Supreme Court Holds Denial of Playground Resurfacing Grant To Church Violates Free Exercise Clause [UPDATED]

In a 7-2 decision in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, (Sup. Ct., June 26, 2017), the U.S. Supreme Court today held that the First Amendment free exercise rights of Trinity Lutheran Church were violated when the state of Missouri denied the church's Child Learning Center a grant for resurfacing of its playground with scrap tire material.  The state had relied on Missouri Constitution's Blaine Amendment which prohibits financial assistance directly to any church.

Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the court which was joined in full by Justices Kennedy, Alito and Kagan.  Justices Thomas and Gorsuch joined Roberts' opinion except for a footnote that attempted to limit the holding to the facts of this case. In his opinion for the Court, Roberts said in part:

In recent years, when this Court has rejected free exercise challenges, the laws in question have been neutral and generally applicable without regard to religion. We have been careful to distinguish such laws from those that single out the religious for disfavored treatment.....

The Department’s policy expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely because of their religious character.....

Trinity Lutheran is not claiming any entitlement to a subsidy. It instead asserts a right to participate in a government benefit program without having to disavow its religious character.... Trinity Lutheran is a member of the community too, and the State’s decision to exclude it for purposes of this public program must withstand the strictest scrutiny....

Justice Thomas filed a separate opinion concurring in part in which Justice Gorsuch joined. Justice Gorsuch filed a separate opinion concurring in part in which Justice Thomas joined.  Both opinions agreed largely with Justice Roberts, but would have been even stronger in support of the free exercise conclusion.

Justice Sotomayor filed a 27-page dissenting opinion which was joined by Justice Ginsburg, saying in part:

To hear the Court tell it, this is a simple case about recycling tires to resurface a playground. The stakes are higher. This case is about nothing less than the relationship between religious institutions and the civil government—that is, between church and state. The Court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church. Its decision slights both our precedents and our history, and its reasoning weakens this country’s longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state beneficial to both.....

The constitutional provisions of thirty-nine States—all but invalidated today—the weighty interests they protect, and the history they draw on deserve more than this judicial brush aside.

Washington Post reports on the decision.