Supreme Court: Blocking church daycare from state funding unconstitutional

Source: Washington Examiner | June 26, 2017 | Ryan Lovelace

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Missouri’s decision to prevent a church-operated daycare and preschool from receiving funding from a state program was unconstitutional.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Supreme Court’s 7-2 opinion, which reversed the federal appeals court’s ruling and sent the case back to the lower court for additional proceedings.

The dispute in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer involved a state program that provided funding to nonprofits to resurface playgrounds, which ran into conflict with a provision of the Missouri Constitution that blocks public funds from directly or indirectly assisting any church, sect or religion.

“The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has not subjected anyone to chains or torture on account of religion. And the result of the state’s policy is nothing so dramatic as the denial of political office,” Roberts wrote in the high court’s opinion. “The consequence is in all likelihood, a few extra scraped knees. But the exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”

The Supreme Court waited several months before hearing the case with a full nine-justice bench after Justice Neil Gorsuch joined in April.

Tempers flared among the justices during oral arguments, particularly among Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Samuel Alito. Sotomayor said she thought the playground is part of the church’s ministry and highlighted the United States’ tradition of not funding religious institutions.

Alito subsequently called Sotomayor out by name during the arguments. Alito questioned Trinity Lutheran’s lawyer about whether the attorney agreed with Sotomayor’s suggestion that the Missouri Constitution’s provision had an “admirable tradition,” which gave Trinity Lutheran’s representation the opportunity to talk about the provision’s roots in “anti-Catholic bigotry.”

The Supreme Court’s resolution of the case could have widespread implications for the nearly 40 other states in their constitutions similar to Missouri’s provision. In advance of the court’s opinion, several right-leaning groups detailed the stakes that advocates for school choice and religious liberty would win if Trinity Lutheran prevailed.

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