Supreme Court Rules Religious School Can Use Taxpayer Funds For Playground
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that taxpayer-funded grants for playgrounds available to nonprofits under a state program could not be denied to a school run by a church.
"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," Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, "If this separation means anything, it means that the government cannot, or at the very least need not, tax its citizens and turn that money over to houses of worship. The Court today blinds itself to the outcome this history requires and leads us instead to a place where separation of church and state is a constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment."
Two justices, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, refused to sign on to a footnote explicitly stating that the court's approval applied only to playground funding and should not be read as applying to parochial schools in general.
The court's ruling came in the case of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, Mo., which operates a preschool and day care learning center as part of its church ministry.Supreme Court: Religious School In Missouri Can Use Taxpayer Funds For Playground : NPR: