This just in: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on June 26 that the government should support a Christian school that wants to make its playground safer for children. In a 7-2 ruling on the last day of the 2016-17 session, the Court said that the state of Missouri should have provided taxpayer funds to enable Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia, Missouri, to lay a new surface of recycled tires under its playground equipment. The state has, since 2012, provided grant monies for schools that wish to improve playground safety for the children who use their facilities; but religious institutions were blocked from receiving support – even when no religious instruction was involved.

The closely watched case pitted two Constitutional provisions against each other: freedom of religion, and the separation of church and state. The Court ruling confirms that the Constitutionally protected freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the First Amendment, should not be superceded by “separation of church and state,” a policy which has been inferred from the penumbra of the Constitution. Chief Justice John Roberts, in writing the majority opinion, said:

The exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”

And during oral arguments last year, Justice Elana Kagan voiced her concern that Missouri's law against providing funding for nonprofits which are faith-based, even for activities and expenses which are not religious in nature. Kagan said:

You're denying one set of actors from competing [for the grant money] because of religion.

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, policy advisor for The Catholic Association, applauded the ruling. Dr. Christie said:

Today's Supreme Court decision in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer is a win for people of faith who join together to do good through their ministries and civic associations. This is good for all Americans, too, since our society is served in so many ways by religious institutions, which educate children, enrich the culture, assist the poor and immigrant, and care for the sick. Today the Court indicated that excluding Christian schools like Trinity Lutheran from government grants using anti-Catholic Blaine amendments is discriminatory, and unworthy of our great country.

The case has implications for roughly three dozen states which deny funds to organizations, based solely on their religious affiliation.

An End in Sight to Obama-Era Obstruction of Religious Liberty

The Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Trinity Lutheran v. Comer signals that the Court has turned away from the Obama Administration's record of obstructing religious liberty, and will protect the freedom of religious groups to operate publicly without government openly discriminating against them.

In October 2011, Bishop William Lori, head of the USCCB's Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty, testified before the House Judiciary Committee and cited recent examples of government usurpation of the rights of religious institutions: