In Major Church-State Decision, Supreme Court Sides with Religious Institution

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that taxpayer-funded grants for playgrounds could not be denied to a church-run school in Missouri. In an oral dissent issued from the bench, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "This case is about nothing less than the relationship between religious institutions and the civil government—that is, between church and state. The Court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church." For more, we speak with Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate.com. She is their senior legal correspondent and Supreme Court reporter and the author of the recent piece, "Did the court just seriously wound the separation of church and state?"