On Wednesday, the Supreme Court once again took on a question that has long confounded it: What qualifies as an impermissible establishment of religion under the Constitution?
The court has over the years sent mixed signals about when the government may be playing favorites with a particular faith. For instance, in its ruling last year upholding President Trump's executive order imposing an entry ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries, the Supreme Court insisted, in a 5-to-4 vote, that the restrictions were "facially neutral toward religion," ignoring the president's long history of antipathy toward Islam and its adherents. And weeks earlier, the justices ruled, in a narrow decision, for a Christian baker who had claimed mistreatment by Colorado's civil rights commission, which penalized him for denying service to a gay couple.
Read Full Article »