Church/state watchdog groups including the Baptist Joint Committee urged the U.S. Supreme Court to agree that a dollar-for-dollar tax credit that diverts public funds to private Christian schools is unconstitutional in an upcoming case testing the balance between the First Amendment’s two clauses regarding religious liberty. The BJC, a more than 80-year-old membership organization representing 14 state and national Baptist conventions and conferences across the country, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined other groups in separate friend-of-the-court briefs asking the Supreme Court to uphold a lower-court ruling that Montana’s program violates an article in the state’s constitution prohibiting aid to sectarian schools. Holly Hollman “The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that the Free Exercise Clause demands government funding of religion,” said BJC General Counsel Holly Hollman. “To do so would, in effect, re-write state constitutions and upend the way religious liberty is protected.” Three low-income mothers relying on scholarships to keep their children in Stillwater Christian School, a nondenominational school in Kalispell, Montana, are asking the Supreme Court to settle once and for all whether the government may bar religious choices from generally available student-aid programs that are otherwise neutral. They say state and […]
