Another small victory in the struggle

As well as another catching up item.

Back on December 17 (scroll down to the item headed December 2) I mentioned the case of Joshua Davey, who was suing the state of Washington because it refused scholarship money to study for the ministry. Davey claimed that amounted to an unconstitutional restriction on his ability to practice his religion.

In a 7-2 decision handed down on February 25, the Supreme Court issued a

decisive rejection of the proposition that a government that subsidizes a secular activity must necessarily, as a matter of the constitutional free exercise of religion, subsidize the comparable religious activity as well. ...

"The state has merely chosen not to fund a distinct category of instruction," [Chief Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the majority,] said, adding that "training for religious professions and training for secular professions are not fungible."

That from the February 26 New York Times report on the case.

The outcome was a bitter disappointment to those who want to use public money to subsidize private religious instruction as well as to the Bush administration, eager for endorsement of its "faith-based initiatives." They had hoped that the Court would extend its previous finding in a school voucher case that it is constitutionally permissible to include religious organizations in public programs to one that would say that at least under some conditions it is constitutionally required. But thankfully, the Court very clearly found otherwise. The classic wall of separation between church and state has become thinner and weaker over the past few decades, but it has not completely fallen.

Footnote: In what I would have considered an astonishing stretch of illogic were it not for the source (from whence such is the norm), Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, writing in dissent, claimed the case was about "discrimination against a religious minority." The case actually involved public support of religion, not a religion, so the statement is on its face nonsensical - but what I'm really wondering is when Christians (which Davey is) got to be a minority.