Symposium: Not on the taxpayers’ dime

[Draggingtree]

SCOTUS: Symposium: Not on the taxpayers’ dime

By Daniel Mach on Aug 10, 2016 at 9:21 am

Daniel Mach is Director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. He co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of the ACLU and various religious freedom and civil liberties organizations in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley.

 

In Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley, the Supreme Court will consider whether the state of Missouri violated the U.S. Constitution when it denied the church’s application for a cash grant to subsidize the cost of resurfacing its playground with recycled scrap-tire material. While, at first blush, this may appear to be a simple dispute about payments for playground improvements, it implicates one of our most essential, enduring constitutional commitments: the ban on direct government funding of houses of worship.