One of the Supreme Court’s biggest blows to church/state separation in the past term has effectively achieved nothing. The bang became a whimper because the conservative Christians in Maine who wanted taxpayer money to fund religious schools have now realized they’re better off on their own.

Carson v. Makin involved a voucher program that allowed students in rural parts of Maine to have access to free education, even if that meant attending a private school. The state already said it would cover private school tuition, even at church-run schools, as long as the education students received was secular in nature. But a lawsuit was filed by parents who wanted to send their kids to Christian schools that, among other things, promoted Creationism and discriminating against LGBTQ people in hiring.

The Supreme Court said in its ruling that the state was forbidden from discriminating against those schools on the basis of religion… which meant taxpayers would theoretically have to pay for religious indoctrination. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent, “Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.” ...