It’s just waiting for someone to walk through it. getty The Supreme Court has slowly and steadily busted a hole in the wall between church and state when it comes to education. AG opinion: Statute barring charter school operators from religious affiliation unconstitutional (nondoc.com) In a fifteen-page opinion issued December 1, Attorney General John O’Connor argued that in the wake of Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza , and Carson , he believed that SCOTUS would “very likely” find Oklahoma’s charter law restriction on nonsectarian or religious charters unconstitutional. Therefore, his opinion is that the state should no longer follow the law forbidding sectarian or religious charter schools. Each of those cases elevated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment over the establishment clause. In other words, the court has repeatedly (and in a break from previous court decisions) found that the free exercise of religious beliefs outweighs any restrictions against government-sponsored religious activity. Carson v. Makin in particular established that if the state allows for taxpayer funding of any non-public secular schools, it cannot exclude religious schools from the chance to receive taxpayer funding. While Carson involved school vouchers and private schools, observers like Kevin Welner, director of the National […]
