Oh goody! The Evangelicals must be SO happy that their towering hypocrisy is about to bear fruit. 
“It has the potential to remove one of the last legal clouds hanging over school choice.”
It’s always those who profess to have a superior morality that turn out to be the biggest fucking liars.
A recycled scrap tire is not religious, the church said in its Supreme Court brief. “It is wholly secular,” the church said.
How do they know this? I would argue that a recycled scrap tire has more spiritual value than any religion. And is intrinsically more useful.
But the point is that taxpayers shouldn’t be funding capital improvements to a bunch of delirious yahoos playground. We’re already underwriting and, thus, condoning their insanity through what should be wholly illegal tax exemptions. Of course, that free ride isn’t enough. They want us to pay for the horse, its feed, the golden carriage, and the gilded barn to put them in.
That said, Gorsuch will find in favor of the church because … freedom.
Seconded.
A recycled scrap tire is not religious, the church said in its Supreme Court brief. “It is wholly secular,” the church said.
According to Paul Ryan and a host of other GOP religious extremists who are tireless in their efforts to defund Planned Parenthood money is fungible. Any government dollars that are paid to PP for any reason “effectively floats these organizations which then use other money” to perform abortions. If they were consistent in their beliefs then they would understand that any government dollars that pay for secular tires effectively float the church affiliated schools which then use other money to provide religious training to their students. Too bad that argument is based on the assumption that they are consistent in their beliefs.
*Offer excludes Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, the Druze, Copts, Yazidis, Confucianists, Shintoists, Taoists, Shamans, Odanists, Shakers, Quakers, the Amish, Manichaeists, Neoplatonists, Pythagoreans, Sufis, Druids, Pagans, Wiccans, Rastafarians, Pastafarians, Satanists, Voodooists, Jedis, Siths, Bokononists, Bene Gesserits, Cthulhuists, SubGeniuses, Raëlians, Pantheists, Polytheists, Deists, Atheists…The outcome could make it easier to use state money to pay for private, religious schooling.*
And Methodists.
When Bitch McConnell dies–hopefully long before myself–I’d better not hear one elected Democrat say a nice thing about that mutherfucker. You hear me, my fellow Democrats? He’s an awful shit stain on America’s table cloth – treat him as such.
Aren’t tires made from toxic organic chemicals? Who in their right mind would want their kids playing in a bunch of tire chips that are being bombarded by energy from the sun?
You know, if the offending “churches” want some ground up Bibles and hymn books for the children’s safety, I’d be more than happy to pay for it.
You win. I can’t beat that.
A recycled scrap tire is not religious, the church said in its Supreme Court brief. “It is wholly secular,” the church said.
Income taxes aren’t religious either. If churches want secular benefits, they should pay the secular dues.
Leslie Hiner, vice president of programs at Ed Choice, a school voucher advocacy group said, “It is difficult to understand that a little school could not participate in a safety measure determined by the state because somehow safety of children is conflated with religious purpose.”
But it’s fine to conflate the right to make choices about the safety of one’s body with religious purpose?
I haven’t read the whole thread so if this has been said, sorry -
“A recycled scrap tire is not religious, the church said in its Supreme Court brief. “It is wholly secular,” the church said.”
Then how the fuck is your religious liberty being threatened under the constitution?
I sure hope Gorsuch treats his religion with the same level of sincerity he holds toward his ability to interpret modern legal questions based on full understanding of the Founders’ original intent.
Next I hope that what I was taught in Sunday School about the eventual fate of people like Gorsuch and Scalia is true.
Before the last couple of decades of deep politicization of Evangelical churches, many church organizations were leery of taking government funding lest they lose autonomy by being subjected to various regulations and government intrusion in verifying that regs were being followed.
The whole push for school vouchers has turned that upside down, as often at the state level (from which most Ed dollars flow) legislates waivers for religious organizations and various regulations. We continue to descend on a long slippery slope.
That’s the other side of the First Amendment coin - it protects religion from interference by the government which as you point out used to be valuable to religion.
That was before they decided to go with their Christian version of Sharia law.
I’m a supporter of the First Amendment, and I believe in a wall of separation between church and state. But I’m not sure that denying a religious school aid that would be permitted to a non-religious private school is constitutional. Suppose there was an atheist private school (there probably is, somewhere)? If it were in Missouri, would it be denied scrap tires for its playground? (By the way, scrap tires may not be healthy for the kids.) Should an anti-religious school be subject to the same standards as a religious school? Does the Constitution call for the disadvantaging of religious institutions?
A really greedy person reading this might interpret it as your offering someone money. In a few minutes when they start knocking on your door, tell them that your TPM account was hacked. Hopefully you won’t need to disconnect your phone.
What is fair about one school being run by a religious group and having a tax advantage over the secular school? Why should the religious school get a tax advantage AND aid?