Religion & Law

Bell tolls for Blaine(s)?

By Rick Garnett

I received this notice from the religious-liberty litigators at the Becket Fund:

Friday, March 14, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is scheduled to present oral argument in St. Louis, MO, in support of Dan and Amy Pucket and their two children who were kicked off of Hot Springs, South Dakota school buses because they attended a religious school.

"The Supreme Court has said that the Blaine Amendments were 'born of bigotry' and should be 'buried now.'  It's time for the states to get out their shovels and start digging.  It is unconscionable that governments are still enforcing discriminatory nineteenth century laws against people of faith," said Roger Severino, legal counsel at the Becket Fund.

Severino will be presenting the argument for the Puckets before the federal 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Washington-based Becket Fund is a public interest law firm protecting the free expression of all religious traditions.  It is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and interfaith.

The case of Pucket v. Rounds concerns the right of the Pucket children to be bused from their rural home to a Lutheran elementary school. The state refused citing South Dakota's Blaine Amendments. The Blaine Amendments were passed at the height of
nativist anti-Catholic agitation in the 1880s and are used today to bar religiously-affiliated organizations of all sorts from receiving any form of government aid in South Dakota, and dozens of other states.

Prof. Friedman has a link to the oral argument, here.  Here is the Becket Fund's litigation backgrounder on the case.  And, for some earlier discussion among Rick Hills, me, and others, on the Blaine Amendments, judicial review, and federalism, see these posts and the attached comments.

Full post as published by Mirror of Justice on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).