Jeffrey Gu

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on the atlas — 17

highlights — 86

date of decision (date of decision)
U.S. Reporter Citation | Supreme Court Database
The Court today dismantles a core protection for religious freedom provided in these Clauses. It holds not just that a government may support houses of worship with taxpayer funds, but that—at least in this case and perhaps in others, see ante at 14, n. 3—it must do so when-ever it decides to create a funding program.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
A State’s decision not to fund houses of worship does not disfavor religion; rather, it represents a valid choice to remain secular in the face of serious establishment and free exercise concerns.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Court takes two steps to avoid these precedents. First, it recasts Locke as a case about a restriction that prohibited the would-be minister from “us[ing] the funds to prepare for the ministry.” Ante, at 12. A faithful reading of Locke gives it a broader reach. Locke stands for the reasonable proposition that the government may, but need not, choose not to fund certain religious entities (there, ministers) where doing so raises “historic and substantial” establishment and free exercise concerns.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
In the Court’s view, none of this matters. It focuses on one aspect of Missouri’s Article I, §7, to the exclusion of all else: that it denies funding to a house of worship, here the Church, “simply because of what it [i]s—a church.” Ante, at 12. The Court describes this as a constitutionally impermissible line based on religious “status” that requires strict scrutiny. Its rule is out of step with our precedents in this area, and wrong on its own terms. The Constitution creates specific rules that control how the government may interact with religious entities. And so of course a government may…
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
When reviewing a law that, like this one, singles out religious entities for exclusion from its reach, we thus have not myopically focused on the fact that a law singles out religious entities, but on the reasons that it does so.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
Even assuming the absence of an Establishment Clause violation and proceeding on the Court’s preferred front—the Free Exercise Clause—the Court errs. It claims that the government may not draw lines based on an entity’s religious “status.” But we have repeatedly said that it can. When confronted with government action that draws such a line, we have carefully considered whether the interests embodied in the Religion Clauses justify that line. The question here is thus whether those interests support the line drawn in Missouri’s Article I, §7, separating the State’s treasury from those of house…
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Establishment Clause protects both religion and government from the dangers that result when the two become entwined, “not by providing every religion with an equal opportunity (say, to secure state funding or to pray in the public schools), but by drawing fairly clear lines of separation between church and state—at least where the heartland of religious belief, such as primary religious [worship], is at issue.”
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Court may simply disagree with this account of the facts and think that the Church does not put its playground to religious use. If so, its mistake is limited to this case. But if it agrees that the State’s funding would further religious activity and sees no Establishment Clause problem, then it must be implicitly applying a rule other than the one agreed to in our precedents.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Church has a religious mission, one that it pursues through the Learning Center. The playground surface cannot be confined to secular use any more than lumber used to frame the Church’s walls, glass stained and used to form its windows, or nails used to build its altar.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
True, this Court has found some direct government funding of religious institutions to be consistent with the Establishment Clause. But the funding in those cases came with assurances that public funds would not be used for religious activity, despite the religious nature of the institution.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Church seeks state funds to improve the Learning Center’s facilities, which, by the Church’s own avowed description, are used to assist the spiritual growth of the children of its members and to spread the Church’s faith to the children of nonmembers. The Church’s playground surface—like a Sunday School room’s walls or the sanctuary’s pews—are integrated with and integral to its religious mission. The conclusion that the funding the Church seeks would impermissibly advance religion is inescapable.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 672 (1971) , held as much. The federal program at issue provided construction grants to colleges and universities but prohibited grantees from using the funds to construct facilities “ ‘used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship’ ” or “ ‘used primarily in connection with any part of the program of a school or department of divinity.’ ”
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
this is a case about whether Missouri can decline to fund improvements to the facilities the Church uses to practice and spread its religious views.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
Washington’s restriction on the use of its scholarship funds was different. According to the Court, the State had “merely chosen not to fund a distinct category of instruction.” Id., at 721. Davey was not denied a scholarship because of who he was; he was denied a scholarship because of what he proposed to do—use the funds to prepare for the ministry. Here there is no question that Trinity Lutheran was denied a grant simply because of what it is—a church.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
Davey was not denied a scholarship because of who he was; he was denied a scholarship because of what he proposed to do—use the funds to prepare for the ministry. Here there is no question that Trinity Lutheran was denied a grant simply because of what it is—a church
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Department’s policy expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely because of their religious character. If the cases just described make one thing clear, it is that such a policy imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that triggers the most exacting scrutiny.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
Trinity Lutheran is not claiming any entitlement to a subsidy. It instead asserts a right to participate in a government benefit program without having to disavow its religious character.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
But, as the Department itself acknowledges, the Free Exercise Clause protects against “indirect coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions.”
