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Just before the summer recess, the judges added 10 new cases to the file for their next term on Friday, including a high-profile dispute involving public funding for private schools that provide religious education.

Busy Order In some ways, it is the epitome of the entire 2020-21 semester. Although the decision to hear the school funding case indicated that the court as a whole will continue to move to the right, the judge rejected another request to weigh the interaction between religious rights and the law protecting LGBTQ people, indicating that the court may not behave like some judges. Move to the right as you want.

New cases of public funding and religious education

Last year, at Espinosa v. Montana Department of RevenueThe Supreme Court ruled that although states do not need to subsidize private education, states that choose to do so cannot exclude religious schools from receiving funding just because they are religious schools.in Carson v. Makin, The judges will discuss the issues they have not resolved Espinosa: When a state implements a plan to provide students with funds to go to private schools but prohibits them from going to schools that provide religious education, does it violate the Constitution?

The court raised this issue in a Maine case in which more than half of the school districts do not operate their own high schools, but instead pay students to attend public or private schools in and out of the state. However, the Tuition Assistance Program only allows funds to be used for “non-denominational” schools. The challengers in this case are two groups of parents, David and Amy Carson and Troy and Angela Nelson, who hope to use the funds of the program to send their children to private Christian schools marked by the country as “denominational” so that the families are not eligible for funding. (Parents take Cardigan Hill School, a private boys’ school in New Hampshire, as an example of a school where the son of Chief Justice John Roberts attended, as an example of a “nominal religion” school that was allowed to participate in the program.)

The parents went to federal court, where they argued that their exclusion from the program violated their constitutional rights, including their right to exercise their religious beliefs. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit supported the plan on the grounds that the exclusion of religious schools depends on whether the funds are used for religious teaching and preaching, not just whether the school has religious beliefs. The parents came to the Supreme Court in February and asked the justice to weigh, and the justice agreed to do so on Friday. The case will be debated sometime next fall.

End of the road Arlene’s Flower

Three years from the Supreme Court Make narrow rulings In support of Colorado baker Jack Phillips, he refused to customize cakes for same-sex weddings because he believed that doing so would violate his religious beliefs. The judge on Friday refused to weigh the questions left by the Phillips case. Unanswered: When the state requires Does the artist violate the rights of the First Amendment when creating custom art for celebrating same-sex weddings?This time the problem is in court The case of Baronel Stuzman, A Washington flower shop and devout Christian, he believes in the traditional concept of marriage.

The incident that led to this case began in 2013, when Stutzman’s long-time client Robert Ingersoll (Robert Ingersoll) asked Stutzman to design flower arrangements for his same-sex wedding. Stutzman refused, telling him that she could not “participate in his activities” because of her “relationship with Jesus Christ.” After Washington’s attorney general learned of Stuzman’s refusal, he sued her for violating the state’s anti-discrimination laws, as did Ingersoll and his husband.

The Washington Supreme Court ruled for the state and rejected Stutzman’s argument that requiring her to provide custom flowers for same-sex weddings would violate her right to exercise religious beliefs and free expression under the First Amendment. Stutzman came to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017, but the judges sent the case back for retrial after making a ruling. Masterpiece Cake Shop, The Colorado case. When her case returned to the Washington Supreme Court, Stuzman argued that the state court order would require her to attend a same-sex wedding, which would violate her religious beliefs, and the attorney general listed her separately as punishment for her religious beliefs. At the same time, it failed to sanction a gay man who drove a group of Christians out of a coffee shop he owned.

The Washington Supreme Court once again made a ruling for the state, prompting Stuzman to return to the Supreme Court of the United States.She asked the judges to weigh the pros and cons, “to ensure that believers have the freedom to live according to their beliefs about marriage, and prohibit the government from mandating which sacred activities are worth celebrating.” After four consecutive meetings last winter to consider the case, The judges put the case on hold, presumably until they were Fulton v Philadelphia, The city refused to challenge the referral to the Catholic Ministry of Social Services because the faith agency would not prove same-sex couples as potential adoptive parents. On Friday, the judges dismissed Stutzman’s case, and the three judges — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — stated in a brief statement that they would approve Stutzman Request for review. Because the court will approve the review application with four votes, the fact that the three judges publicly announced that they will hear the case means that none of the remaining six judges voted for the review.

Please check back later for more analysis on Friday’s order list.

This article is Originally published in Howe on the Court.