Christian School’s plea for ‘equal protection’ on playground goes to Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether a state natural resources agency violated the First Amendment when it refused to grant funds to a preschool and day care run by a church.

In 2012, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Mo., applied for a state grant to pay for replacing pea gravel at its Learning Center’s playground with recycled rubber material, considered a safer alternative.

Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources denied the grant, arguing that spending state funds on playground equipment at Trinity would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition against using public funds to aid a religion.

Trinity sued, contending that the church’s First Amendment right to equal protection and free exercise of religion sheltered it from state discrimination on the basis of religion.

“No state can define religious neutrality as treating religious organizations worse than everyone else,” David Cortman, senior counsel for the Christian legal group Alliance for Defending Freedom, said in a statement. “That isn’t neutrality; it’s a hostility to religion that violates the First Amendment.”

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