July 10, 2000
Legal byte: Computers make way for more aid
___By Kenny Byrd
___Associated Baptist Press
___WASHINGTON (ABP)--The U.S Supreme Court has opened a wider door allowing government aid to religious schools.
___Six of the nine justices affirmed the constitutionality of a federal program that provides computers and other instructional materials to public, private and religious schools.
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___But the majority split on key principles regarding the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause, with four justices forging a plurality that would allow virtually all government aid to religious schools.
___Writing for the plurality, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas said the aid program "does not have the primary effect of advancing religion."
___Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy joined in Thomas' opinion.
___While the plurality's philosophy on church-state separation won't become the law of the land unless it gains the support of a majority of justices, the opinion emboldened supporters of education vouchers and "charitable choice" tax-funded religious social services.
___In a dispute over a Louisiana school district's implementation of the federal Chapter 2 school-funding program, Thomas termed irrelevant technical terms that for years have guided the type of government aid to religious schools allowed by the Constitution. He called the distinction between "direct" and "indirect" aid "arbitrary."
___He also would dispose of the ban on tax funds to "pervasively sectarian" institutions--organizations where the religious mission is so dominant it cannot be separated from the secular. That principle has in the past forced churches to set up separate non-profits in order to qualify for government funds. "Charitable choice" proposals to allow direct funding of churches would pass constitutional muster in the eyes of this plurality.
___The time when the "pervasively sectarian" doctrine mattered in aid to schools "is one that the court should regret, and it is thankfully long past," Thomas said.
___Past "hostility" to aid to sectarian schools was predicated on anti-Catholic bigotry, which the court should "not hesitate to disavow," he added.
___Thomas said the government program to provide computers to sectarian schools does not advance religion "since aid is allocated on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion, and is made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a non-discriminatory basis."
___In dissent, Justice David Souter wrote, "There is no mistaking the abandonment of doctrine that would occur if the plurality were to become a majority."
___Government aid corrupts religion, inevitably causes conflict and violates freedom of conscience by forcing taxpayers to support religion, Souter said.
___Melissa Rogers, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee, said the ruling could open the door to government regulation of religious organizations that accept taxpayer funds.
___"The religious schools that are rejoicing over this ruling should remember--any new breach in the wall separating church and state allows traffic to flow both ways. Religion may use this opening to procure government aid, but government regulators also may use it to cross over to the religious side and monitor such aid and perform other government oversight. It is wrong to force taxpayers to advance religion by allowing tax money to flow to religious schools and their sacred missions, and it is counterproductive for religion to receive the support of the state," she said.
___Other religious groups, however, including the Family Research Council and other conservative advocacy groups, hailed the ruling.
___"What it means is that children who go to private religiously affiliated schools will continue to share in the benefits of the changes in educational technology," said Mark Chopko, general counsel of the U.S. Catholic Conference.
___Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the decision appears to say "if the government is going to give assistance to schools that is educationally neutral ... that it then cannot turn around and say the only institutions that may not receive this value-neutral assistance are religiously affiliated. That would once again appear to be discrimination against religion, as long as the governmental assistance is not being used to promote religious or sectarian instruction."
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