Ruling could make it easier for state money to go to private, religious schooling.
Via the AP:
Justice Neil Gorsuch’s first week on the Supreme Court bench features an important case about the separation of church and state that has its roots on a Midwestern church playground. The outcome could make it easier to use state money to pay for private, religious schooling in many states.
The justices on Wednesday will hear a Missouri church’s challenge to its exclusion from a state program that provides money to use ground-up tires to cushion playgrounds. Missouri is among roughly three dozen states with constitutions that explicitly prohibit using public money to aid a religious institution, an even higher wall separating government and religion than the U.S. Constitution erects.
Tell me again, where does the US Constitution erect a wall of separation between religion and state?
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo, says its exclusion is discrimination that violates its religious freedoms under the U.S. Constitution.
If the justices agree, “the decision could have implications far beyond scrap tires and playgrounds,” said Michael Bindas of the Institute for Justice, which is backing the church. “It has the potential to remove one of the last legal clouds hanging over school choice.”
Parents, especially minority parents stuck with failing inner city government schools, should be able to take their kids to wherever they can get a quality education.