining Association et al. by Lawrence E. Stevens and Patrick J. Garver; for the Howonquet Community Association et al. by Ronald A. Zumbrun and Robin L. Rivett; and for the city of Williams, Arizona, by Gary Verburg.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation et al. by John A. Powell, Steven R. Shapiro, Paul L. Hoffman, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Alan L. Schlosser, Edward M. Chen, Matthew A. Coles, and Stephen L. Pevar; for the American Jewish Congress et al. by Marc D. Stern, Lois C. Waldman, and Amy Adelson; and for the Christian Legal Society et al. by Michael J. Woodruff, Samuel Rabinove, Richard T. Foltin, and Jordan Lorence.

Steven C. Moore filed a brief for the National Congress of American Indians et al. as amici curiae.

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[1] Respondent Indians were joined in this suit by the State of California as well as various environmental groups. For the sake of simplicity, I use the term "respondents" to refer exclusively to the affected Native American religious practitioners.

[2] The Court overlooks this finding when it suggests that the only protective measure the Service did not take was the untenable one of "abandoning its project entirely, and thereby leaving the two existing segments of road to dead-end in the middle of a National Forest." Ante, at 454. Far from finding that option untenable, the District Court expressly concluded that the segments had independent economic and administrative utility, and thus that past investments in the paved sections did not justify construction of the Chimney Rock segment. See 565 F. Supp., at 596.

[3] Remarkably, the Court treats this factual determination as nothing more than an assumption or "prediction," ante, at 451, and suggests that it is "less than certain that construction of the road will be so disruptive that it will doom [respondents'] religion." Ibid. Such speculation flies in the face of the most basic principles of appellate review, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 52(a) ("Findings of fact . . . shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous"), and is wholly at odds with the well-settled rule that this Court will not disturb findings of facts agreed upon by both lower courts unless those findings are clearly in error. United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 273 (1978). Even if our review were not governed by such rules, however, the mere fact that a handful of the Native Americans who reside in the affected area do not oppose the road in no way casts doubt upon the validity of the lower courts' amply supported factual findings, particularly where the members of this minority did not indicate whether their lack of objection reflected their assessment of the religious significance of the high country, or their own apathy towards religious matters generally.

[4] The Court is apparently of the view that the term "prohibit" in the Free Exercise Clause somehow limits the constitutional protection such that it cannot possibly be understood to reach " `any form of government action that frustrates or inhibits religious practice.' " Ante, at 456 (quoting supra, at 459) (emphasis added by majority). Although the dictionary is hardly the final word on the meaning of constitutional language, it is noteworthy that Webster's includes, as one of the two accepted definitions of "prohibit," "to prevent from doing something." Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 940 (1983). Government action that frustrates or inhibits religious practice fits far more comfortably within this definition than does the Court's affirmative compulsion test.

[5] Thus, for example, agencies proposing to use or permit activities on federal lands must comply with various public notice, consultation, and impact evaluation requirements imposed by the National Historic Preservation Act, 16 U.S.C. §§ 470f, 470h-2(f); the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, 16 U.S.C. § 470aa et seq.; the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq.; the Wilderness Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1131 et seq.; and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq. Concededly, these statutes protect interests in addition to the religious interests Native Americans may have in a pristine environment, and of course the constitutional protection afforded those religious interests is not dependent upon these congressional enactments. Nevertheless, the laws stand as evidence, if indeed any were needed, that federal land-use decisions are fundamentally different from government decisions concerning information management, and that, under Roy, this difference in external effects is of constitutional magnitude.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

[253] Deputy Solicitor General Wallace argued the cause for the United States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Lee, former Solicitor General McCree, Acting Assistant Attorney General Murray, Stuart A. Smith, and Gary R. Allen.

Francis X. Caiazza argued the cause and filed a brief for appellee.^[*]

[254] CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.

We noted probable jurisdiction to determine whether imposition of social security taxes is unconstitutional as applied to persons who object on religious grounds to receipt of public insurance benefits and to payment of taxes to support public insurance funds. 450 U. S. 993 (1981). The District Court concluded that the Free Exercise Clause prohibits forced payment of social security taxes when payment of taxes and receipt of benefits violate the taxpayer's religion. We reverse.

I

Appellee, a member of the Old Order Amish, is a farmer and carpenter. From 1970 to 1977, appellee employed several other Amish to work on his farm and in his carpentry shop. He failed to file the quarterly social security tax returns required of employers, withhold social security tax from his employees, or pay the employer's share of social security taxes.^[1]

In 1978, the Internal Revenue Service assessed appellee in excess of $27,000 for unpaid employment taxes; he paid $91 — [255] the amount owed for the first quarter of 1973 — and then sued in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania for a refund, claiming that imposition of the social security taxes violated his First Amendment free exercise rights and those of his Amish employees.^[2]

The District Court held the statutes requiring appellee to pay social security and unemployment insurance taxes unconstitutional as applied. 497 F. Supp. 180 (1980). The court noted that the Amish believe it sinful not to provide for their own elderly and needy and therefore are religiously opposed to the national social security system.^[3] The court also accepted appellee's contention that the Amish religion not only prohibits the acceptance of social security benefits, but also bars all contributions by Amish to the social security system. The District Court observed that in light of their beliefs, Congress has accommodated self-employed Amish and selfemployed members of other religious groups with similar beliefs by providing exemptions from social security taxes. 26 U. S. C. § 1402(g).^[4] The Court's holding was based on both [256] the exemption statute for the self-employed and the First Amendment; appellee and others "who fall within the carefully circumscribed definition provided in 1402(g) are relieved from paying the employer's share of [social security taxes] as it is an unconstitutional infringement upon the free exercise of their religion."^[5] 497 F. Supp., at 184.

Direct appeal from the judgment of the District Court was taken pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1252.

