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Yesterday the Supreme Court showed that it’s not inevitable that cases involving religion will be decided in favor of the religious. The Christian nationalists running the government in Oklahoma tried to start a Catholic public charter school. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled last year that a religious public charter school violates state law, the state constitution, and the United States Constitution. Yesterday the Supreme Court issued a 4-4 decision affirming the state supreme court’s judgment. (A tie goes to the lower court’s decision.) The Supremes did not provide any reasoning about their decision, so there isn’t anything new to go on as far as legality of religious charter schools for future cases. They’re just illegal in Oklahoma.

I’m guessing this issue comes back in a couple of years. It’s assumed that Justice Barrett recused herself because of her friendship with someone who helped bring the appeal to the Supreme Court. Another state could start the legal process and avoid having anyone working on that case with ties to any of the Justices, and hope Justice Barrett is on their side. But for today we’ll take the big win. I can say WE because the Secular Coalition joined American Atheists in their amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

This week’s news isn’t all good. The House reconciliation bill, the one that will add trillions to the national debt, does so in part by including the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA), a tax credit that funds school vouchers. Instead of paying your entire tax bill, you deduct the full amount you donated to a scholarship (voucher) granting organization. There are numerous reasons why school vouchers and ECCA are a bad idea ([link removed]) . We oppose vouchers because about 75 percent of private schools are religious schools and we don’t want money that should be going to other important government programs going to them instead.

ECCA is also a big tax dodge if you donate stock instead of cash. The government loses even more revenue. Despite an impressive amount of lobbying by secular organizations and advocates for public schools, the House Republicans kept ECCA in the reconciliation bill. The bill now moves to the Senate and our lobbying will continue there. You can help. Details coming soon, after the Memorial Day recess. If your representative is doing a town hall meeting next week or some other kind of appearance, go complain about ECCA.

Budget Trivia: Why is it called a reconciliation bill? (OK, everything about the congressional budget actually qualifies as trivia.) In 1974 Congress solved a problem it had been facing for decades. Congress passes the spending bills for the following year in the fall but doesn’t really know how much money there will be to spend until April 15 of the next year, or whenever all the income taxes get counted up. Some years you have a little extra and some years you’re short. So Congress invented the reconciliation bill so it could reconcile the spending plan with the tax income. Congress decided this is so important that you can’t filibuster it in the Senate; you just need a majority vote to pass it. So now you know.

Christian nationalist Secretary of Defense Pete “Signalgate” Hegseth just led a half hour church service in the Pentagon auditorium, ([link removed]) during work. It was standing room only and broadcast throughout the building. He brought in his pastor from Tennessee. It was described as the "first monthly Christian Prayer and Worship Service at the DoD." You can watch it here ([link removed]) . It’s just as bad as you think.

We warned Congress ([link removed]) about Hegseth’s Christian nationalism during his confirmation process but he was confirmed when Vice President Vance broke the tie vote. We’ll get on this next week with something more than an “I told you so.”


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Scott MacConomy, Director of Policy ad Government Affairs at the Secular Coalition for America, wears a blue suit and stands with his arms crossed over his chest in front of the United States Capitol Building.

Your advocate,

Scott MacConomy
Director of Policy and Government Affairs
Secular Coalition for America
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