Following up on Josh’s post: For about 20 years, I’ve been hoping for — and sometimes trying to contribute to to bring about — a Court decision to the effect that the “Blaine Amendment”-type provisions in state constitutions (which, in my view, needlessly discriminate against religious institutions) violate the Constitution of the United States. The currently soon-to-be-argued Trinity Lutheran case appeared to be a decent candidate for a case that would produce such a decision. However, given the votes of Justices Breyer and Ginsburg in Locke v. Davey and Zelman, it seems likely that they’ll endorse the lower-court opinion in that case (which allowed to Missouri deny an “application for a grant of solid waste management funds to resurface a playground on church property”).
Posted by Rick Garnett on February 14, 2016 at 06:37 AM