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Landmark Case: Safer Playground Not Allowed for Churches?

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The Supreme Court will decide in a case prohibiting a Missouri church from receiving state aid to build a safer playground because of its status as a religious institution.

Supreme Court justices are set to decide in March or April whether churches' constitutional rights are violated when a state excludes them from general aid programs.

The case began when Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia applied for aid to replace its playground's gravel with a recycled rubber surface.

Although the Missouri Natural Resources Department ranked the church's aid application as fifth out of 44 applications, it was denied.

The state refused to grant the church money because of a Missouri constitutional provision that forbids religious institutions from receiving state funds.

The church challenged the state in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals but lost.

One judge who voted in favor of the church wrote in his dissent that "schoolchildren playing on a safer rubber surface made from environmentally-friendly recycled tires has nothing to do with religion."

The landmark Supreme Court ruling could decide the future of state aid to religious institutions in the United States.

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