Religious Schools Win Big in Supreme Court SCOT
Post# of 123736
SCOTUS handed a huge win to the religious right. Conservatives on the Supreme Court are simply daring liberal democrats to riot in the streets.
This particular case involves a school voucher program in Maine but the decision will have far-reaching repercussions. The verdict was split 6-3, with Justice Sotomayor so bent out of shape she had to write a special dissent of her own.
Religious Schools included
The religious right are chalking up a victory for the Christian soldiers while heathen Democrats are hotter than hell.
The controversy swirls over the decision posted by the U.S. Supreme Court on this year’s summer solstice, Tuesday, June 21.
All SCOTUS said is that “Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance program that allows parents to use vouchers to send their children to public or private schools.”
That means Vermont can’t do it either. It also means the principle will creep outward to cover “any such public benefit program.”
Conservatives and associated organizations praised the ruling, including the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. “This watershed Supreme Court ruling opens the door for our advocacy efforts at the state and local levels in key places like New York, New Jersey, Florida, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the conservative six, declared “Maine’s ‘nonsectarian‘ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”
I t’s crystal clear that 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. ” Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett totally agreed.
Progressives are in mourning, calling the decision “further erosion of the separation between church and state.” According to the Supreme Court analyst for CNN, Steve Vladeck, “today’s ruling puts states in a difficult position.” Well, blue states.
If they want to offer tuition assistance, they have to give it to everyone .
Even those religious charter schools who teach the students to actually read, write and add numbers together using lesson plans which don’t include gender mis-identification or White guilt propaganda.
“Although framed as a school-choice ruling, it’s hard to see how this won’t have implications for a far wider range of state benefit programs – putting government in the awkward position of having to choose between directly funding religious activity or not providing funding at all,” Vladeck grumbled. Stephen Breyer wrote up a dissent for Elena Kagan and himself but it wasn’t snotty enough for Justice Sotomayor, so she turned in her own.
The majority, she fumed, is dismantling “the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build.” They did that by “embracing arguments from prior separate writings and ignoring decades of precedent affording governments flexibility in navigating the tension between the Religion Clauses.”
Breyer and Kagan are of the opinion that the idea is preposterous because they never did such a thing ever before. The court, Breyer writes, “never previously held what the Court holds today, namely, that a State must (not may) use state funds to pay for religious education as part of a tuition program designed to ensure the provision of free statewide public school education.” Suck it up cupcake.
Justice Roberts knew what Breyer was going to bray, so, in his own opinion, Roberts wrote, “Responding to Breyer’s emphasis on ‘government neutrality,’ there is nothing neutral about Maine’s program.
The state pays for tuition for certain students at private schools – so long as they are not religious.” That’s a no-no. “That is discrimination against religion.“
https://rightwingnewshour.com/religious-schoo...rmed%20Man