• logo


logo

Timely and Inspiring Prophetic Analysis so you can Prepare.


  • Home
  • Monthly Messages
    • Pastor Mayer
    • Pastor Nelson
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
    • 2013
    • 2012
    • 2011
    • 2010
    • 2009
    • 2008
    • 2007
    • 2006
    • 2005
    • 2004
    • 2003
    • 2002
    • 2001
    • 2000
    • 1999
    • 1998
  • Briefings
    • Prophetic Intelligence
    • Nature Knows Best
    • Prophetically Speaking
  • Events
  • Videos
    • KTF News
    • KTF Live
    • Interviews
    • Sermons
    • Promo Video
  • Store
  • Make a Gift
  • Slider Image 1
  • Image: CDC on Unsplash.com
loading...
  • Post
  • Similar Posts
  • Post Icon
  • author
  • Pastor Hal Mayer

    Speaker / Director

Supreme Court Strikes Down State Ban on Taxpayer Funding for Religious Schools

Thursday July 23rd, 2020
Print This Post Print This Post

Fox News, By Ronn Blitzer, Bill Mears, Shannon Bream: The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a ban on taxpayer funding for religious schools, in a narrow but significant win for the school choice movement.

In the 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court essentially backed a Montana tax-credit scholarship program that gave residents up to a $150 credit for donating to private scholarship organizations, helping students pay for their choice of private schools. The state’s revenue department made a rule banning those tax-credit scholarships from going to religious schools before the state’s supreme court later struck down the entire program.

“A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” Roberts wrote in the court’s opinion.

Under the program, a family receiving a scholarship originally could use it at any “qualified education provider,” which the court’s opinion noted means “any private school that meets certain accreditation, testing, and safety requirements.” The Montana Department of Revenue, citing the state constitution, then changed the definition of “qualified education provider” to exclude those “owned or controlled in whole or in part by any church, religious sect, or denomination.”

That decision, which the state attorney general disagreed with, was based on a “no-aid” clause in the state’s constitution, which bars the state from giving aid to schools “controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.”

Parents of children attending a religious private school sued, and a lower court ruled in their favor, holding that the tax credits did not violate the state constitution because they were not appropriations made to religious institutions. The state supreme court overruled that decision and ordered the entire program to be scrapped.

“I feel that we’re being excluded simply because we are people of religious background, or because our children want to go to a religious school,” Kendra Espinoza, a lead plaintiff in the case, said after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in January. “We’re here to stand up for our rights as people of faith to have the same opportunities that a secular schoolchild would have.”

Roberts noted that the Montana scholarship program in no way violated the U.S. Constitution, noting that the Supreme Court has “repeatedly held that the Establishment Clause is not offended when religious observers and organizations benefit from neutral government programs.” The chief justice pointed out that neither side in the case disputed this.

What was at issue in the case is the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause – which applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment – which forbids laws that prohibit the free exercise of religion. Roberts said that the Montana Supreme Court erred when they failed to recognize that the state constitution’s “no-aid” clause violated the First Amendment.

“When the Court was called upon to apply a state law no-aid provision to exclude religious schools from the program, it was obligated by the Federal Constitution to reject the invitation,” Roberts wrote.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued that there was no constitutional violation because the program ended up being shut down entirely, leaving families from all schools in the same position. Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her own dissent that the Montana state court decision was based on state law having nothing to do with the Free Exercise Clause. Roberts rejected those arguments because “[t]he program was eliminated by a court, and not based on some innocuous principle of state law.”

In a third dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer – joined by Justice Elena Kagan – argued that while Montana’s aid program’s inclusion of religious schools may not have been forbidden by the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, it was not required by the Free Exercise Clause as Roberts’ claimed it was.

Tuesday’s ruling is a victory for school choice proponents and some conservative religious groups who had challenged the provision in court. Montana’s program was similar to many across the U.S., and other states have proposed tax-credit scholarship programs but not passed them due to confusion about their legality.

Roberts once again served as the swing vote in a 5-4 decision. This time, he joined his fellow justices in the conservative wing of the court. On Monday, Republicans railed against him for siding with the liberal contingent in a 5-4 case that struck down a Louisiana law that place restrictions on abortions by requiring that those who perform the procedures have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. He was also the deciding vote in a recent ruling against the Trump administration’s attempt to rescind DACA.

Our Comment:
The mixing of church and state will eventually lead to loss of religious freedom. 

Prophetic Link:
“Heretofore those who presented the truths of the third angel’s message have often been regarded as mere alarmists. Their predictions that religious intolerance would gain control in the United States, that church and state would unite to persecute those who keep the commandments of God, have been pronounced groundless and absurd. It has been confidently declared that this land could never become other than what it has been—the defender of religious freedom. But as the question of enforcing Sunday observance is widely agitated, the event so long doubted and disbelieved is seen to be approaching, and the third message will produce an effect which it could not have had before.” Great Controversy, page 605.3.


Source References

  • Supreme Court strikes down state ban on taxpayer funding for religious schools

Prophetic Intelligence Briefings are provided to show a link between current events and Bible prophecy only. The article summaries, which are not intended as a commentary in support of or in opposition to the views of the authors, do not necessarily reflect the views of Pastor Mayer or of Keep the Faith other than to point out the prophetic link.

Comments


Post a Comment!

Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


  • Request your free subscriptions now

    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Español
    • Português
  • Latest Message

    Request CD | View Transcript
  • Make a Gift

    Or click here to send a check
  • Prophetically Speaking…

    “The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom — they are the pillars of society.” more…

  • Recent Posts

    • Rep. Zeldin: ‘Neither Gov. Cuomo nor Any Gov’t Official’ Should Have Power to Detain People They Deem Health Risks
    • Prophetically Speaking…
    • Vatican Says COVID Vaccine Made From Cell Lines of Aborted Babies ‘Morally Acceptable,’ Some Bishops Disagree
    • KTF News Video – Over 42.6M abortions conducted in 2020, surpassing world’s leading causes of death
    • Prophetically Speaking…
  • Tags

    Catholic Church church and state Donald Trump globalization government LGBT politics Pope Francis Prophetically Speaking Quote of the Day religious freedom religious liberty United States Vatican
  • Recent Comments

    • Veronica Thompson on 2020: A crisis of trust and a crisis of truth
    • AJAX on A Trump Administration Rule Poised to Take a Stand against Financial Censorship
    • CD on Democrats opens Congress with prayer ending in ‘amen and awoman;’ House rules use gender-neutral terms
    • Giuseppa on Fauci says mandatory COVID-19 vaccines possible for travel, school
    • Darlene on Democrats opens Congress with prayer ending in ‘amen and awoman;’ House rules use gender-neutral terms
  • Follow



logo
  • Home
  • Subscribe
  • Store
  • About KTF
  • Meet the Team
  • Terms of Use
  • RSS Feed
  • Contact
top

© 2020 Keep the Faith. All Rights Reserved.  Webmaster »



Share
Send Email
  • Send
close