II

The exemption provided by § 1402(g) is available only to self-employed individuals and does not apply to employers or employees. Consequently, appellee and his employees are not within the express provisions of § 1402(g). Thus any exemption from payment of the employer's share of social security taxes must come from a constitutionally required exemption.

A

The preliminary inquiry in determining the existence of a constitutionally required exemption is whether the payment [257] of social security taxes and the receipt of benefits interferes with the free exercise rights of the Amish. The Amish believe that there is a religiously based obligation to provide for their fellow members the kind of assistance contemplated by the social security system. Although the Government does not challenge the sincerity of this belief, the Government does contend that payment of social security taxes will not threaten the integrity of the Amish religious belief or observance. It is not within "the judicial function and judicial competence," however, to determine whether appellee or the Government has the proper interpretation of the Amish faith; "[c]ourts are not arbiters of scriptural interpretation." Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 716 (1981).^[6] We therefore accept appellee's contention that both payment and receipt of social security benefits is forbidden by the Amish faith. Because the payment of the taxes or receipt of benefits violates Amish religious beliefs, compulsory participation in the social security system interferes with their free exercise rights.

The conclusion that there is a conflict between the Amish faith and the obligations imposed by the social security system is only the beginning, however, and not the end of the inquiry. Not all burdens on religion are unconstitutional. See, e.g., Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (1944); Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879). The state may justify a limitation on religious liberty by showing that it is essential to accomplish an overriding governmental interest. [258] Thomas, supra; Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972); Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437 (1971); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963).

B

Because the social security system is nationwide, the governmental interest is apparent. The social security system in the United States serves the public interest by providing a comprehensive insurance system with a variety of benefits available to all participants, with costs shared by employers and employees.^[7] The social security system is by far the largest domestic governmental program in the United States today, distributing approximately $11 billion monthly to 36 million Americans.^[8] The design of the system requires support by mandatory contributions from covered employers and employees. This mandatory participation is indispensable to the fiscal vitality of the social security system. "[W]idespread individual voluntary coverage under social security. . . would undermine the soundness of the social security program." S. Rep. No. 404, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 116 (1965). Moreover, a comprehensive national social security system providing for voluntary participation would be almost a contradiction in terms and difficult, if not impossible, to administer. Thus, the Government's interest in assuring [259] mandatory and continuous participation in and contribution to the social security system is very high.^[9]

C

The remaining inquiry is whether accommodating the Amish belief will unduly interfere with fulfillment of the governmental interest. In Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 605 (1961), this Court noted that "to make accommodation between the religious action and an exercise of state authority is a particularly delicate task . . . because resolution in favor of the State results in the choice to the individual of either abandoning his religious principle or facing . . . prosecution." The difficulty in attempting to accommodate religious beliefs in the area of taxation is that "we are a cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable religious preference." Braunfeld, supra, at 606. The Court has long recognized that balance must be struck between the values of the comprehensive social security system, which rests on a complex of actuarial factors, and the consequences of allowing religiously based exemptions. To maintain an organized society that guarantees religious freedom to a great variety of faiths requires that some religious practices yield to the common good. Religious beliefs can be accommodated, see, e.g., Thomas, supra; Sherbert, supra, but there is a point at which accommodation would "radically restrict the operating latitude of the legislature." Braunfeld, supra, at 606.^[10]

Unlike the situation presented in Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, it would be difficult to accommodate the comprehensive [260] social security system with myriad exceptions flowing from a wide variety of religious beliefs. The obligation to pay the social security tax initially is not fundamentally different from the obligation to pay income taxes; the difference — in theory at least — is that the social security tax revenues are segregated for use only in furtherance of the statutory program. There is no principled way, however, for purposes of this case, to distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social Security Act. If, for example, a religious adherent believes war is a sin, and if a certain percentage of the federal budget can be identified as devoted to war-related activities, such individuals would have a similarly valid claim to be exempt from paying that percentage of the income tax. The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge the tax system because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief. See, e.g., Lull v. Commissioner, 602 F. 2d 1166 (CA4 1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1014 (1980); Autenrieth v. Cullen, 418 F. 2d 586 (CA9 1969), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 1036 (1970). Because the broad public interest in maintaining a sound tax system is of such a high order, religious belief in conflict with the payment of taxes affords no basis for resisting the tax.

III

Congress has accommodated, to the extent compatible with a comprehensive national program, the practices of those who believe it a violation of their faith to participate in the social security system. In § 1402(g) Congress granted an exemption, on religious grounds, to self-employed Amish and others.^[11] Confining the § 1402(g) exemption to the selfemployed [261] provided for a narrow category which was readily identifiable. Self-employed persons in a religious community having its own "welfare" system are distinguishable from the generality of wage earners employed by others.

Congress and the courts have been sensitive to the needs flowing from the Free Exercise Clause, but every person cannot be shielded from all the burdens incident to exercising every aspect of the right to practice religious beliefs. When followers of a particular sect enter into commercial activity as a matter of choice, the limits they accept on their own conduct as a matter of conscience and faith are not to be superimposed on the statutory schemes which are binding on others in that activity. Granting an exemption from social security taxes to an employer operates to impose the employer's religious faith on the employees. Congress drew a line in § 1402(g), exempting the self-employed Amish but not all persons working for an Amish employer. The tax imposed on employers to support the social security system must be uniformly applicable to all, except as Congress provides explicitly otherwise.^[12]

Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in the judgment.

The clash between appellee's religious obligation and his civic obligation is irreconcilable. He must violate either an Amish belief or a federal statute. According to the Court, the religious duty must prevail unless the Government shows [262] that enforcement of the civic duty "is essential to accomplish an overriding governmental interest." Ante, at 257-258. That formulation of the constitutional standard suggests that the Government always bears a heavy burden of justifying the application of neutral general laws to individual conscientious objectors. In my opinion, it is the objector who must shoulder the burden of demonstrating that there is a unique reason for allowing him a special exemption from a valid law of general applicability.

