The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Missouri’s decision to prevent a church-operated daycare and preschool from receiving funding from a state program was unconstitutional.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the Supreme Court’s 7-2 opinion, which reversed the federal appeals court’s ruling and sent the case back to the lower court for additional proceedings.
The dispute in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer involved a state program that provided funding to nonprofits to resurface playgrounds, which ran into conflict with a provision of the Missouri Constitution that blocks public funds from directly or indirectly assisting any church, sect or religion.
“The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has not subjected anyone to chains or torture on account of religion. And the result of the state’s policy is nothing so dramatic as the denial of political office,” Roberts wrote in the high court’s opinion. “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.”
Roberts’ opinion provided the high court’s consensus in the case, except a footnote in his opinion that said the Trinity Lutheran case involved “discrimination based on religious identity” and did “not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination.”
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas joined Roberts’ opinion but disagreed with the distinction made in the footnote. Both Thomas and Gorsuch wrote separate concurring opinions and joined each other’s concurrence. Gorsuch explained why he did not join Roberts’ opinion in the footnote with some “modest qualifications.”
“The court leaves open the possibility a useful distinction might be drawn between laws that discriminate on the basis of religious status and religious use,” Gorsuch wrote. “Respectfully, I harbor doubts about the stability of such a line. Does a religious man say grace before dinner? Or does a man begin his meal in a religious manner?
“The distinction blurs in much the same way the line between acts and omissions can blur when stared at too long, leaving us to ask (for example) whether the man who drowns by awaiting the incoming tide does so by act (coming upon the sea) or omission (allowing the sea to come upon him). Often enough the same facts can be described both ways.”
The Supreme Court waited several months before hearing the case with a full nine-justice bench after Gorsuch joined in April.
Tempers flared among the justices during oral arguments, particularly among Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Samuel Alito. Sotomayor said she thought the playground is part of the church’s ministry and highlighted the United States’ tradition of not funding religious institutions.
Alito subsequently called Sotomayor out by name during the arguments. Alito questioned Trinity Lutheran’s lawyer about whether the attorney agreed with Sotomayor’s suggestion that the Missouri Constitution’s provision had an “admirable tradition,” which gave Trinity Lutheran’s representation the opportunity to talk about the provision’s roots in “anti-Catholic bigotry.”
On Monday, Sotomayor took the unusual step of reading her dissent, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aloud from the bench.
“To hear the court tell it, this is a simple case about recycling tires to resurface a playground,” Sotomayor wrote. “The stakes are higher. This case is about nothing less than the relationship between religious institutions and the civil government — that is, between church and state.
“The court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church. Its decision slights both our precedents and our history, and its reasoning weakens this country’s longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state beneficial to both.”
The Supreme Court’s resolution of the case could have widespread implications for the nearly 40 other states in their constitutions similar to Missouri’s provision. In advance of the court’s opinion, several right-leaning groups detailed the stakes that advocates for school choice and religious liberty would win if Trinity Lutheran prevailed.
“If Trinity Lutheran wins, that could be a real benefit to supporters of school choice, to those who are trying to make sure that all schools — whether religious or secular — have a chance to participate in voucher programs or school choice programs,” said Richard W. Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, in a video detailing the case.
In an article before the high court delivered its opinion, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian conservative group focused on the issue of religious freedom, wrote about the high stakes. ADF wrote it believed Trinity Lutheran’s victory over Missouri means religious daycares are eligible to participate in state programs, religious schools could use state programs that provide busing for students, and state programs providing healthcare and educational testing to children at other public and private schools would be available at religious schools.
