Supreme Court prepared to rule that publicly funded religious schools can reject children of same-sex couples

Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

A majority of the Supreme Court signaled on Tuesday it would allow Catholic preschools receiving taxpayer money to deny enrollment to children of same-sex couples , potentially delivering another significant win for religious rights in schools.

The court’s conservative majority was unconvinced that a Colorado law, which bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender in publicly funded preschools, could be squared with recent high-profile precedents that expanded the ability of those religious schools to receive public money.

Broadly, the case represents a clash between First Amendment religious protections and laws intended to protect gay and transgender Americans from discrimination. When those conflicts have come to the Supreme Court in recent years, religious claims have won time after time. And there was no indication over the course of two hours of an Election Day oral argument that the Colorado dispute would be any different.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, at one point, questioned why Colorado had “provoked” the confrontation and missed a “win-win” by enforcing the discrimination provision and not allowing Catholic schools to opt out to “respect religious rights.”

“It seems like this is a would-be solution in search of a problem,” Kavanaugh, a member of the court’s conservative wing, told the Colorado attorney defending the state law. “I’m just trying to figure out why we’re here.”

In many ways, though, the case was of the court’s own making. For years, the conservative majority has expanded the ability of religious schools to receive public funding — chipping away at a wall many Americans understood to have long separated church and state. But those decisions largely steered clear of questions about what would happen when those publicly funded religious schools declined to enroll the child of a gay couple or use a student’s preferred pronoun in the classroom.

Sensing that Colorado’s argument was likely a lost cause, the court’s three-justice liberal wing repeatedly leaned into an attorney representing the Catholic parish and a Colorado family that sued to challenge the state’s anti-discrimination law.

“What you’re basically saying is, ‘We can exclude people merely because the exposure to them would cause us harm’ — that’s really what you’re saying,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor told the attorney for the Trump administration, which opposes Colorado’s law. “That is completely what you’re saying: We can exclude children of same-sex marriage, we can exclude children who might have transgender feelings or beliefs because exposing other children to them creates a problem.”

Sarah Harris, arguing for the Justice Department, rejected that framing. Instead, she said, the Catholic schools were exercising their religion by “requiring parents to agree with a school that they’re going to adhere to tenets of the Catholic faith and act consistently with them.”

The Supreme Court rules against Rastafarian

Colorado enacted a ballot provision in 2020 that provides state funding for a universal preschool program, allowing both public and private schools to take part. The program includes a nondiscrimination provision that requires each school receiving public money to provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll, regardless of race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors.

The appeal, filed by the religious public interest firm Becket, appeared ready-made for a 6-3 conservative court that has repeatedly sided with religious interests. In one series of decisions, the court has made clear that when the government opens educational funding programs up to public and private schools, it cannot bar religious schools from taking part just because they are religious or offer religious instruction. The court in 2022 , for instance, barred Maine from excluding religious schools from a tuition assistance program that allows parents to use vouchers to send their children to public or private schools.

Maine responded to that decision by embracing language like Colorado’s, technically allowing religious schools to take part but imposing anti-discrimination language the Catholic Church says it cannot bear.

At least some conservative justices seemed frustrated with the idea that states could be using such anti-discrimination provisions as a pretext to bar religious participation.

“If you know that the effect of choosing that requirement will push out those with contrary beliefs, how is that different?” conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Colorado’s deputy solicitor general, Helen Norton.

Norton said there is “zero evidence” that the state targeted religious schools with its anti-discrimination language. She noted the state encouraged religious schools to take part, and that some religious schools — including Catholic schools — were engaged in the program. And Colorado’s anti-discrimination provision, she said, was enacted before the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in the Maine case.

A decision in the Colorado dispute is expected by the end of June.

A few conservative justices noted that many claims pitting religious rights against LGBTQ Americans had come from Colorado in recent years. Justice Samuel Alito, among the court’s most ardent defenders of religious rights, pressed Norton about her “state’s record in recent First Amendment cases,” ticking through a list that included an opinion this year endorsing a religious counselor’s challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” and a 2018 decision in which the court ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who refused to bake a cake to celebrate the marriage of a same-sex couple.

“What should we make of all of this?” Alito asked.

“Your honor,” Norton said, “there is no evidence of any sort of any religious hostility or animus” in the state’s preschool program.

Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal wing, seemed concerned about the long-term consequences of a loss for Colorado. She speculated that the next case could involve a family whose child was enrolled in a public school and who argued that allowing their child to attend classes alongside a gay or transgender peer burdened their religion.

“It’s going to be pretty easy for religious groups or religious individuals to come forward and say this would be a substantial burden on my religious beliefs,” Kagan said. “With respect to public schools alone, these inquiries could go on forever.”

