{"id":3045,"date":"2017-06-26T17:33:38","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T23:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?p=3045"},"modified":"2017-06-26T17:33:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T23:33:38","slug":"scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3046\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/653\/2017\/06\/Playground2-e1498519949783.png\" alt=\"Playground2\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\"><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes it\u2019s hard to keep track of all of the rulings that the Supreme Court hands down on days like today. \u00a0One case, however, had religious liberty ramifications that could\u2019ve been far reaching in terms of the 1st amendment. Here\u2019s a great video produced by Alliance Defending Freedom about\u00a0<em>Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer<\/em>:<!--more--><\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative; height: 0; padding-bottom: 56.25%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2yMrpCWrR84?ecver=2\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>National Review\u2019s David French <a class=\"external decorated-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/448977\/scotus-religious-freedom-churches-arent-second-class-institutions?utm_campaign=trueanthem&amp;utm_content=59517d8e04d30156b33dbaa7&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">wrote<\/a>, \u201cWhile there are many threats to religious liberty, few are more consequential over the long term than the state\u2019s ever-expanding role in private life. If the government is able to vacuum up tax dollars, create programs large and small for public benefit, and then exclude religious individuals or institutions from those programs, it has functionally created two tiers of citizenship. Secular individuals and institutions enjoy full access to the government they fund, while religious individuals and institutions find themselves funding a government that overtly discriminates against them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the church by a wide margin \u2014 7 to 2 \u2014 which means that \u201cthe principle of religious nondiscrimination in public programs has broad judicial support.\u201d Great news!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>h\/t <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/448977\/scotus-religious-freedom-churches-arent-second-class-institutions?utm_campaign=trueanthem&amp;utm_content=59517d8e04d30156b33dbaa7&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">National Review<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Image Credit: Screen cap<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great news from the Supreme Court!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2673,"featured_media":3046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Great news from the Supreme Court!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Great news from the Supreme Court!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-26T23:33:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/653\/2017\/06\/Playground2-e1498519949783.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"337\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Meckler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/\",\"name\":\"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-06-26T23:33:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-06-26T23:33:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421\"},\"description\":\"Great news from the Supreme Court!\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/\",\"name\":\"Mark Meckler\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421\",\"name\":\"Mark Meckler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark Meckler\"},\"description\":\"Mark is one of the nation\u2019s most effective grassroots activists. After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. Founded in February 2012, this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. Mark appears regularly on wide variety of television outlets, including MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/author\/mmeckler\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?","description":"Great news from the Supreme Court!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?","og_description":"Great news from the Supreme Court!","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/","og_site_name":"Mark Meckler","article_published_time":"2017-06-26T23:33:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":337,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/653\/2017\/06\/Playground2-e1498519949783.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Mark Meckler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark Meckler","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/","name":"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-06-26T23:33:38+00:00","dateModified":"2017-06-26T23:33:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421"},"description":"Great news from the Supreme Court!","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/2017\/06\/scotus-ruling-playgrounds-big-deal\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why is the SCOTUS Ruling about Playgrounds a Big Deal?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/","name":"Mark Meckler","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/e95fc54d2a84068750f5d9a181cd2421","name":"Mark Meckler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf71f8e44cbfd7951a4eb0173d2a8f27?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Mark Meckler"},"description":"Mark is one of the nation\u2019s most effective grassroots activists. After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. Founded in February 2012, this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. Mark appears regularly on wide variety of television outlets, including MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/author\/mmeckler\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markmeckler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}