Tuesday, October 02, 2007
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — One contentious topic missing from the Supreme Court’s docket as the new term opened on Monday was religion. The justices evidently plan to keep it that way, at least for now.
Among the hundreds of appeals the court turned down on Monday, in a list that printed out at 83 pages, were two cases on the relationship between church and state that might have brought even more visibility to the term.
One was a case from New York on whether church-affiliated employers who object to birth control on religious grounds must nonetheless provide contraceptive coverage to their female employees as part of their medical insurance coverage, as required by laws in New York and some two dozen other states.
The other case challenged the refusal of a public library in California to make a community meeting room available for worship services.
Both cases potentially tested lines that the Supreme Court has drawn to separate those accommodations of religion that governments are required to make from those that are not required or, perhaps, are even forbidden.
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