The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy. The case asks whether religious preschools that take taxpayer funds through Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program can deny enrollment to children because their parents are LGBTQ+.
Colorado offers free preschool to every family in the state through public and private providers, including religious schools. Providers that accept state funds, religious and secular alike, agree to give every family an equal opportunity to enroll.
Two parishes and the Archdiocese of Denver want the funding without that requirement, even though their schools never applied to take part in the program. They argue the rule violates their religious freedom. To receive state funds, they would be held to the same nondiscrimination rule as every other participating preschool. Both the federal district court and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Colorado.
While some of the justices appeared ready to accept the petitioners’ invitation to upend the established framework for challenges to publicly funded programs by religious organizations, others clearly recognized the importance of Colorado’s commitment to ensuring that all state-funded preschools do not engage in discrimination against children with LGBTQ parents.
Lambda Legal and GLAD Law filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Colorado.
“When the state pays schools to provide preschool programming, the schoolhouse door must be open to every family. While religious schools can set their own admissions criteria when they are privately funded, every school, religious or secular, that chooses to take taxpayer dollars is barred from discriminating in violation of Colorado law,” said Karen Loewy, Senior Counsel and Director of Constitutional Law Practice at Lambda Legal. “No four-year-old should be turned away from a taxpayer-funded classroom because of who their parents are, including children of LGBTQ parents. Colorado’s requirements simply make sure public money isn’t used to discriminate, and the Constitution has long allowed states to set that condition.”
— David Taffet