And mission of a lutheran church. This was integrally related to the church itself. The question was, the scrap tire program that was used allegedly to replace dangerous pebbled Craig Lowndes playgrounds with rubberized tires, whether a religious group could be required to be admitted to a program to receive compensation for this redo of their playground. Although it was called the playground case, for many of us, it is a lot more significant than that because it raises the question, can the United States thatme court order states want to protect the conscience of its people and protected zone treasury against distributing funding to churches, can they be ordered to be included in a program that is available to other people . The Supreme Court majority said, yes, no problem with that. Justice sotomayor are wrote a thisclear dissent saying is way more significant than just about playgrounds, it is about whether churches, for the first time in American History, can actually get tax dollars from the general public. This was cited in favor of the church, a 72 decision that was not close. Why dont you think groups like yourselves were able to convince the justices, even the ones more in the middle . Guest i think there was some confusion. I watched the oral argument. I think there was some confusion about how this should be treated. Should this be treated as a nonreligious thing . After all, it is scrap tires. I think several people in the middle were convinced this is an equal justice matter. Othercan give it to secular institutions, why not the churches . The difference should be clear and a think Justice Sotomayor understood this. If you dont like affecting fact your tax dollars are being used for Donald Trumps tweets, too bad. If you do like a war we are in, that is too bad. The only thing you cannot fund in this country is religious activities. There is no question that this playground was used for the purposes of encouraging young people to come to the playground , encouraging their parents to join the church, so it really was an outreach now funded by the citizens of missouri, whether they like it or not. Host care to give our viewers care to give our viewers here to give our viewers a sense of the majority opinion, the opinion from justice roberts. Guest it is a curious way to frame it because this is not just about the playground, this is about subsidizing religion. The church admits that the purpose of getting the playground to look better and to be theoretically safer with that would be because of monster promote a christian worldview, whether students are members of community who have no religious background or a different religious background. I think when people look at this, they need to recognize that in the 16 words in the , there is aent prohibition against funding religion in any way. There is also a huge benefit to religious entities because we have hundreds of federal laws that give special breaks to religious groups, not just on ,axes, on reporting of income but on dozens and dozens of other matters. It is not fair, as a think is suggested by the chief justice here, that somehow this is a discriminatory, antireligion it is not. The whole framework of the First Amendment says sometimes you treat religion differently and give it preference, sometimes when it comes to money, you have to dig into your own pocket, you cant expect taxpayers to bail you out. Host separation of church and state, religious freedom are our topics with barry lynn this morning. Democrats can call at 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. Ken is up first in washington. An independent. Caller good morning. Why there aretand so many people that dont understand the separation of church and state, the whole concept behind it that the forefathers set up in the first place. Andt of people go around think that the state should be able to go into the School Systems and into the Court Systems and into the government itself and say that religion is not allowed in most places and that is not the case. Guest you are absolutely right. ,f you want to pray in a school the only thing the Supreme Court has quite properly said is that government cant get into the business of writing the prayer, telling a child went to pray, how to pray, but if a child wants to pray before eating milk and cookies, that is certainly permissible. There are all types of religious clubs, in the same way there are clubs about all kinds of activities and interests in Public School. Religion innty of schools, it is just that the state cannot control it. Unless anybody thinks this is a benefit for the government, think of this. Would you want the government to start telling your child how to pray, what to pray about, these are the kinds of things that protect the integrity of religion, just as much as they protect the integrity of a neutral government. Host what is the Blaine Amendment . Guest we like to refer to them as no aide amendments. Federald to have a constitutional amendment that would bar the distribution of funds to religion, to ministers. It was very broad. Decided whatever happened in congress, they were going to make up their own mind. When they do that, they protect the integrity of the money in their treasury and the conscience of people. In missouri, there are a lot of other groups who say we dont want to play for the playground pay for the playground that is specifically going to be used convert students. There are people who say we dont want this, we dont want to pay for this, so it protects the integrity of conscience for everyone who lives there. Host what does this Supreme Court decision mean for those 38 states that have a provision in their state constitution . Guest it does not bode well for them. The have the opportunity to negate those 