Funding Catholic schools: Carson v. Makin (20-1088)

Another Supreme Court case on funding religious (read Catholic) schools has dropped. I am not surprised, as this case comports with Espinoza v. Montana and the Trinity Lutheran case. From the Court's website:

Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement for otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments to parents who live in school districts that do not operate a secondary school of their own violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

In her dissent, Justice Kagan asks how far the Court will go on this issue. 

The answer depends on how aggressively parochial schools seek public funds and then sue to get them. I expect that they will. Their argument would be stronger if they unionized and ignored how the NEA favors abortion rights.Resistance to funding parochial schools is a nasty legacy of anti-Catholic (anti-papist) discrimination. That discrimination has moved from the right to the left. It was and is wrong in both cases. The question of right to work is its own issue.

The Church should not have the freedom to deny unions. That would be caving into religious power rather than free exercise. This is the ground that needs to be taken to limit autocracy in the public square.

Arguing between free exercise and the establishment clause was meant to be difficult. It need not be. The Church should not be denied what it would do in the public square if it is practiced by others. By the same token, it should not have immunity from complying with rules vis-a-vis their employees, clients and parishioners as an exercise of religious power over them. Until this becomes the line, these cases will be contentious.