The Indiana State Constitution does not forbid indirect aid to religious institutions in the form of school vouchers, a judge ruled yesterday, denying plaintiffs' request for an injunction halting the program. A few elements distinguish this ruling from last week's decision in Colorado which reached the opposite conclusion, stopping Douglas County's voucher program.
For one, the Court ruled, Indiana's constitutional language protecting religious liberty is different than many state clauses (Article 1, Section 6 states that "(n)o money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution."
There are significant differences between Indiana's Constitution and the "no aid" clause of the Colorado Constitution which explicitly prohibits public funds to help sustain any school controlled by any church or sectarian denomination. This sort of prohibition was rejected by Indiana's 1850 constitutional convention.
Apparently, tax-funded payment of tuition to religious schools is not "for the benefit" of such schools.
[T]he [Choice Scholarship Program] is religion-neutral and was enacted "for the benefit" of students, not religious institutions or activities. Te program permits any private or public school that requires a student to pay tuition or transfer tuition to be eligible to accept CSP scholarships as payment. Also, it permits taxpayer funds to be paid to religious schools only upon the private, individual choices of parents.
More generally, this opinion draws on a much more narrow view of religious freedom rights. Judge Michael Keele suggests that prohibitions against government promotion of religion are meant only to protect us from the most egregious forms of coercion.
The history and structure of the Indiana Bill of Rights…suggest that Section 4's protection against being "compelled to support any place of worship," is less about restricting government's use of general tax revenues and more about protecting citizens from forced tithing or other similar government-coerced direct, individual support for churches or ministries. Section 4 may provide protection against a tax levied specifically "to support any ministry or mode of worship," but that is not the same as, in pursuit of a secular objective, paying or awarding general tax revenues to individuals or families who in turn make individual decisions to use the funds to donate to a ministry or purchase education from a religious school.
The Indianapolis Star has more coverage.