38 state constitutions. They chose not to go that far. This would not have been a 72 decision haddock on that way. They will resolve it sometime down the line involving some other issue. Host this was kept to a narrow decision. There is even a footnote that said this is specifically about government paying for the use of tires on playgrounds. Well now, that is ridiculous. That is why it is a footnote. Judge gorsuch said, we dont even agree with the footnote, this means a lot more than that. Host quantico, virginia is next. Kevin. Caller good morning. I have two quick comments. The separation of church and state, i think the people that are for that always accuse christians or people promoting the christian worldview as being against it because they want to promote a christian worldview, when i think folks that are promoting, misconstruing the original intent are promoting a nonchristian worldview and that is why they are so fervent about it. If you look at some of the original constitutions and requirements for elected office in states, you look at delaware, the original constitution, being a christian was a requirement for running for office. Lastly, im a Christian Conservative republican, but i think that all of the tax preferences for christian and religious organizations should be abolished. I think all religious institutions should pay taxes because it is actually being used to mute the message that churches are trying to share because they are afraid about the tax benefits. Guest i think kevin makes good points, at least the last half of what he said. There is no question that when you accept the tax benefits, there are some significant restrictions on what you can do. You cant get into the business of promoting candidates for public office. There are some churches that dont accept Tax Exemptions, they pay taxes, then they are allowed to engage in political activity, as if they were a group of people who wanted to engage in political activity. But i think he is wrong about the people who support separation of church and state have somew nonchristian agenda. Im a christian, im a minister, i take religion very seriously, i take the philosophy behind it seriously. I think it is just that we dont think the government, which many conservatives inc. Cant do anything right, we dont want them mucking around, telling us how to be religious. Everything from national day of what are you supposed to do on national day of prayer . , pray forr, longer specific things . Pray, you pray every day or you probably pray every day, you dont need the government to tell you this is the day you really ought to pray. Host do you think churches should pay taxes . Guest i think of churches they taxes this is a deep split in the Civil Liberties community. I have tended over the years to think, look, they do get benefits from the government, at least they ought to report. Now they dont even have to report income, they dont have to report how they spend the money. They dont seriously have to worry about if they engage in partisan political activity that the irs is going to crack down on them. I want to make sure those other things are changed first and then we could have a real debate over the Tax Exemption of all types of groups, religious or secular. Host abraham in hannover, maryland. The line for independents. Caller i would like to pose a question for reverend barry len in terms of how does the government in the judicial are on one hand definingof talking and what churches and religious group should do, but at the same time protect their religious liberty without crossing the line . Can he talk about how does the government and judicial system balance both of that day, hot topic issue that can always confront us in our nation . Guest if i had the complete answer to that, we could just forget about the last 200plus years of debate about it and maybe they would let me on the Supreme Court. The truth is it is very difficult. It is a delicate balance. I think it has been done reasonably well. Agree with every Supreme Court decision on religion, but i do think there has been, up until now at least, a very cautious, judicious, you might say, ability to say look, there are certain things that we protect as a matter of religious freedom, particularly those things you exercise as a religious matter without hurting any other person. You are not impairing the rights of the thirdparty. Hen, also, money if you want your playground to have rubber on it instead of little pebbles, if you think that is the safe thing to do for your childrens, for heaven sakes, doityourself. Dont spend money in another way. Dont ask the taxpayers to rescue you and put in the rubber. Host you say the Supreme Court was cautious up until now. What changed . Was it gorsuch coming onto the court . He replaced a conservative justice. Guest he did replace a conservative justice, but Justice Scalia did surprise people. I doubt that neil gorsuch would have been a supporter of the idea of burning the American Flag being a protected free speech. The president has a list of 19 more people who he wants in a Supreme Court or a federal Appeals Court and they are just as conservative, to a person, as neil gorsuch. One of the reason the religious right voted 81 for donald trump in spite of his, shall we say, indiscreet comments about all kinds of people is that they knew he would get appointments to the United StatesSupreme Court. The only good thing that happened on the monday that this case was decided, that they decided to take two other cases involving religion is that Justice Kennedy did not announce his retirement. If he had retired, there would have been a Battle Royale over the summer about his replacement and his replacement nomination, at least, would be likely to come from that