US Supreme Court Agrees to Tackle Religious Hostility by States

From the Alliance Defending Freedom: ADF attorneys represent a church-run pre-school and daycare center which the state of Missouri excluded from a program that provides recycled tire products to surface children’s playgrounds. Last month, ADF filed a brief with the high court that answered the state’s arguments in favor of religious discrimination in the program.

“No state can define religious neutrality as treating religious organizations worse than everyone else,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman. “That isn’t neutrality; it’s a hostility to religion that violates the First Amendment. That’s the primary issue that the Supreme Court will address. In this case, the state should not have excluded this preschool from the recycled tire program simply because a church operates the school.”

“Children’s safety is just as important on church daycare playgrounds as it is on other daycare playgrounds,” added ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley. “Missouri and every state should understand that the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious hostility, which is what Missouri exhibited when it denied Trinity Lutheran’s scrap tire grant application. This case has huge implications for state constitutional provisions across the nation that treat religious Americans and organizations as inferiors solely because of their religious identity.” Read more here.