Congress already has granted the Amish a limited exemption from social security taxes. See 26 U. S. C. § 1402(g). As a matter of administration, it would be a relatively simple matter to extend the exemption to the taxes involved in this case. As a matter of fiscal policy, an enlarged exemption probably would benefit the social security system because the nonpayment of these taxes by the Amish would be more than offset by the elimination of their right to collect benefits. In view of the fact that the Amish have demonstrated their capacity to care for their own, the social cost of eliminating this relatively small group of dedicated believers would be minimal. Thus, if we confine the analysis to the Government's interest in rejecting the particular claim to an exemption at stake in this case, the constitutional standard as formulated by the Court has not been met.

The Court rejects the particular claim of this appellee, not because it presents any special problems, but rather because of the risk that a myriad of other claims would be too difficult to process. The Court overstates the magnitude of this risk because the Amish claim applies only to a small religious community with an established welfare system of its own.^[1] [263] Nevertheless, I agree with the Court's conclusion that the difficulties associated with processing other claims to tax exemption on religious grounds justify a rejection of this claim.^[2] I believe, however, that this reasoning supports the adoption of a different constitutional standard than the Court purports to apply.

The Court's analysis supports a holding that there is virtually no room for a "constitutionally required exemption" on religious grounds from a valid tax law that is entirely neutral in its general application.^[3] Because I agree with that holding, I concur in the judgment.

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[*] William Bentley Ball and Phillip J. Murren filed a brief for the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom as amicus curiae urging affirmance.

[1] The Social Security Act and its subsequent amendments provide a system of old-age and unemployment benefits. 26 U. S. C. § 3101 et seq.(1976 ed. and Supp. III). These benefits are supported by various taxes, including, relevant to this appeal, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) and the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) taxes. The FICA tax is a tax paid in part by employees through withholding, 26 U. S. C. § 3101 (1976 ed., Supp. III), and in part by employers through an excise tax. 26 U. S. C. § 3111 (1976 ed., Supp. III). The FUTA tax is an excise tax imposed only on employers. 26 U. S. C. § 3301. Both taxes are based on the wages paid to employees, and the recordkeeping and transmittal of funds are obligations of the employer. Only the FICA tax is collected from self-employed individuals.

In this case appellee failed to pay the employer's portion of FICA and FUTA taxes and failed to withhold his employee's contributions to the FICA taxes. An employer is liable for payment of the employee's share of FICA taxes whether or not he withholds the required amount of the employee's contribution. 26 U. S. C. § 3102(b).

[2] Appellee also requested injunctive relief to prevent the Commissioner of Internal Revenue from attempting to collect the unpaid balance of the assessments. Under the Internal Revenue Code, injunctive relief is to be granted sparingly and only in exceptional circumstances. 26 U. S. C. § 7421(a) (1976 ed., Supp. III). The District Court therefore denied injunctive relief, but noted that should the Government attempt to collect the remaining payments "further Court relief could be requested." 497 F. Supp. 180, 184 (1980).

[3] Appellee indicates that his scriptural basis for this belief was: "But if any provide not . . . for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (I Timothy 5: 8.)

[4] Title 26 U. S. C. § 1402(g) provides, in part:

"(1) Exemption

Any individual may file an application . . . for an exemption from the tax imposed by this chapter if he is a member of a recognized religious sect or division thereof and is an adherent of established tenets or teachings of such sect or division by reason of which he is conscientiously opposed to acceptance of the benefits of any private or public insurance which makes payments in the event of death, disability, old-age, or retirement or makes payments toward the cost of, or provides services for, medical care (including the benefits of any insurance system established by the Social Security Act)."

In order to qualify for the exemption, the applicant must waive his right to all social security benefits and the Secretary of Health and Human Services must find that the particular religious group makes sufficient provision for its dependent members.

[5] The precise basis of the District Court opinion is not clear. The court recognized that on its face § 1402(g) does not apply to appellee because he is not a self-employed individual. The District Court nonetheless used the language of § 1402(g) to provide an exemption for appellee. The court's decision to grant appellee an exemption, however, appears to be based on its view that the statute was unconstitutional as applied. Consequently, this Court has jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1252 to hear the appeal. See also United States v. American Friends Service Committee, 419 U. S. 7, 9, n. 4 (1974).

[6] This is not an instance in which the asserted claim is "so bizarre, so clearly nonreligious in motivation, as not to be entitled to protection under the Free Exercise Clause." Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S., at 715. At least one other religious organization has sought an exemption under § 1402(g). See also Henson v. Commissioner, 66 T. C. 835 (1976) (member of Sai Baba denied exemption because although opposed to insurance on religious grounds, the faith did not provide for its dependent members).

[7] The Social Security Act was enacted in 1935 to provide supplementary retirement benefits. Over the following 45 years coverage has broadened, and the cost of the system has increased dramatically. See A. Abraham & D. Kopelman, Federal Social Security (1979). In 1939 the Act was amended to provide insurance benefits for retired workers, auxiliaries of retired workers, and survivors of deceased workers. In 1950 coverage was extended to self-employed workers and to select other employees previously excluded. In 1954 and 1956 disability benefits were added and in 1965 Medicare benefits were made available to participants in the system.

[8] National Commission on Social Security, Social Security in America's Future 5 (1981).

[9] The fiscal soundness of the social security system has been the subject of several studies and of congressional concern. See, e.g., Congressional Budget Office, Paying for Social Security: Funding Options for the Near Term (1981).

[10] See, e.g., Follett v. Town of McCormick, 321 U. S. 573 (1944) (preacher not entitled to be free from taxes); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 112 (1943) (same).

