Source: The Huffington Post
Even some of the more liberal justices signaled the state of Missouri may have gone too far against a religious school.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court doesn’t always see eye to eye when messy issues of church and state collide. But what if it’s schoolchildren who lose out if the court gets it wrong?
A majority of the justices on Wednesday seemed to recognize that the state of Missouri may have discriminated against a church that was shut out of a competitive funding program open to schools wishing to resurface their playgrounds with tire scraps. Under the state’s constitution, no public funding may go to “any church, sect or denomination of religion.”
The case, Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, calls into question the state’s application of that provision, which the church claims violates the federal Constitution. The Supreme Court has upheld similar funding prohibitions in the past, but here the church insists that its school was denied funding solely on account of its religious status — and that the funds it sought for tire scraps should’ve been granted because they wouldn’t be used for religious instruction.
Given the stakes of the case, one of the biggest church-state disputes the Supreme Court has heard in the past decade, all eyes were on Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court’s newest member and someone whose record suggests a sympathy for religious rights.