The June 21 ruling in the case of Carson v. Makin is a watershed moment for both religious liberty and parental choice in education. There are now no legal obstacles to the full and fair inclusion of religious schools — and the families who choose them — in education aid programs.
In overturning the state of Maine’s policy to exclude from a tuition assistance program families who wish to spend those funds at religious schools, the Supreme Court has delivered its third decision in the past five years holding that religious institutions such as churches and parochial schools cannot be barred from otherwise neutral government funding programs.
This latest ruling is the culmination of decades of determined advocacy designed to reverse the discriminatory “strict separation of church and state” jurisprudence of the 1960s and 1970s. It should not be seen as tearing down a wall, but the result of building bridges across faith communities and political parties.
Source: The Forward