The Left Is Really Losing It After Supreme Court Sides with Religious Schools – Opinion

The Supreme Court upheld religious freedom, equality opportunity and, to a lesser degree, school choice by reversing a Maine tuition program which prevented district-funded tuition being used in religious schools. The left, as is often the case with religious freedom, is in complete meltdown.

In a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the nation’s highest court held in Carson v. MakinA Maine program that permitted districts without secondary schools to offer tuition for private schools in violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, prohibiting those funds from being used for religious schools.

Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. No matter how benefit or restriction are defined, this program is designed to exclude schools that may not be eligible based upon their religious practice.

Justice Breyer wrote a heated (and pretty pouty) dissent to this ruling, hinting at his belief in the non-existent “separation of church and state” the left likes to claim exists.

The First Amendment begins by forbidding the government from “mak[ing] [any] law respecting an establishment of religion.” It next forbids them to make any law “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Court today pays almost no attention to the words in the first Clause while giving almost exclusive attention to the words in the second.

Breyer’s dissent misses the point of the majority’s opinion, though. Roberts clearly spelled it out when he wrote that “a neutral benefit program in which public funds flow to religious organizations through the independent choices of private benefit recipients does not offend the Establishment Clause.” In other words, you are not forcing the state to endorse a particular religion when you allow people to choose any school, public or private, to attend.

Justice Sotomayor rejected Breyer’s ruling and lost her mind.

Five years is a big difference. In 2017, I feared that the Court was “lead[ing]Contact us . . to a place where separation of church and state is a constitutional slogan, not a constitutional commitment.” Trinity Lutheran, 582 U. S., at ___ (dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 27). Today’s Court takes us to a point in which separation of state and church is considered a constitutional violation. A State can’t offer subsidy to citizens without having to finance religious exercise. Any State who values its anti-establishment history more than the Court will need to reduce its support to citizens. I respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision.

Breyer, Sotomayor and many other pundits from the left feel that the Court now requires everyone to believe in something. Take CNN’s legal analysts, for example.

Jennifer Rodgers is a legal analyst and claims conservative justices oppose religious liberty in order to suppress free speech.[T]She screams that his court elevates the First Amendment’s religious elements above all others. It’s all falling apart. pic.twitter.com/0OMARwUxTS

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 21, 2022

“[T]his court is elevating the religious aspects of the First Amendment above others” is a complaint that makes little sense. Speech, press, assembly, and petition weren’t up for discussion here, and there is no indication in this ruling that the Court favors forcing states to give money to Christian schools over someone’s right to free speech. It’s an absurd take.

The Court arguing that you can’t exclude an institution from a tuition program on the basis of its religious bent seems like the bigger issue here. If you read the First Amendment, it seems obvious that a state must make available all possible options to parents. Very clearly, the First Amendment explains that the government cannot establish a single, government-mandated religion in the country, nor can it tell you what you can and can’t practice. The former isn’t being violated by today’s ruling, but the latter was upheld.

CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, who still somehow has a job, tweeted this thought out as though it was a bad thing.

Where #SCOTUSThe idea is that all parents will receive vouchers, which can be used to send their children to parochial or public schools. The Supreme Court has declared that “separation between church and state” is an illusory concept.

— Jeffrey Toobin (@JeffreyToobin) June 21, 2022

“‘Separation of church and state’ is a vanishing concept at the Supreme Court” is a good thing. Why? It didn’t exist in the first instance. The inference it made was not consistent with the intention of the Founders. The left is outraged that such a legal platitude may be falling apart, and goes to great lengths to attack Christianity in public.

In the end, it was right that the Supreme Court ruled in Carson v. Makin, and it’s driving progressives nuts.