list that donald ,rump put out about last summer all vetted by the heritage foundation, all vetted by the most conservative judicial operations in washington. Host we want to get to the other cases involving religion. First, kenneth on the line for democrats from buffalo. Caller hello. Issueider this playground just to be another skirmish in the war against the separation of church and state. That the remind people philosophical basis, the founding of this country was the enlightenment. Andh said that rationality science were the instruments through which Human Progress were to be obtained. In this country today, areonality and science beginning to lose credence in the public. And they are under constant assault. And the people that say that this country is a christian nation are wrong. It is not a christian nation. The people who claim to be christians are the same ones who vote for Health Care Plans which are going to be disastrous for a lot of people in this country and resulting from the cutoff of medicaid funding. Host we are going to be talking a lot more about the health care debate. Guest i think kenneth is absolutely right. This is rooted in the alignment, and the idea that reason does matter. It ought to be the basis of decisions, policy decisions in this country. There is a whole book called politics according to the bible. In it, the guy who wrote it, professor wayne grudem, has a bible answer to everything. He even has answers to the next generation of fighter planes that the air force should purchase. He has an answer for everything, he claims it is the bible. I do this sermon in churches called the two worst ways to make policy, one is bible literalism, trying to find one little verse that will confirm your viewpoint, and the other is constitutional original is him. What peoplew thought the First Amendment meant. There were only notes taken by jefferson. There was not even a congressional record at the time. This states that ratified all of these provisions, the bill of rights, including what we are talking about today, in general, there are not records kept of what the people meant. When my conservative friends say, we are in favor of state rights, apparently not when it comes to protecting the conscience of people and the public fists of those states that we have been talking about and if it doesnt matter what the states that when they confirmed the constitution, then i would say, maybe they are not such big supporters of the rights of states if you dont even care what they thought these provisions meant. Host here is another book. God and government 25 years of fighting for equality. That is rev. Barry lynns book. Guest a fine book. Think you for mentioning it. [laughter] host easy to find on the internet. Vincent in. , oklahoma. Caller i have a friend named sam. We go to mass every night. He knows more than me. More separation. Host more separation is what you are arguing for . We lost vincent. Lets go to wayne in weaver, alabama. Caller hello. I was thinking about separation of church and state. It should not really be worded separation of state and christianity. The reason i say that is because the state seems to embrace humanism, islam, and other religions, anything except for christianity, which is attacked by the state. I just want to get your thoughts on that. Thank you. Guest i dont think that the state is attacking religion. I think that is why there are hundreds and hundreds of exemptions and exceptions for churches and most churches and other religious institutions in this country happened to be christian. I do think americans united is absolutely clear, we are equal opportunity complacence complaintents. When a high school in california wanted students to memorize passages from the koran, we were virtually alone in saying, you cant do that. Imagine if a Public School in alabama said, we want you to memorize prayers from the christian bible and come back and repeat them the next day, everybody would have been distressed. Libertarian, we do this, we have complained about making adjustments to bathrooms in order to put in muslim foot baths in public universities, we objected to a teacher who was denigrating a student because he had a belief in the bible. Teachers should not have opinions about the correctness of religion. Theyve got enough work to do teaching geography, teaching well the subjects that are outside of the ambit of promotional religion. Host we started with a Supreme Court case just decided. You mentioned other cases involving religion coming up. What are you watching . Guest im watching a case involving masterpiece bakery, a case in colorado where two gentlemen who could not get married lawfully in colorado at the time decay started, they went to massachusetts, got lawfully married, came back and asked a baker to bake a cake for their postwedding event. He refused to do so because he did not believe that he showed, as a matter of moral principle, bake a cake for gay people. ,ow, this raises the question what happens if you have a religious belief that trumps that was a verb the just before it became a noun if it trumps a serious civil rights issue, a public accommodations statute . In most states, including colorado, if you put yourself out as a business, you are there to serve everybody. You dont get to ask people anything about what religion are you or we dont like that, we are not going to serve you. I think these gentlemen just wanted a cake. The man who is now claiming this religious liberty interest in not baking a cake because he does not believe in marriage lose, hei think should has lost in the Human Rights Commission and in the courts in colorado. The United StatesSupreme Court has taken the case. It only takes four people to take a case out of the nine people on the court