In the Boston Bar Journal’s Summer 2018 (Volume 62, Number 3) issue, Sugarman Rogers attorney Kate R. Cook shares her Viewpoint on “Caplan v. Acton: Three Pence is Too Much (Sometimes).”

An excerpt:

The recent Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) decision Caplan v. Acton, 479 Mass. 69 (2018), addresses whether taxpayer dollars can be used to fund an active church. It’s an important question, and one that attracts strong opinions, especially in a case like Caplan, where the facts center on a popular state grant program that provides funding for historic preservation—something Massachusetts needs a lot of. And for those of us that agree with James Madison, that even three pence in aid is too much when it comes to taxpayer dollars funding religious institutions, anything short of an outright prohibition is cause for concern. So it is easy to see why some might be disappointed that the SJC’s answer is: Maybe. But the Court’s decision is not surprising. Grounded in a textual analysis of the Massachusetts anti-aid amendment and SJC precedent, the decision appropriately leans into the principles animating the amendment, holding public aid to an active church “warrants careful scrutiny.” Id. at 71. Though not unexpected, the decision is significant for two reasons. First, the decision confirms the force of the Massachusetts anti-aid amendment in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012 (2017),which held that a church could not be excluded from a government public grant program “solely because it is a church” as that would penalize the free exercise of religion. Second, as already mentioned, the decision reinforces why church-state separation is important to our democracy, delving deep into three major concerns that led to passage of the anti-aid amendment: infringement on taxpayers’ liberty of conscience; government entanglement with religion; and civic disharmony.

Read the full article here, or contact Kate R. Cook ([email protected]) for more information.