{"id":6798,"date":"2017-06-27T20:27:15","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T02:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=6798"},"modified":"2017-06-27T20:27:15","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T02:27:15","slug":"next-church-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/06\/next-church-state.html","title":{"rendered":"What next for church and state?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"from<\/p>\n

Monday: \u201cMissouri church wins playground case in Supreme Court<\/a>,\u201d in, well, pretty much everywhere, but in this case, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.<\/p>\n

In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court overturned lower courts Monday and decided in favor of a Columbia, Mo., church, that had argued that its constitutional rights had been violated by the state Department of Natural Resources\u2019 denial of scrap rubber for its playground.<\/p>\n

Writing for the majority in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia vs. Comer, Chief Justice John Roberts proclaimed that Trinity was \u201casserting a right to participate in a government benefit program without having to disavow its religious character.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe express discrimination against religious exercise here is not the denial of a grant, but rather the refusal to allow the church \u2014 solely because it is a church \u2014 to compete with secular organizations for a grant,\u201d Roberts wrote, in a decision in which Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Samuel Alito concurred.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not everyone is happy; Noah Feldman<\/a>, writing at Bloomberg, complains that the decision \u201cweakens the wall of separation between church and state to an unprecedented degree,\u201d which seems rather overblown, fretting that<\/p>\n

the Supreme Court hasn\u2019t yet held that a state may directly pay for ministers who teach the gospel by, say, creating a funding program for all community organizations\u2019 leaders. But the court very certainly headed in that direction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tuesday: \u00a0\u201cHigh court: Religious school admissions can be reviewed<\/a>\u201d in the Detroit News. \u00a0Now, in this case, the \u201chigh court\u201d is the Michigan Supreme Court, not SCOTUS itself.<\/p>\n

The story:<\/p>\n

State courts can intervene in some admission decisions at private religious schools, the Michigan Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling issued Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The 7-0 opinion written by Justice Bridget McCormack said state courts have jurisdiction over private schools in determining whether they violated the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act in admission decisions.<\/p>\n

The case stems from the Notre Dame Preparatory High School\u2019s rejection of Bettina Winkler\u2019s application. Winkler\u2019s parents sued Notre Dame and the Marist Fathers of Detroit Inc., alleging the school violated federal anti-discrimination law for rejecting Winkler because of a learning disability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Specifically, Winkler had attended the Marist Fathers\u2019 middle school but had been diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and for this reason, she was not allowed to continue to the high school.<\/p>\n

So this decision comes as a surprise, as I would have considered it fairly straightforward that private schools have the ability to determine which learning-disabled children they can and cannot take on, given their level of resources. \u00a0Near as I can understand it, the school had claimed that the religious nature of the school had provided them with an absolute exemption from the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act, but the State Supreme Court rejected this claim. \u00a0According to a prior article, the school\u2019s attorney James Walsh<\/p>\n

said religion \u201cpermeates\u201d every aspect of education at the Notre Dame High, and said the student\u2019s disability would have thwarted the school\u2019s mission to \u201ceffectively convey\u201d its religious message.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the issue didn\u2019t seem to be that they didn\u2019t have the resources to meet her needs, but that she would be disruptive, and thus they created a connection, however tenuous, because it would prevent them from instructing in religion (as well as everything else). \u00a0Perhaps the state already provides funding for additional instruction, or the family intended to get separate tutoring, so that it really boiled down to behavior in the classroom, and the school claiming that it was exempt from the burden that other schools bore, of disruptive children, due to its religious status.<\/p>\n

And at this point, I will very carefully avoid making any claim about whether this was right or wrong, because I don\u2019t have enough knowledge around the law in question to make that determination. \u00a0But, readers, you\u2019re welcome to chew on this with me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0from flickr: https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/andwat\/3458528092; creative commons 2.0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday: \u201cMissouri church wins playground case in Supreme Court,\u201d in, well, pretty much everywhere, but in this case, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 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