Earlier this month, Oklahoma created America’s first religious charter school. Two days later, the state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, sued the charter-school board for violating Oklahoma’s ban on such institutions, which the board—drawing on recent Supreme Court rulings—deems unconstitutional. Nicole Stelle Garnett dissects the attorney general’s logic:
In both the press release announcing his lawsuit and the brief itself, Drummond suggested that his suit would protect the religious liberty of Oklahomans by guaranteeing that taxpayer dollars would not fund religious schools—especially Islamic schools. In a press release, Drummond opined: “Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism. . . . [T]omorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like sharia law. In fact, Governor Kevin Stitt has already indicated that he would welcome a Muslim charter school funded by our tax dollars.”
[Recent Supreme] Court decisions make two things clear. First, the Establishment Clause does not prevent the government from permitting religious institutions to participate in public programs that extend benefits to private organizations on a religion-neutral basis. Second, when the government extends public benefits to private secular organizations, the Free Exercise Clause requires it to extend these benefits to private religious organizations, too.
[T]he suppression of religious pluralism, . . . as Drummond’s comments lay bare, too often targets religious minorities. That suppression is not only unnecessary but also unconstitutional. The best, and constitutionally required, way to ensure religious pluralism is to embrace it, not to stifle it.
Read more on City Journal: https://www.city-journal.org/article/oklahomas-pluralism-problem