Included in the White House’s Build Back Better bill—currently on life support, but possibly to be revised and revived—is funding for preschools and daycare centers, both for renovations and to help parents cover tuition costs. As written, the bill would limit the ability of schools affiliated with religious institutions to receive these monies. Mitchell Rocklin and Howard Slugh argue that such limitations are discriminatory and ill-conceived:

Several provisions of the bill as currently drafted would prevent religious schools from receiving benefits. For example, . . . something as simple as celebrating Jewish holidays might result in a school’s complete exclusion. . . . One section makes childcare providers located in houses of worship ineligible for grants aimed at renovating their facilities. A second provision prohibits funds from being used to renovate facilities “in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.” At the very least, this would exclude any childcare program housed in a synagogue, mosque, or church.

The First Amendment does not require the government to discriminate against religious people or to treat them like second-class citizens. . . . The Constitution does not give the government license to exclude religious people from generally available benefits because of their faith—in fact, it prohibits such discrimination.

The Supreme Court dealt with a similar issue in the case of Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer. The plaintiff, a preschool located on the premises of Trinity Lutheran Church, applied to a Missouri program that offered grants to help make playgrounds safer for children. The state determined that the school qualified for the program. In fact, it decided that the school was one of the most deserving recipients in the state. Unfortunately, however, the state denied the school’s application because it refused to allow schools located in churches to participate.

Missouri claimed that it could exclude the school in order to maintain a separation between church and state. The Supreme Court rejected this argument.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.