[11] The District Court read this as extending to the present claims. We need not decide whether the Free Exercise Clause compelled an exemption as provided by § 1402(g); Congress' grant of the exemption was an effort toward accommodation. Nor do we need to decide whether, if Congress had, as the District Court believed, intended § 1402(g) to reach this case, conflicts with the Establishment Clause would arise.

[12] We note that here the statute compels contributions to the system by way of taxes; it does not compel anyone to accept benefits. Indeed, it would be possible for an Amish member, upon qualifying for social security benefits, to receive and pass them along to an Amish fund having parallel objectives. It is not for us to speculate whether this would ease or mitigate the perceived sin of participation.

[1] The Amish claim is readily distinguishable from the typical claim to an exemption from general tax obligations on the ground that the taxpayer objects to the government's use of his money; in the typical case the taxpayer is not in any position to supply the government with an equivalent substitute for the objectionable use of his money.

[2] In my opinion, the principal reason for adopting a strong presumption against such claims is not a matter of administrative convenience. It is the overriding interest in keeping the government — whether it be the legislature or the courts — out of the business of evaluating the relative merits of differing religious claims. The risk that governmental approval of some and disapproval of others will be perceived as favoring one religion over another is an important risk the Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.

[3] Today's holding is limited to a claim to a tax exemption. I believe, however, that a standard that places an almost insurmountable burden on any individual who objects to a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes) better explains most of this Court's holdings than does the standard articulated by the Court today. See, e.g., Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437 (selective service laws); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599 (Sunday closing laws); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (child labor laws); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 (compulsory vaccination laws); Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (polygamy law). The principal exception is Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, in which the Court granted the Amish an exemption from Wisconsin's compulsory school-attendance law by actually applying the subjective balancing approach it purports to apply today. The Court's attempt to distinguish Yoderis unconvincing because precisely the same religious interest is implicated in both cases, and Wisconsin's interest in requiring its children to attend school until they reach the age of 16 is surely not inferior to the federal interest in collecting these social security taxes.

There is also tension between this standard and the reasoning in Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, and Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398. Arguably, however, laws intended to provide a benefit to a limited class of otherwise disadvantaged persons should be judged by a different standard than that appropriate for the enforcement of neutral laws of general applicability. Cf. Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 349-357 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). A tax exemption entails no cost to the claimant; if tax exemptions were dispensed on religious grounds, every citizen would have an economic motivation to join the favored sects. No comparable economic motivation could explain the conduct of the employees in Sherbert and Thomas. In both of those cases changes in work requirements dictated by the employer forced the employees to surrender jobs that they would have preferred to retain rather than accept unemployment compensation. In each case the treatment of the religious objection to the new job requirements as though it were tantamount to a physical impairment that made it impossible for the employee to continue to work under changed circumstances could be viewed as a protection against unequal treatment rather than a grant of favored treatment for the members of the religious sect. In all events, the decision in Thomas was clearly compelled by Sherbert.

[422] Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Keisler, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Katsas, Patricia A. Millett, Michael Jay Singer, and Matthew M. Collette.

Nancy Hollander argued the cause for respondents. With her on the brief were John W. Boyd and Zachary A. Ives.^[*]

[423] CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.

A religious sect with origins in the Amazon Rainforest receives communion by drinking a sacramental tea, brewed from plants unique to the region, that contains a hallucinogen regulated under the Controlled Substances Act by the Federal Government. The Government concedes that this practice is a sincere exercise of religion, but nonetheless sought to prohibit the small American branch of the sect from engaging in the practice, on the ground that the Controlled Substances Act bars all use of the hallucinogen. The sect sued to block enforcement against it of the ban on the sacramental tea, and moved for a preliminary injunction.

It relied on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which prohibits the Federal Government from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, unless the Government "demonstrates that application of the burden to the person" represents the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling interest. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(b). The District Court granted the preliminary injunction, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted the Government's petition for certiorari. Before this Court, the Government's central submission is that it has a compelling interest in the uniform application of the Controlled Substances Act, such that no exception to the ban on use of the hallucinogen can be made to accommodate the sect's sincere religious practice. We conclude that the Government has not carried the burden expressly placed on it by Congress in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and affirm the grant of the preliminary injunction.

[424] I

In Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), this Court held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment does not prohibit governments from burdening religious practices through generally applicable laws. In Smith, we rejected a challenge to an Oregon statute that denied unemployment benefits to drug users, including Native Americans engaged in the sacramental use of peyote. Id., at 890. In so doing, we rejected the interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause announced in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963), and, in accord with earlier cases, see Smith, 494 U.S., at 879-880, 884-885, held that the Constitution does not require judges to engage in a case-by-case assessment of the religious burdens imposed by facially constitutional laws. Id., at 883-890.

Congress responded by enacting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 107 Stat. 1488, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq., which adopts a statutory rule comparable to the constitutional rule rejected in Smith. Under RFRA, the Federal Government may not, as a statutory matter, substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, "even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability." § 2000bb-1(a). The only exception recognized by the statute requires the Government to satisfy the compelling interest test—to "demonstrat[e] that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest." § 2000bb-1(b). A person whose religious practices are burdened in violation of RFRA "may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief." § 2000bb-1(c).^[1]

[425] The Controlled Substances Act, 84 Stat. 1242, as amended, 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. I), regulates the importation, manufacture, distribution, and use of psychotropic substances. The Act classifies substances into five schedules based on their potential for abuse, the extent to which they have an accepted medical use, and their safety. See § 812(b) (2000 ed.). Substances listed in Schedule I of the Act are subject to the most comprehensive restrictions, including an outright ban on all importation and use, except pursuant to strictly regulated research projects. See §§ 823, 960(a)(1). The Act authorizes the imposition of a criminal sentence for simple possession of Schedule I substances, see § 844(a), and mandates the imposition of a criminal sentence for possession "with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense" such substances, see §§ 841(a), (b).

