On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court said that Maine “need not subsidize private education” [but] that “once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.” Why? The First Amendment.
Democrats, who’ve never read it, or don’t understand it, are off the rails about the decision. It is idiocy echoed everywhere, but no one seems to have done it like SLATE.
The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority effectively declared on Tuesday that the separation of church and state—a principle enshrined in the Constitution—is, itself, unconstitutional. Its 6–3 decision in Carson v. Makin requires Maine to give public money to private religious schools, steamrolling decades of precedent in a race to compel state funding of religion.
Um, no.
Separation of Church and State, not in the Constitution. Not for real, not enshrined. There is no shadow of a penumbra. The concept is a left-wing invention cherry-picked from one letter by one founder. This does not constitute decades of precedent.
It does attempt to justify discrimination but repeating it over and over with your fingers in your ears (lalalalalalalalala) does not change that. Or this.
The dissents are wrong to say that under our decision today Maine “must” fund religious education. Post, at 7 (BREYER, J., dissenting). Maine chose to allow some parents to direct state tuition payments to private schools; that decision was not “forced upon” it. Post, at 4 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). The State retains a number of options: it could expand the reach of its public school system, increase the availability of transportation, provide some combination of tutoring, remote learning, and partial attendance, or even operate boarding schools of its own. As we held in Espinoza, a “State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.” 591 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20)….
Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.
It is against the law (unconstitutional) for the State to refuse access to public funds based on religion.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Congress and the States are prohibited from playing favorites. Refusing to fund certified sectarian schools is no different than refusing to fund a certified public school. The Constitution projects equality as both a matter of faith and assembly.
If this equality is unreasonable, the Justices have made it clear that Maine has other paths it could follow to address the concerns, but discrimination based on religious beliefs is not one of them.
But since you seem to think they have that power, when will these outspoken defenders of the separation of church and State publicly refuse tuition to kids attending schools run by Muslims?
Anyone?