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Department contends that merely declining to extend funds to Trinity Lutheran does not prohibit the Church from engaging in any religious conduct or otherwise exercising its religious rights. In this sense, says the Department, its policy is unlike the ordinances struck down in Lukumi, which outlawed rituals central to Santeria. Here the Department has simply declined to allocate to Trinity Lutheran a subsidy the State had no obligation to provide in the first place.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Department’s policy expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely because of their religious character. If the cases just described make one thing clear, it is that such a policy imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that triggers the most exacting scrutiny.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
Trinity Lutheran is not claiming any entitlement to a subsidy. It instead asserts a right to participate in a government benefit program without having to disavow its religious character.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
But, as the Department itself acknowledges, the Free Exercise Clause protects against “indirect coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions.”
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Department contends that merely declining to extend funds to Trinity Lutheran does not prohibit the Church from engaging in any religious conduct or otherwise exercising its religious rights. In this sense, says the Department, its policy is unlike the ordinances struck down in Lukumi, which outlawed rituals central to Santeria. Here the Department has simply declined to allocate to Trinity Lutheran a subsidy the State had no obligation to provide in the first place. That decision does not meaningfully burden the Church’s free exercise rights.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The Department’s policy expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely because of their religious character. If the cases just described make one thing clear, it is that such a policy imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that triggers the most exacting scrutiny.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
in McDaniel v. Paty, the Court struck down under the Free Exercise Clause a Tennessee statute disqualifying ministers from serving as delegates to the State’s constitutional convention.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
we explained that a State “cannot hamper its citizens in the free exercise of their own religion. Consequently, it cannot exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation.”
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
In Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer | 582 U.S. ___ (2017) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
"[t]he Court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church."
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
Citing the Court's ruling in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), where Justice Hugo Black wrote that depriving parochial schools from "general government services as ordinary police and fire protection...is obviously not the purpose of the First Amendment," Breyer equated Missouri's program with the general government services in Everson.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
The Court noted that Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712 (2004) upheld the state of Washington's decision not to fund students seeking degrees in devotional theology as part of a state scholarship program, but said the state did not want to force students to give up their religious views; for instance, the scholarships could be used at religious schools.[17] Missouri could not rely on Locke here, the Court explained, because devotional theology is an essentially religious endeavor while playground resurfacing is not.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
The Court read McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 618 (1978), in which a plurality of Justices had found that ministers could not be disqualified from becoming delegates to a state constitutional convention, as holding that special disabilities imposed due to religious status are subject to strict scrutiny.[12]: 113 The Court then found that Missouri's treatment of the church as a church discriminated against it due to its religious status.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
On January 15, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States granted the Church's petition for a writ of certiorari, certifying the question of, "Whether the exclusion of churches from an otherwise neutral and secular aid program violates the Free Exercise Clause and the Equal Protection Clause when the state has no valid Establishment Clause concern."
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources offers grants that provide funds for qualifying organizations to purchase recycled tires to resurface playgrounds. Trinity applied for such a grant.[7] The state gave out fourteen such grants that year, and graded the church's application with the fifth highest score, but denied the grant, citing the 1875 provision requiring no state aid of churches.
Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
appellants advance yet another means at the State's disposal which they would find unobjectionable. They contend that the State should cut an exception from the Sunday labor proscription for those people who, because of religious conviction, observe a day of rest other than Sunday. By such regulation, appellants contend, the economic disadvantages imposed by the present system would be removed, and the State's interest in having all people rest one day would be satisfied. A number of States provide such an exemption, [Footnote 5] and this may well be the wiser solution to the problem. But our …
Braunfeld v. Brown | 366 U.S. 599 (1961) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
the plurality opinion held that the law in question had only an indirect effect, and that the Court could not conclude that there was any less burdensome means of achieving the State's goals. In particular, although appellants argued that a law exempting citizens who were required to rest on other days from the Sunday rest day would be a wiser choice, the Court concluded that there were valid reasons for which a state might choose a single day of rest.
Braunfeld v. Brown
Where the "purpose or effect of a law is to impede the observance of one or all religions or is to discriminate invidiously between religions, that law is constitutionally invalid even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect." Braunfeld, 366 U.S. at 607. However, where "the State regulates conduct by enacting a general law within its power, the purpose and effect of which is to advance the State's secular goals, the statute is valid despite its indirect burden on religious observance unless the State may accomplish its purpose by means which do not impose such a burden." …
Braunfeld v. Brown
the Free Exercise Clause prevented the States from passing laws that forbade the exercise of religion or required citizens to "say or believe anything in conflict with [their] religious tenets," states could in some cases regulate conduct, even if that regulation burdened citizens of a particular religion.
Braunfeld v. Brown
the so-called "Sunday Closing Laws" had a legitimate state purpose in providing for the general welfare by establishing a day of rest
Braunfeld v. Brown
appellants' remaining argument – that by requiring Orthodox Jewish merchants to remain closed for one day in addition to their religiously required day of rest, the statute unfairly burdened existing Orthodox Jews and made it more difficult for the religion to recruit more members, thereby violating the Free Exercise Clause
Braunfeld v. Brown
the only remaining issue in Braunfeld was whether the Pennsylvania statute was an unconstitutional interference in the appellant's religion.
Braunfeld v. Brown
Justice William J. Brennan in a separate concurring opinion was skeptical of the distinction between clerical status and religious belief. Justice Potter Stewart wrote that the distinction was "without constitutional significance".
McDaniel v. Paty
the Tennessee state constitutional provision "imposed an unconstitutional penalty upon appellant's exercise of his religious faith". Even though the state court applied Braunfeld v. Brown, the McDaniel plurality applied Sherbert v. Verner, and three Justices noted that Braunfeld was overruled "to the extent that Braunfeld conflicts with Sherbert".
McDaniel v. Paty
the American experience provides no persuasive support for the fear that clergymen in public office will be less careful of anti-establishment interests or less faithful to their oaths of civil office than their unordained counterparts.
McDaniel v. Paty
The essence of the rationale underlying the Tennessee restriction on ministers is that if elected to public office they will necessarily exercise their powers and influence to promote the interests of one sect or thwart the interests of another
McDaniel v. Paty
Since the Tennessee law disqualified McDaniel because of "his status as a minister", his free exercise claim had to be balanced against the state interest "in maintaining the wall of separation between church and state".
McDaniel v. Paty
Ever since the Free Exercise Clause was incorporated against the states by Cantwell v. Connecticut the Court has recognized that the First Amendment protects religious beliefs absolutely. Religious status does not receive the same absolute protection as beliefs under the First Amendment
McDaniel v. Paty
In a unanimous 8–0 decision, the court ruled that the Tennessee state constitutional provision that prohibited clergy from serving in the state Legislature violated both the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
McDaniel v. Paty
Burger pointed out that private and parochial schools were essentially synonymous in the state and that the Catholic Church viewed its educational program as a central part of its religious mission. Viewing the cumulative effect of the relationship between the state and the Catholic Church created by this law, he found that there was excessive entanglement between government and religion. Once he made this finding, the law would be unconstitutional whether or not it passed the other prongs of the test.
Lemon v. Kurtzman | 403 U.S. 602 (1971) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center
The test for determining whether a law meets the requirements of the Establishment Clause is whether it has a legitimate secular purpose, does not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and does not result in an excessive entanglement of government and religion.
Lemon v. Kurtzman | 403 U.S. 602 (1971) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center