and i think there is a real possibility though that this case still will be won. Justice kennedy does not like the idea. He is a conservative, but he has not lost his common sense. Theicularly if what is result is making a person feel like a secondclass citizen. When somebody who is your baker refuses to bake a cake for you because of what you are, because of who you are, i would say that is a good reason for Justice Kennedy to say, no. Decision inat 72 the playground case shaker confidence a little bit . Guest just a little bit. That was about funding. This is whether you have a clash between a claimed right of religious liberty, which is what the baker in this case has, against the claim of being treated like everyone else, as the two gentlemen who wanted the phillips, during the deposition in the case out in colorado, said that he had dogsaked a cake for two wedding. Honestly, apparently he has had some shift. Who are ok, but two men loving each other, who go to another state to be lawfully married, that is too much. I think that is frankly hypocritical. Host st. Louis missouri. Mona is waiting on the line for democrats. Caller ok, i feel like the church should have more pride than to have the state play for their playground surface. My church, we put the same kind of surface in. We got donations from people that use our playground. We had day care and preschool and things like that. I would think they would have more pride than having the state pay for the playground surface. Guest i could not agree more. If this is a safety issue, then you would think the churches all across the country, including those in missouri, would say we want to protect the safety of children, we want to do it even if it costs us a little bit of money. Look, Church Budgets are very tight, no question about that, but can you not afford theyll may want to part of this is subsidized by the state, but it cant find 10,000 to do this yourself if you have a campaign to protect your own children . I would say the priority of a church like that is a bit mixed up. Host lets see if we can get to mike in richmond, virginia. Republican line. Caller yes, this thing is so huge. It has tendrils that extend in so many directions. It is hard to pick one. I guess the underlying thing of all of it is that the modern interpretation of the separation of church and state stems from a 1947 Supreme Court opinion, pin put onothing but st this thing because anybody that wants to understand this only. As to read the First Amendment citizens are not restricted when it comes to this. Only congress is restricted when it comes to federal law. The court has basically taken laws that pertain to congress and put them on citizens. Guest actually, i would have to disagree with your history a bit. When the congress was considering the 14th amendment after the civil war, the republican sponsor of the 14th amendment said specifically that its purpose was to apply the bill of rights to the states because he was of the impression and a majority of the members of congress at that time were too that you needed to be specific and adopt it. The courts gradually got around to putting meat on that bone, but the bone was there. It was intended to apply the bill of rights to the states, so that the citizens of every state would be guaranteed the same under theguaranteed federal constitution. I would have to disagree a bit with your history, but i understand where you are going. That Congress Shall make no law. That is the way it was worded. The 14th amendment made it clear is that that was for the states and that is where we are today. Host if you want to hear and read more from rev. Barry lynn, au. Org. Guest nice to be here. Thank you. Host up next, the potential political followup for republicans trying to replace the Affordable Care act. We will be joined by tom bevan, real clear politics cofounder. Then we will discuss u. S. Policy toward north korea. We will be right back. Sunday night some like steve jobs can sell this product and forever be associated with it when that is just the shade of the story. He had a lot to do with it, but the truth is even the iphone, developed att was the apple, would not have been developed without scores of people working around the clock. Story is that the iphone was born as the software interaction paradigm was born behind steve jobs back. This crew of guys started basically experimenting. It was freewheeling we search research. It was wild stuff. They had this crazy projector rigged that they were using to have different products together and create what would become the iphone. Watched sunday night at 9 00 eastern on booktv on cspan2. , today at 7 00 p. M. Eastern join American History tv for a live tour of the museum of the American Revolution in philadelphia. The Museum President and ceo and collections and exhibitions Vice President will introduce artifacts and exhibits throughout the museum, including George Washingtons war tend and a piece of the old northbridge from the battle of concord. Hear stories about the American Revolution and participate in the live program with your phone calls and tweets. Watch American History tv live from the American HistoryAmerican Revolution museum live on cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host tom bevan is cofounder and publisher of real clear politics. Joining us from chicago this morning. Republican senators are certainly hearing from folks back in their states about the republican effort to replace the Affordable Care act. What impact do you think this recess is going to have on Republican Leaders efforts to corral enough votes to get this passed when they do come back . Guest that is a good question. They wanted to get this done before people went on the july 4 recess. Now they will be