(Image via Getty) This fall, the United States Supreme Court will determine whether a provision of the Montana Constitution which prohibits the distribution of public funds “to any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in party by any church, sect, or domination” violates the federal Constitution’s First or Fourteenth Amendments. The case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue , comes to the Supreme Court after the Montana Supreme Court ruled that religious schools should be excluded from a 2015 scholarship program created by the Montana legislature based on this provision in its state constitution. For many on the Christian right, and unfortunately, multiple members on the U.S. Supreme Court who claim to be originalists, denials of government public welfare assessments to religion amount to nothing more than discrimination against religion. Problem is, none of the Founders agreed. James Madison, the leading founder on religious liberty, opposed state assessment frameworks that mirror the type the religious right is asking for in the Espinoza case. For example, the assessment framework Madison opposed in his home state of Virginia would have directed government money to both religious and secular institutions generally. It […]
