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[Lee Haslup <biglee AT haslups.com>]

There is a rather good article about all this in today's Chicago 
Tribune.  Yahoo News will find it for you but if you try to get to it 
through the Tribune web site they want you to register.  I was going to 
post a link but the Yahoo News URL is about three miles long and is 
probably temporary and the Tribune has that registration challenge so I 
will only suggest the story is worth looking for.

The young man who filed the suit is a student at a small-ish, 
religiously-affiliated private college in Washington State.  He is 
pursuing a double major in Pastoral Ministries and Business Management 
and Administration.  He has a scholarship but was told that he could not 
use it for the "Pastoral Ministries" degree.  He sued, claiming the 
Washington state law unconstitutionally discriminated based on 
religion.  The Federal Appeals Court in California agreed with him but 
the Supreme Court reversed them in a narrowly-worded 7-2 ruling with 
Justices Scalia and Thomas dissenting.

For my part, I tend to agree with Scalia, Thomas and the California 
Appeals Court that if a benefit is generally offered but then withheld 
based on some 'taint' of religion that is discriminatory.  [The 
application of the word 'taint' here is mine, as far as I know, I don't 
attribute it to Scalia, Thomas or the California court.]  On the other 
hand, the decision is narrow and I can see merits in the arguments of 
the other side as well.

Those who know me have observed that I tend to use food analogies in 
arguments when meal time is approaching.  I haven't had lunch yet and 
so, possibly spurred on by low blood sugar, I can't help but wonder if 
food stamps should be used to buy kosher bagels?  On the one hand, of 
course, the intent in providing the benefit (food stamps) is to provide 
food to the less fortunate members of society and, unless you are on the 
Atkins diet, it is hard to argue with the fact that most kosher bakeries 
produce wholesome, tasty, sensibly priced food.  On the other hand, to 
be designated "kosher" a certain minimal amount of 
religiously-prescribed mumbo is involved in the processing and one could 
argue on "church and state" ground that this is troublesome when 
combined with state funding.

While you are thinking about that one, consider also a priest who wants 
to use his food stamps to buy "communion" bread for his church.  He 
argues that "spiritual food" considerations aside, the small white disks 
are edible and, thus, constitute "food."  Since he, and presumably his 
congregation, meet the economic criteria for under-privilege, and since 
he is buying food, he claims he should be able to use his food stamps.

Now, I would argue that the priest in my analogy has logic on his side 
and would probably come down on his side.  Still, there is more to life 
than logic and I am at least sympathetic to the argument that those 
little white wafers are more properly an intriguing form of edible 
styrofoam and that they fail the "food" test.  I would not be 
particularly upset by a decision that forbids the use of food stamps to 
buy communion bread as long as it was narrowly worded. 

Which brings me to my, ever-so-slight, quibble with what Michael said, 
most of which I agree with.  He said...

> The only problem is 36 states have constitutions which bar the use of 
> public money for religious instruction, and the voucher movement is 
> being pushed primarily by religious groups who want the government to 
> fund the religious instruction of their children. Were this ruling to 
> go the other way, voucher supporters could then force voucher use for 
> religious instruction in those states.

I would argue that, since students at "religious" schools tend to 
outperform the national average on purely secular measures of education 
such as reading, math, science and general knowledge, the schools in 
question are providing "religious instruction" in pretty much the same 
sense that a kosher bakery provides "Jewish food."