Supreme Court Opinions on Religion Favors the Rights of our Fellow Citizens
Recent Supreme Court decisions, led by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, overshadowed important Court opinions in Carson v. Makin and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. The Court held that the State of Maine cannot determine that tax-payer funds that are designated to follow a student to private schools (some rural areas in Maine do not offer public schools) cannot be used if the private school is a religious-affiliated school.
The power of our Constitution and the rights it guarantees are now clearly being seen as the founders saw them. As citizens, we do not give up our rights when entering the public square. In this case, schools are not going to be discriminated against merely because they are founded in a religious faith.
We hope that this will help mindsets in school districts across the country, including Hawaiʻi. The first impulse of a school or state administration should not be that religious institutions are inherently off-limits to public funding in certain circumstances.
Likewise, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Court ruled that a high school football coach in Washington state should have been allowed to pray on the field after games. Justice Gorsuch, in the majority opinion, wrote that the 1st Amendment’s “…Establishment Clause require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor. The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious v.”
In both cases, freedom and adherence to the letter and spirit of the law led to only one conclusion and that was that the free exercise of religion is vital to the nation and its citizens. In one sense, it was unfortunate that our institutions were able to be drawn away from this fundamental right — it is included in the 1st Amendment after all — but it is heartening that the peaceful process of the law brought the rights of our citizens back to the forefront.
In my administration, we will see to it that religious freedom, as written and intended, will be central to our manner of governance.
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