O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal (UDV) is a Christian Spiritist sect based in Brazil, with an American branch of approximately 130 individuals. Central to the UDV's faith is receiving communion through hoasca (pronounced "wass-ca"), a sacramental tea made from two plants unique to the Amazon region. One of the plants, psychotriaviridis, contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a hallucinogen whose effects are enhanced by alkaloids from the other plant, banisteriopsis caapi. DMT, as well as "any material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains any quantity of [DMT]," is listed in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. § 812(c), Schedule I(c).

In 1999, United States Customs inspectors intercepted a shipment to the American UDV containing three drums of hoasca. A subsequent investigation revealed that the UDV had received 14 prior shipments of hoasca. The inspectors seized the intercepted shipment and threatened the UDV with prosecution.

The UDV filed suit against the Attorney General and other federal law enforcement officials, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that applying the Controlled Substances Act to the UDV's sacramental [426] use of hoasca violates RFRA. Prior to trial, the UDV moved for a preliminary injunction, so that it could continue to practice its faith pending trial on the merits.

At a hearing on the preliminary injunction, the Government conceded that the challenged application of the Controlled Substances Act would substantially burden a sincere exercise of religion by the UDV. See O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal v. Ashcroft, 282 F. Supp. 2d 1236, 1252 (NM 2002). The Government argued, however, that this burden did not violate RFRA, because applying the Controlled Substances Act in this case was the least restrictive means of advancing three compelling governmental interests: protecting the health and safety of UDV members, preventing the diversion of hoasca from the church to recreational users, and complying with the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, a treaty signed by the United States and implemented by the Act. Feb. 21, 1971, [1979-1980] 32 U.S. T. 543, T. I. A. S. No. 9725. See 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1252-1253.

The District Court heard evidence from both parties on the health risks of hoasca and the potential for diversion from the church. The Government presented evidence to the effect that use of hoasca, or DMT more generally, can cause psychotic reactions, cardiac irregularities, and adverse drug interactions. The UDV countered by citing studies documenting the safety of its sacramental use of hoasca and presenting evidence that minimized the likelihood of the health risks raised by the Government. With respect to diversion, the Government pointed to a general rise in the illicit use of hallucinogens, and cited interest in the illegal use of DMT and hoasca in particular; the UDV emphasized the thinness of any market for hoasca, the relatively small amounts of the substance imported by the church, and the absence of any diversion problem in the past.

The District Court concluded that the evidence on health risks was "in equipoise," and similarly that the evidence on diversion was "virtually balanced." Id., at 1262, 1266. In [427] the face of such an even showing, the court reasoned that the Government had failed to demonstrate a compelling interest justifying what it acknowledged was a substantial burden on the UDV's sincere religious exercise. Id., at 1255. The court also rejected the asserted interest in complying with the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, holding that the Convention does not apply to hoasca. Id., at 1266-1269.

The court entered a preliminary injunction prohibiting the Government from enforcing the Controlled Substances Act with respect to the UDV's importation and use of hoasca. The injunction requires the church to import the tea pursuant to federal permits, to restrict control over the tea to persons of church authority, and to warn particularly susceptible UDV members of the dangers of hoasca. See Preliminary Injunction ¶¶ 2, 5-12, 32-33, App. F to App. to Pet. for Cert. 249a, 250a-252a, 258a-259a. The injunction also provides that "if [the Government] believe[s] that evidence exists that hoasca has negatively affected the health of UDV members," or "that a shipment of hoasca contain[s] particularly dangerous levels of DMT, [the Government] may apply to the Court for an expedite[d] determination of whether the evidence warrants suspension or revocation of [the UDV's authority to use hoasca]." Id., at 257a, ¶ 29.

The Government appealed the preliminary injunction and a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal v. Ashcroft, 342 F.3d 1170 (2003), as did a majority of the Circuit sitting en banc, 389 F.3d 973 (2004). We granted certiorari. 544 U.S. 973 (2005).

II

Although its briefs contain some discussion of the potential for harm and diversion from the UDV's use of hoasca, the Government does not challenge the District Court's factual findings or its conclusion that the evidence submitted on [428] these issues was evenly balanced. Instead, the Government maintains that such evidentiary equipoise is an insufficient basis for issuing a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act. We review the District Court's legal rulings de novo and its ultimate decision to issue the preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion. See McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545 U.S. 844, 867 (2005).

The Government begins by invoking the well-established principle that the party seeking pretrial relief bears the burden of demonstrating a likelihood of success on the merits. See, e.g., Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U.S. 968, 972 (1997) (per curiam); Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 931 (1975). The Government argues that the District Court lost sight of this principle in issuing the injunction based on a mere tie in the evidentiary record.

A majority of the en banc Court of Appeals rejected this argument, and so do we. Before the District Court, the Government conceded the UDV's prima facie case under RFRA. See 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1252 (application of the Controlled Substances Act would (1) substantially burden (2) a sincere (3) religious exercise). The evidence the District Court found to be in equipoise related to two of the compelling interests asserted by the Government, which formed part of the Government's affirmative defense. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(b) ("Government may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest ..." (emphasis added)); § 2000bb-2(3) ("[T]he term `demonstrates' means meets the burdens of going forward with the evidence and of persuasion"). Accordingly, the UDV effectively demonstrated that its sincere exercise of religion was substantially burdened, and the Government failed to demonstrate that the application of the burden to the UDV would, more likely than not, be justified by the asserted compelling interests. [429] See 389 F.3d, at 1009 (SEYMOUR, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("[T]he balance is between actual irreparable harm to [the] plaintiff and potential harm to the government which does not even rise to the level of a preponderance of the evidence").

