Over at Vox, Ian Millhiser has written yet another lament that the Supreme Court’s telling governments that they cannot discriminate against religious institutions means we’re about to usher in a state of Christian nationalism, or something. While much of the jurisprudential history Millhiser lays out is accurate, his analysis displays a remarkable failure to comprehend the meaning of such basic words as “neutrality.”
Recall the 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin, in which the Court ruled that Maine could not bar school vouchers from being used to fund religious schools simply because those institutions were religious. Millhiser writes that “in ordering Maine to fund religious education, Carson reached two somewhat conflicting conclusions.” “The first is that the sort of neutral posture toward religion . . . is now unconstitutional,” he says.
But in what sense would “neutral” be the correct word to describe a program that allows parents to apply vouchers towards any educational institution except a religious one? Millhiser’s description, as Clarence Thomas might say, “strains credulity for even the most casual user of words.”
For Millhiser, apparently, “neutrality” means discriminating against religion, and “advancing religion” means placing religious institutions on an equal playing field with nonreligious institutions. Luckily, we have a Supreme Court that interprets the words of the First Amendment according to their plain and obvious meanings, not those made up by Millhiser. I, for one, am thankful for that.