More Church-
State Confusion

Church-state separation is be-
coming more of a moving tar-
get, thanks to another
confusing Supreme Court de-
cision.
Last week's 5-4 ruling in Zo-
brest v. Catalina Foothills
School District involved the
right of a deaf child at a reli-
gious school to receive federal
assistance for a sign-language
interpreter.
A lower court ruled that pro-
viding an interpreter would vi-
olate the Constitution's
establishment clause. The
Anti-Defamation League,
which almost invariably insists
on an impermeable church-
state barrier, joined in a brief
supporting that decision.
But in what is becoming a fa-
miliar pattern in church-state
cases, other Jewish groups dis-
agreed. The American Jewish
Congress, for instance, said the
state was doing nothing more
than providing an essential ser-
vice for a deaf child.
The court agreed with that
assessment in a narrow deci-
sion that left many unan-
swered questions.
"We've been in a difficult
time in church-state law for a
few years, and that's likely to
continue," said Richard Foltin,
the American Jewish Commit-
tee's legislative director. "The
court is split, and there's no
consensus about where we go
from here."
The court, said Mr. Foltin,
seems convinced that the tra-
ditional benchmark for evalu-
ating church-state cases (the
so-called "Lemon test") is un-
wieldy, but it is not ready to
discard it. The result, he said,
could be a period of confusing
church-state rulings as the
court seeks a middle ground.
Another Jewish group had a
more positive spin on the deci-
sion.
Abba Cohen, Washington
representative for Agudath Is-
rael of America, said, "We have
services for handicapped in
yeshiva day schools in which
children are not served prop-
erly because of these church-
state concerns. This decision
will help clear up that kind of
confusion."
The decision, he said, will
also boost "school choice" pro-
grams that critics see as the
primary foot-in-the-door for
public funding of parochial in-
stitutions — and a can of
worms that will almost cer-
tainly escalate the church-state
war within the Jewish com-
munity. 0

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