The Government argues that, although it would bear the burden of demonstrating a compelling interest as part of its affirmative defense at trial on the merits, the UDV should have borne the burden of disproving the asserted compelling interests at the hearing on the preliminary injunction. This argument is foreclosed by our recent decision in Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union, 542 U.S. 656 (2004). In Ashcroft, we affirmed the grant of a preliminary injunction in a case where the Government had failed to show a likelihood of success under the compelling interest test. We reasoned that "[a]s the Government bears the burden of proof on the ultimate question of [the challenged Act's] constitutionality, respondents [the movants] must be deemed likely to prevail unless the Government has shown that respondents' proposed less restrictive alternatives are less effective than [enforcing the Act]." Id., at 666. That logic extends to this case; here the Government failed on the first prong of the compelling interest test, and did not reach the least restrictive means prong, but that can make no difference. The point remains that the burdens at the preliminary injunction stage track the burdens at trial.

The Government attempts to limit the rule announced in Ashcroft to content-based restrictions on speech, but the distinction is unavailing. The fact that Ashcroft involved such a restriction was the reason the Government had the burden of proof at trial under the First Amendment, see id., at 665, but in no way affected the Court's assessment of the consequences of having that burden for purposes of the preliminary injunction. Here the burden is placed squarely on the Government by RFRA rather than the First Amendment, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb-1(b), 2000bb-2(3), but the consequences [430] are the same. Congress's express decision to legislate the compelling interest test indicates that RFRA challenges should be adjudicated in the same manner as constitutionally mandated applications of the test, including at the preliminary injunction stage.

III

The Government's second line of argument rests on the Controlled Substances Act itself. The Government contends that the Act's description of Schedule I substances as having "a high potential for abuse," "no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States," and "a lack of accepted safety for use . . . under medical supervision," 21 U.S.C. § 812(b)(1), by itself precludes any consideration of individualized exceptions such as that sought by the UDV. The Government goes on to argue that the regulatory regime established by the Act—a "closed" system that prohibits all use of controlled substances except as authorized by the Act itself, see Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 13 (2005)— "cannot function with its necessary rigor and comprehensiveness if subjected to judicial exemptions." Brief for Petitioners 18. According to the Government, there would be no way to cabin religious exceptions once recognized, and "the public will misread" such exceptions as signaling that the substance at issue is not harmful after all. Id., at 23. Under the Government's view, there is no need to assess the particulars of the UDV's use or weigh the impact of an exemption for that specific use, because the Controlled Substances Act serves a compelling purpose and simply admits of no exceptions.

A

RFRA, and the strict scrutiny test it adopted, contemplate an inquiry more focused than the Government's categorical approach. RFRA requires the Government to demonstrate that the compelling interest test is satisfied through application of the challenged law "to the person"—the particular [431] claimant whose sincere exercise of religion is being substantially burdened. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(b). RFRA expressly adopted the compelling interest test "as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972)." § 2000bb(b)(1). In each of those cases, this Court looked beyond broadly formulated interests justifying the general applicability of government mandates and scrutinized the asserted harm of granting specific exemptions to particular religious claimants. In Yoder, for example, we permitted an exemption for Amish children from a compulsory school attendance law. We recognized that the State had a "paramount" interest in education, but held that "despite its admitted validity in the generality of cases, we must searchingly examine the interests that the State seeks to promote . . . and the impediment to those objectives that would flow from recognizing the claimed Amish exemption." 406 U.S., at 213, 221 (emphasis added). The Court explained that the State needed "to show with more particularity how its admittedly strong interest . . . would be adversely affected by granting an exemption to the Amish." Id., at 236 (emphasis added).

In Sherbert, the Court upheld a particular claim to a religious exemption from a state law denying unemployment benefits to those who would not work on Saturdays, but explained that it was not announcing a constitutional right to unemployment benefits for "all persons whose religious convictions are the cause of their unemployment." 374 U.S., at 410 (emphasis added). The Court distinguished the case "in which an employee's religious convictions serve to make him a nonproductive member of society." Ibid.; see also Smith, 494 U.S., at 899 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment) (strict scrutiny "at least requires a case-by-case determination of the question, sensitive to the facts of each particular claim"). Outside the Free Exercise area as well, the Court has noted that "[c]ontext matters" in applying the compelling interest test, Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 327 (2003), and has [432] emphasized that "strict scrutiny does take `relevant differences' into account—indeed, that is its fundamental purpose," Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200, 228 (1995).

B

Under the more focused inquiry required by RFRA and the compelling interest test, the Government's mere invocation of the general characteristics of Schedule I substances, as set forth in the Controlled Substances Act, cannot carry the day. It is true, of course, that Schedule I substances such as DMT are exceptionally dangerous. See, e.g., Touby v. United States, 500 U.S. 160, 162 (1991). Nevertheless, there is no indication that Congress, in classifying DMT, considered the harms posed by the particular use at issue here— the circumscribed, sacramental use of hoasca by the UDV. The question of the harms from the sacramental use of hoasca by the UDV was litigated below. Before the District Court found that the Government had not carried its burden of showing a compelling interest in preventing such harms, the court noted that it could not "ignore that the legislative branch of the government elected to place materials containing DMT in Schedule I of the [Act], reflecting findings that substances containing DMT have `a high potential for abuse,' and `no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,' and that `[t]here is a lack of accepted safety for use of [DMT] under medical supervision.'" 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1254. But Congress' determination that DMT should be listed under Schedule I simply does not provide a categorical answer that relieves the Government of the obligation to shoulder its burden under RFRA.

