The good news is that Brigham Young University's KBYU will be allowed to continue broadcasting religion-oriented devotionals without losing its affiliation with the Public Broadcasting Service. But the underlying issue remains.

It's a dispute that goes back decades. PBS stations are supposed to air only non-religious programs, but the strictures were loosely enforced. KBYU and some other public stations have long broadcast religious programming. From time to time this has been questioned. This time, the PBS board decided to allow BYU and some other stations to continue airing ongoing religious programs, provided they don't add more such offerings.

That seems a reasonable compromise, but it doesn't solve the simmering issue, and it is likely to crop up again. Tax dollars continue to support all kinds of PBS programming, as well as stations that are free to broadcast a variety of religious ideologies. Some would argue that this represents state support of religion, which courts have found unconstitutional.

Stay tuned for a new challenge from the atheists, which can't be far down the road. While the controversy seems to have passed for now, it's only a matter of time before it boils over again.