6 years ago
12
How the Supreme Court just dangerously undermined the separation of church and state
Remember that critical constitutional principle? It’s now endangered. By Scott Lemieux.
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My view on this was that it was specific to the playground and daycare portion, where the daycare may be provided in a church it is still required to follow the law of the land in terms of permits and training for daycare workers and that the daycare takes in more than just church members children, it's open to anyone that can afford it and doesn't appear to offer any kind of religious related activity, that seems to indicate that at least during the week and during daycare hours the church is just a property used to run a daycare. Will the playground also benefit children at the church during religious practice? Probably, but doesn't its use during the week as a secular run daycare trump that in terms of use?
If this were about giving a church money so that their religious services for kids could be out in the open I would cry hell no, but in this case, I'm at a loss for why it's wrong. The use of this ruling to give Church-run schools and charters more federal money would be abuse and wrong though as they require religious study, and I can see some trying for it.
What's the saying? "Give an inch?"
So I'll admit that I don't know the specifics of this case that well.
However, I do have some indirect experience through my mother that relates to this. My mother works at a preschool at a church. The only things that the church and preschool have in common are the name and location. Funds that the church receives do not go to the preschool. Funds that the preschool receives do not go to the church. They have separate budgets. They do not share a boss at the top.
So this leads to my question.
If a private preschool requested funding for playground equipment, would the state of Missouri be obliged to at least consider it?
I've never considered Sotamayor to be all that prejudiced, but in this case it seems that she may have a prejudice against religion. Or at the very least, the author of the article does.
Again, I don't know how this church/preschool relationship works. Maybe the preschool is directly funded by the church in this case and the church is rolling in money and wants to try to take advantage of the preschool to get more money.
As with many separation of church and state issues, perhaps the Church of Satan will step in and clarify things for people. When, for example, state and local governments are required to fund Ba’alzebub Elementary exactly as they would John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Elementary down the street, things’ll become more clear.
Here's where my ignorance of the full issue becomes apparent.
1. Is the grant available for playground resurfacing (meet safety requirements), or is it a general school grant that the preschool said they wanted to use for playground resurfacing?
If this grant is pointed towards meeting current safety requirements, then I'm in support of the SC decision. If it's just a general grant for schools, I have more questions.
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Huh. To me, if it’s about safety then you’re not using recycled tires for playgrounds anyway. Regardless of whether there’s some pretense that flammable, cut up, old vulcanized rubber tires are something we need to make a bigger part of everybody’s childhood, for ‘safety’ reasons, what seems critical here is legally requiring states to fund religion.
The safety angle is important to me because if that's the driver behind this grant, I feel it should be open to any playground accessible to more than two families. It shouldn't matter whether or not it's at a church/mosque, neighborhood, hospital, daycare, public school, nunnery, etc.
Regarding recycled tire playgrounds, I think we should wait until this study is completed before assessing the safety. (Also, if this is a safety grant, it shouldn't be granted until that study is completed.)
Yeah, I'm sure Trump's crack science teams are working day in and day out to put the teeth in "watchdog" agencies like the EPA. Because who would side with tire fire tycoons over the kids, right? Give me a fucking break. "Study" my ass.
woah now... I'm not trying to make you angry!
Forgive me if I seemed mad at you. It’s just that I’m not entirely sure we should be expecting either scrupulous science or courageous policy from the Trump Administration.