This conclusion is reinforced by the Controlled Substances Act itself. The Act contains a provision authorizing the Attorney General to "waive the requirement for registration of certain manufacturers, distributors, or dispensers if he finds it consistent with the public health and safety." 21 U.S.C. § 822(d). The fact that the Act itself contemplates that exempting [433] certain people from its requirements would be "consistent with the public health and safety" indicates that congressional findings with respect to Schedule I substances should not carry the determinative weight, for RFRA purposes, that the Government would ascribe to them.

And in fact an exception has been made to the Schedule I ban for religious use. For the past 35 years, there has been a regulatory exemption for use of peyote—a Schedule I substance—by the Native American Church. See 21 CFR § 1307.31 (2005). In 1994, Congress extended that exemption to all members of every recognized Indian Tribe. See 42 U.S.C. § 1996a(b)(1). Everything the Government says about the DMT in hoasca—that, as a Schedule I substance, Congress has determined that it "has a high potential for abuse," "has no currently accepted medical use," and has "a lack of accepted safety for use . . . under medical supervision," 21 U.S.C. § 812(b)(1)—applies in equal measure to the mescaline in peyote, yet both the Executive and Congress itself have decreed an exception from the Controlled Substances Act for Native American religious use of peyote. If such use is permitted in the face of the congressional findings in § 812(b)(1) for hundreds of thousands of Native Americans practicing their faith, it is difficult to see how those same findings alone can preclude any consideration of a similar exception for the 130 or so American members of the UDV who want to practice theirs. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 547 (1993) ("It is established in our strict scrutiny jurisprudence that `a law cannot be regarded as protecting an interest `of the highest order' ... when it leaves appreciable damage to that supposedly vital interest unprohibited'" (quoting Florida Star v. B. J. F., 491 U.S. 524, 541-542 (1989) (SCALIA, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment))).

The Government responds that there is a "unique relationship" between the United States and the Tribes, Brief for Petitioners 27; see Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535 (1974), [434] but never explains what about that "unique" relationship justifies overriding the same congressional findings on which the Government relies in resisting any exception for the UDV's religious use of hoasca. In other words, if any Schedule I substance is in fact always highly dangerous in any amount no matter how used, what about the unique relationship with the Tribes justifies allowing their use of peyote? Nothing about the unique political status of the Tribes makes their members immune from the health risks the Government asserts accompany any use of a Schedule I substance, nor insulates the Schedule I substance the Tribes use in religious exercise from the alleged risk of diversion.

The Government argues that the existence of a congressional exemption for peyote does not indicate that the Controlled Substances Act is amenable to judicially crafted exceptions. RFRA, however, plainly contemplates that courts would recognize exceptions—that is how the law works. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(c) ("A person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government"). Congress' role in the peyote exemption—and the Executive's, see 21 CFR § 1307.31 (2005)—confirms that the findings in the Controlled Substances Act do not preclude exceptions altogether; RFRA makes clear that it is the obligation of the courts to consider whether exceptions are required under the test set forth by Congress.

C

The well-established peyote exception also fatally undermines the Government's broader contention that the Controlled Substances Act establishes a closed regulatory system that admits of no exceptions under RFRA. The Government argues that the effectiveness of the Controlled Substances Act will be "necessarily . . . undercut" if the Act is not uniformly applied, without regard to burdens on religious exercise. Brief for Petitioners 18. The peyote exception, [435] however, has been in place since the outset of the Controlled Substances Act, and there is no evidence that it has "undercut" the Government's ability to enforce the ban on peyote use by non-Indians.

The Government points to some pre-Smith cases relying on a need for uniformity in rejecting claims for religious exemptions under the Free Exercise Clause, see Brief for Petitioners 16, but those cases strike us as quite different from the present one. Those cases did not embrace the notion that a general interest in uniformity justified a substantial burden on religious exercise; they instead scrutinized the asserted need and explained why the denied exemptions could not be accommodated. In United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982), for example, the Court rejected a claimed exception to the obligation to pay Social Security taxes, noting that "mandatory participation is indispensable to the fiscal vitality of the social security system" and that the "tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge the tax system because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief." Id., at 258, 260. See also Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680, 700 (1989) (same). In Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961) (plurality opinion), the Court denied a claimed exception to Sunday closing laws, in part because allowing such exceptions "might well provide [the claimants] with an economic Fadvantage over their competitors who must remain closed on that day." Id., at 608-609. The whole point of a "uniform day of rest for all workers" would have been defeated by exceptions. See Sherbert, 374 U.S., at 408 (discussing Braunfeld). These cases show that the Government can demonstrate a compelling interest in uniform application of a particular program by offering evidence that granting the requested religious accommodations would seriously compromise its ability to administer the program.

Here the Government's argument for uniformity is different; it rests not so much on the particular statutory program at issue as on slippery-slope concerns that could be invoked [436] in response to any RFRA claim for an exception to a generally applicable law. The Government's argument echoes the classic rejoinder of bureaucrats throughout history: If I make an exception for you, I'll have to make one for everybody, so no exceptions. But RFRA operates by mandating consideration, under the compelling interest test, of exceptions to "rule[s] of general applicability." 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(a). Congress determined that the legislated test "is a workable test for striking sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests." § 2000bb(a)(5). This determination finds support in our cases; in Sherbert, for example, we rejected a slippery-slope argument similar to the one offered in this case, dismissing as "no more than a possibility" the State's speculation "that the filing of fraudulent claims by unscrupulous claimants feigning religious objections to Saturday work" would drain the unemployment benefits fund. 374 U.S., at 407.

We reaffirmed just last Term the feasibility of case-by-case consideration of religious exemptions to generally applicable rules. In Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709 (2005), we held that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which allows federal and state prisoners to seek religious accommodations pursuant to the same standard as set forth in RFRA, does not violate the Establishment Clause. We had "no cause to believe" that the compelling interest test "would not be applied in an appropriately balanced way" to specific claims for exemptions as they arose. Id., at 722. Nothing in our opinion suggested that courts were not up to the task.

