For example, in their recent ruling that the State of Maine had to provide funding for religious schools if they provided funding for private secular schools (to educate Maine children too far from a public school), they fell into a trap. States tend to exempt private schools from income and property taxes, but not payroll and sales taxes. Why a for profit school should be so treated needs to be reexamined, but until that time, church schools will find themselves having to account for taxes on cafeteria sales, school clothing, etc.
Note Private schools, religious or not, are not charitable institutions. Charity is not involved any more than in a “Christian” trucking company, or “Christian” party store, or a “Christian” bakery. These are profit seeking enterprises. How they choose to seek profits is up to them.
If SCOTUS continues to fold religions into the state, more and more taxes will be trotted out for those schools. Every time some religious school rolls out their hate agenda for everyone in the school district to view, people will begin to question why they are supporting such schools with their taxes, when they are given huge tax advantages for just being a religious school? (How would you like to not have to pay income or property taxes?)
Most of this current crop of legal ignoramuses pushing these abuses of the separation of church and state are ignorant of the separation of church and state concept. It is not just to protect the state from church meddling, but also to protect the churches from state meddling. If you want examples of state meddling in churches, look up Henry the Eighth of England, and Adolf Hitler (Churches in Hitler’s Germany had Nazi overseers—look it up). And, realize that evangelical churches in 1789 supported the new constitution because they understood if states could adopt “official” religions, they would be on the outside looking in, with their “competition” fat and sassy, flush with public funding. And this is what happened until the 14th Amendment was passed, restricting the states as the federal government was restricted, by the First Amendment.)
Since the current crop of malignant Republicans will not be in power forever, they have just opened the door for the state to meddle in Church affairs—if you take their money, you have to pipe their tune. For a currently example, look at the Church of England. The Church gets regular tithes from the British government, and it is literally dying on the vine. The priests have no incentive to recruit or proselytize, they get paid no matter how many people show up for services . . . and so few are showing up that churches are being shuttered right and left.
All Hail the Law of Unintended Consequences! (Forgive them, for they know not what they do.)