伊丽莎白·弗兰茨/路透社

周二，最高法院多数法官表示，将允许接受纳税人资金的天主教幼儿园拒绝同性伴侣的孩子入学，这可能为学校的宗教权利带来又一次重大胜利。

法院的保守派多数派认为，科罗拉多州的一项法律禁止在公立幼儿园中基于性取向和性别进行歧视，这与最近一些备受瞩目的先例相矛盾，这些先例扩大了宗教学校获得公共资金的能力。

总体而言，此案代表了宪法第一修正案赋予的宗教保护与旨在保护同性恋和跨性别美国人免受歧视的法律之间的冲突。近年来，当此类冲突诉诸最高法院时，宗教诉求往往胜诉。在选举日长达两小时的口头辩论中，没有任何迹象表明科罗拉多州的这场争议会有所不同。

布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官一度质疑，科罗拉多州为何“挑起”了这场对抗，并且错失了通过执行反歧视条款而实现“双赢”的机会，不允许天主教学校选择退出以“尊重宗教权利”。

“这似乎是为了解决一个并不存在的问题而提出的方案，”卡瓦诺大法官（他是最高法院保守派大法官）对为科罗拉多州法律辩护的律师说，“我只是想弄明白我们为什么会在这里。”

然而，在许多方面，这起案件都是法院咎由自取。多年来，保守派占多数的法官们不断扩大宗教学校接受公共资金的权限，逐渐瓦解了许多美国人长期以来所理解的政教分离原则。但这些判决大多回避了这样一个问题：如果这些接受公共资助的宗教学校拒绝招收同性恋伴侣的孩子，或者拒绝在课堂上使用学生偏好的代词，将会发生什么？

法院的三名自由派大法官意识到科罗拉多州的论点很可能毫无胜算，于是反复向代表天主教教区和科罗拉多州一个家庭的律师施压，该家庭提起诉讼，挑战该州的反歧视法。

“你实际上是在说，‘我们可以仅仅因为接触某些人会给我们带来伤害就将他们排除在外’——这才是你真正的意思，”索尼娅·索托马约尔大法官对反对科罗拉多州法律的特朗普政府律师说道。“你的意思完全就是这样：我们可以将同性婚姻的孩子排除在外，我们可以将可能持有跨性别想法或信仰的孩子排除在外，因为让其他孩子接触他们会造成问题。”

司法部发言人莎拉·哈里斯驳斥了这种说法。她表示，天主教学校是在行使宗教权利，其方式是“要求家长同意学校承诺遵守天主教教义并言行一致”。

最高法院裁定拉斯特法里教徒败诉

科罗拉多州于2020年通过了一项投票条款，为普及学前教育项目提供州政府资金，允许公立和私立学校参与。该项目包含一项反歧视条款，要求所有接受公共资金的学校必须为符合条件的儿童提供平等的入学机会，无论其种族、宗教信仰、性取向、性别认同或其他因素如何。

由宗教公益组织贝克特（Becket）提起的上诉，似乎正合保守派占多数、6比3的最高法院的心意，该法院一贯支持宗教利益。在一系列判决中，最高法院明确表示，政府向公立和私立学校开放教育资助项目时，不能仅仅因为宗教学校是宗教学校或提供宗教课程就禁止其参与。例如，最高法院在2022年禁止缅因州将宗教学校排除在学费资助项目之外，该项目允许家长使用代金券送子女就读公立或私立学校。

缅因州对该决定的回应是采用了与科罗拉多州类似的措辞，从技术上讲允许宗教学校参与，但强加了天主教会无法容忍的反歧视措辞。

至少有一些保守派大法官似乎对各州可能利用此类反歧视条款作为借口来禁止宗教活动的想法感到不满。

“如果你知道选择这项要求会把那些持有相反观点的人排挤出去，那又有什么不同呢？”保守派大法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特问科罗拉多州副检察长海伦·诺顿。

诺顿表示，没有任何证据表明科罗拉多州的反歧视条款针对宗教学校。她指出，科罗拉多州鼓励宗教学校参与，而且一些宗教学校——包括天主教学校——也参与了该项目。她还表示，科罗拉多州的反歧视条款是在最高法院2022年就缅因州一案作出裁决之前颁布的。

预计科罗拉多州纠纷案将于6月底前作出裁决。

几位保守派大法官指出，近年来许多涉及宗教权利与LGBTQ美国人权利的诉讼都来自科罗拉多州。塞缪尔·阿利托大法官是最高法院最坚定的宗教权利捍卫者之一，他追问诺顿“科罗拉多州近期在宪法第一修正案案件中的记录”，并列举了一系列案例，其中包括今年法院支持一位宗教顾问挑战科罗拉多州“转化疗法”禁令的意见，以及2018年法院支持一位科罗拉多州面包师的裁决，该面包师拒绝为一对同性伴侣的婚礼制作蛋糕。

“我们应该如何看待这一切？”阿利托问道。

诺顿说：“法官大人，没有任何证据表明该州的学前教育计划中存在任何形式的宗教敌意或仇恨。”

作为最高法院自由派成员的埃琳娜·卡根大法官似乎对科罗拉多州败诉的长期后果感到担忧。她推测，下一个案件可能涉及一个家庭，他们的孩子就读于公立学校，而他们辩称，允许孩子与同性恋或跨性别同学一起上课会给他们的宗教信仰带来负担。

卡根说：“宗教团体或宗教人士很容易站出来说，这将对他们的宗教信仰构成重大负担。仅就公立学校而言，这些调查就可能没完没了。”