We do not doubt that there may be instances in which a need for uniformity precludes the recognition of exceptions to generally applicable laws under RFRA. But it would have been surprising to find that this was such a case, given the longstanding exemption from the Controlled Substances Act for religious use of peyote, and the fact that the very reason Congress enacted RFRA was to respond to a decision [437] denying a claimed right to sacramental use of a controlled substance. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb(a)(4). And in fact the Government has not offered evidence demonstrating that granting the UDV an exemption would cause the kind of administrative harm recognized as a compelling interest in Lee, Hernandez, and Braunfeld. The Government failed to convince the District Court at the preliminary injunction hearing that health or diversion concerns provide a compelling interest in banning the UDV's sacramental use of hoasca. It cannot compensate for that failure now with the bold argument that there can be no RFRA exceptions at all to the Controlled Substances Act. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 17 (Deputy Solicitor General statement that exception could not be made even for "rigorously policed" use of "one drop" of substance "once a year").

IV

Before the District Court, the Government also asserted an interest in compliance with the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances, Feb. 21, 1971, [1979-1980] 32 U.S. T. 543, T. I. A. S. No. 9725. The Convention, signed by the United States and implemented by the Controlled Substances Act, calls on signatories to prohibit the use of hallucinogens, including DMT. The Government argues that it has a compelling interest in meeting its international obligations by complying with the Convention.

The District Court rejected this interest because it found that the Convention does not cover hoasca. The court relied on the official commentary to the Convention, which notes that "Schedule I [of the Convention] does not list . . . natural hallucinogenic materials," and that "[p]lants as such are not, and—it is submitted—are also not likely to be, listed in Schedule I, but only some products obtained from plants." U. N. Commentary on the Convention on Psychotropic Substances 387, 385 (1976). The court reasoned that hoasca, like the plants from which the tea is made, is sufficiently distinct from DMT itself to fall outside the treaty. See 282 F. Supp. 2d, at 1266-1269.

[438] We do not agree. The Convention provides that "a preparation is subject to the same measures of control as the psychotropic substance which it contains," and defines "preparation" as "any solution or mixture, in whatever physical state, containing one or more psychotropic substances." See 32 U.S. T., at 546, Art. 1(f)(i); id., at 551, Art. 3. Hoasca is a "solution or mixture" containing DMT; the fact that it is made by the simple process of brewing plants in water, as opposed to some more advanced method, does not change that. To the extent the commentary suggests plants themselves are not covered by the Convention, that is of no moment—the UDV seeks to import and use a tea brewed from plants, not the plants themselves, and the tea plainly qualifies as a "preparation" under the Convention.

The fact that hoasca is covered by the Convention, however, does not automatically mean that the Government has demonstrated a compelling interest in applying the Controlled Substances Act, which implements the Convention, to the UDV's sacramental use of the tea. At the present stage, it suffices to observe that the Government did not even submit evidence addressing the international consequences of granting an exemption for the UDV. The Government simply submitted two affidavits by State Department officials attesting to the general importance of honoring international obligations and of maintaining the leadership position of the United States in the international war on drugs. See Declaration of Gary T. Sheridan (Jan. 24, 2001), App. G to App. to Pet. for Cert. 261a; Declaration of Robert E. Dalton (Jan. 24, 2001), App. H, id., at 265a. We do not doubt the validity of these interests, any more than we doubt the general interest in promoting public health and safety by enforcing the Controlled Substances Act, but under RFRA invocation of such general interests, standing alone, is not enough.^[2]

[439] * * *

The Government repeatedly invokes Congress' findings and purposes underlying the Controlled Substances Act, but Congress had a reason for enacting RFRA, too. Congress recognized that "laws `neutral' toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise," and legislated "the compelling interest test" as the means for the courts to "strik[e] sensible balances between religious liberty and competing prior governmental interests." 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb(a)(2), (5).

We have no cause to pretend that the task assigned by Congress to the courts under RFRA is an easy one. Indeed, the very sort of difficulties highlighted by the Government here were cited by this Court in deciding that the approach later mandated by Congress under RFRA was not required as a matter of constitutional law under the Free Exercise Clause. See Smith, 494 U.S., at 885-890. But Congress has determined that courts should strike sensible balances, pursuant to a compelling interest test that requires the Government to address the particular practice at issue. Applying that test, we conclude that the courts below did not err in determining that the Government failed to demonstrate, at the preliminary injunction stage, a compelling interest in barring the UDV's sacramental use of hoasca.

The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE ALITO took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

[*] Marci A. Hamilton filed a brief for the Tort Claimants' Committee et al. as amici curiaeurging reversal.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Baptist Joint Committee et al. by Gene C. Schaerr, Linda T. Coberly, Thomas C. Berg, and Gregory S. Baylor; for the Council on Spiritual Practices et al. by David T. Goldberg; for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops by Mark E. Chopko and Jeffrey Hunter Moon; for Dr. John H. Halpern et al. by Roy S. Haber; and for Douglas Laycock by Mr. Laycock, pro se.

Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the International Academy for Freedom of Religion and Belief et al. by Lee Boothby, Derek Davis, Robert A. Destro, and W. Cole Durham, Jr.; for the Liberty Legal Institute by Kelly Shackelford; for Various Religious and Civil Rights Organizations by Anthony R. Picarello, Jr.; and for Robert Gable et al. by Peter D. Kennedy.

[1] As originally enacted, RFRA applied to States as well as the Federal Government. In City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), we held the application to States to be beyond Congress' legislative authority under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

[2] In light of the foregoing, we do not reach the UDV's argument that Art. 22, ¶ 5, of the Convention should be read to accommodate exceptions under domestic laws such as RFRA.