zimv20
Feb 25, 2004, 03:35 PM
link (http://nytimes.com/2004/02/25/national/25CND-SCOT.html?hp)
finally, a decision that i agree with. and it wasn't 5-4!
The Supreme Court ruled today, in a case watched by public officials and educators across the country, that the states can withhold public scholarship money from students pursuing religious studies.
The justices decided, 7 to 2, that Washington State had the right to deny scholarship aid to a college student who was studying to be a minister.
The majority rejected arguments that the exclusion of divinity students from the state's Promise Scholarship Program was an unconstitutional burden on the free exercise of religion.
The program "imposes neither criminal nor civil sanctions on any type of religious service or rite," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the majority. "It does not deny to ministers the right to participate in the political affairs of the community. And it does not require students to choose between their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit."
Rather, the chief justice wrote, "The state has merely chosen not to fund a distinct category of instruction."
but leave it to these two:
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the dissenters, found that reasoning unpersuasive. "The indignity of being singled out for special burdens on the basis of one's religious calling is so profound that the concrete harm produced can never be dismissed as insubstantial," Justice Scalia wrote.
i betcha they don't feel that way on the indignation of the proposed marriage amendment
finally, a decision that i agree with. and it wasn't 5-4!
The Supreme Court ruled today, in a case watched by public officials and educators across the country, that the states can withhold public scholarship money from students pursuing religious studies.
The justices decided, 7 to 2, that Washington State had the right to deny scholarship aid to a college student who was studying to be a minister.
The majority rejected arguments that the exclusion of divinity students from the state's Promise Scholarship Program was an unconstitutional burden on the free exercise of religion.
The program "imposes neither criminal nor civil sanctions on any type of religious service or rite," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the majority. "It does not deny to ministers the right to participate in the political affairs of the community. And it does not require students to choose between their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit."
Rather, the chief justice wrote, "The state has merely chosen not to fund a distinct category of instruction."
but leave it to these two:
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, the dissenters, found that reasoning unpersuasive. "The indignity of being singled out for special burdens on the basis of one's religious calling is so profound that the concrete harm produced can never be dismissed as insubstantial," Justice Scalia wrote.
i betcha they don't feel that way on the indignation of the proposed marriage amendment
