The Supreme Court considers a church-state playground dispute

A MAJOR and complexity-ridden test of America's religion-state relationship arrives at the Supreme Court on April 19th in the guise of a quaint complaint from a midwestern church. Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc v Comer has been on the court's docket since January 15th, 2016, a month before Justice Antonin Scalia died. But the remaining eight justices, apparently split 4-4 on the merits and awaiting a tie-breaking ninth colleague, put off scheduling it for argument until Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the bench two months ago. Now, with Mr Gorsuch robed and ready, a last-minute wrench has been thrown into the works by Missouri's new Republican governor, Eric Greitens. Mr Greitens's Facebook announcement on April 13th of a change in state policy may give the justices no choice but to dismiss the case rather than resolve it.The quarrel is whether Missouri violated America's constitution when, in 2012, it excluded a day-care centre run by the Trinity Lutheran church from a programme providing new, rubberised playground surfaces for pre-schools. The agency doling out the grants ranked the church's application fifth (out of 44) but'owing to a provision of the Missouri...Continue reading
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