Why We Need the Supreme Court

I don't think anyone doubts the need for the third branch of the Federal government, i.e., the judicial branch.  Apart from the need to provide a check and a balance on the legislative and executive branches, someone has to be the ultimate authority for issues, conflicts and interpretations that simply cannot be left to the other two branches to sort out.

And sometimes the justices have to sit on a pretty thorny wool-sack indeed, as a case before them now represents.

As is described here in this piece from The Hill, the case involves a preschool playground that is part of the facility of a Lutheran church located in a small town in Missouri.  The State has a program through which playgrounds, for example, can purchase resurfacing material made from recycled tires and be reimbursed by the State to some extent for that purchase after the fact.  The goal of the program is partly to make playgrounds safer, and partly to get rid of old tire material that would otherwise pile up in unsightly places.

The State, of course, makes it extremely difficult and time-consuming to apply for the reimbursement; applicants have to file tons of paperwork to be "rated" to be approved.  There is a level of competing for those funds.

Trinity Lutheran Church filed all the needed funds to apply and were highly rated, certainly enough for a refund grant.  They were subsequently denied, though, on the grounds that as a religious organization, to have been granted the funds would constitute a violation of the Missouri constitution as regards aid to religious organizations.

Trinity sued, and the case is about to be heard by the Supreme Court.  And the deliberation may become quite interesting, especially if the leftist bloc on the Court actually allows themselves to consider facts and debate rationally.

You see, here is the thing.  Most of us regard it as something other than "aid to religious organizations" when the state provides a non-religious activity, even as part of a religious organization, with funding that it would provide a comparable secular group.  If the private school next door to the church, for example, also had a playground doing exactly the same thing, I can't imagine that the framers of the Missouri constitution saw a difference.

But that constitution exists, and it has words in it that could be interpreted accordingly.  So the first issue to wrestle with is the sanctity of a State's constitution vis-a-vis the Constitution of the USA, with its First Amendment -- where is the correct interpretation when they appear to conflict?

The second issue, then, relates to what "aid" means and when a religious institution with otherwise secular activities seeks generally available aid, specifically and solely benefiting the secular activity -- in this case, where a rubberized playground surface unrelated to the teachings and worship of Jesus Christ is contending for state funds that would be available to a hypothetical private school next door.

The third issue is the flipside of the previous one -- if indeed the State can ban providing money for a mandated purpose, to a religious institution for a State program based on its constitution, then is it equally banned to provide other government services to that institution?  If the church is set on fire, is the local fire department barred from putting out the fire?  If an armed fugitive from another area holes up in the sanctuary, are the Missouri State Police barred from offering help?

These are not weird legal interpretations; they are the examples that force the high court to use existing precedent and actual thinking to decide the case.  To uphold the State's case, for example, the Court must answer the question of the extent of the definition of "aid", and explain why it is OK for the fire department to use government funds to douse a burning church, but not allow it to apply for resurfacing of its secular playground.

The Missouri constitution banning aid to religious organizations conflicts with the Constitution's prohibition against preventing the free exercise of religions, tempered by the wording that it is a congressional constraint, not a State one.

I'd like for the Court to come out in support of the church, because I'd like to see a judicial recognition of the difference between secular activities of an otherwise religious organization -- so it could go after the majority of the activities of fake religions like Scientology.  But I don't want to see knee-jerk decisions on a case like this.  I want to see sound, thoughtful opinions that recognize the depth and nuance in the issue.

I suppose we might actually get that.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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