Luetkemeyer v. Kaufmann

Clearly, the State need not. Even as to church-sponsored schools whose policies are nondiscriminatory, any absolute right to equal aid was negated, at least by implication, in Lemon v. Kurtzman,403 U.S. 602, [91 S.Ct. 2105,29 L.Ed.2d 745] (1971).

It has never been held that if private schools are not given some share of public funds allocated for education that such schools are isolated into a classification violative of the Equal Protection Clause. It is one thing to say that a State may not prohibit the maintenance of private schools and quite another to say that such schools must, as a matter of equal protection, receive state aid.93 S.Ct. at 2809.

The constitutional policy of our State has decreed the absolute separation of church and state, not only in governmental matters, but in educational ones as well. Public money, coming from taxpayers of every denomination, may not be used for the help of any religious sect in education or otherwise. [163 S.W.2d at 614]

We find nothing arbitrary or unreasonable in the determination of the State to deny its funds to sectarian schools or for religious instruction. So long as no invidious discrimination exists, the courts may not interfere. Cf. McGowan v. Maryland,366 U.S. 420,81 S.Ct. 1101,6 L.Ed.2d 393. Here, there is no discrimination in the legal sense. All children of every or no religious denomination have the same right to attend free secular public schools maintained with tax funds. The fact that a child or his parent for him voluntarily chooses to forego the exercise of the right to educational benefits provided in the public school systems does not deprive him of anything by State action. [332 F. Supp. at 279].

Our holding today . . . but reaffirms a principle that we announcedWest Page 385a decade and a half ago, namely that no State may `exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith,because of their faith, or lack ofit,from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation.' Everson v. Board of Education,330 U.S. 1,16, [67 S.Ct. 504,512,91 L.Ed. 711]. (emphasis the Court's.) [374 U.S. at 410,83 S.Ct. at 1797].

To characterize the quality of the governmental interest which must appear, the Court has employed a variety of descriptive terms: compelling; substantial; subordinating; paramount; cogent; strong. Whatever imprecision inheres in these terms, we think it clear that a government regulation is sufficiently justified if it is within the constitutional power of theWest Page 386Government; if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on allegedFirstAmendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest. [391 U.S. at 376-377,88 S.Ct. at 1679]

We reject the notion that the Free Exercise Clause demands affirmative state action to accommodate . . . personal evaluations when society at large has accepted the premise that religious and secular education can be successfully separated. [316 F. Supp. at 123].

This case is resolvable not in terms of what an individual can demand of government, but solely in terms of what government may not do to an individual in violation of his religious scruples. The fact that government cannot exact from me a surrender of one iota of my religious scruples does not, of course, mean that I can demand of government a sum of money, the better to exercise them. For the Free Exercise Clause is written in terms of what the government cannot do to the individual, not in terms of what the individual can exact from the government. [374 U.S. at 412,83 S.Ct. at 1798]