In a ruling that started with a question about shredded tires in Missouri, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ripped up bigoted, state-level arguments for withholding taxpayer support from religious schools. Here in Colorado, the decision counts as a big win for the Douglas County school board’s effort to offer its parents vouchers to send their children to private religious schools.

The high court argued that Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources was wrong to prevent Trinity Lutheran Church in Columbia from taking part in a program that uses shredded tires in playgrounds to protect against scrapes and bruises. The church operates a preschool and hoped to replace decidedly less-cushioning pea gravel. Its application for the program ranked near the top of a list of competitors, meaning it would have won on the merits, but officials reading their state’s constitution, and its inclusion of so-called Blaine Amendment language, disqualified the church.

Thankfully, the argument collapsed before the high court. As Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority – which includes newcomer Neil Gorsuch – argued, “The exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution … and cannot stand.”

Read more at The Denver Post.