Supreme Court Hears Case on Religious Schools and Anti-LGBTQ Policies
Left 75%
Center 0%
Right 25%
3 left · 0 center · 1 right
What happened
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy. Colorado’s universal preschool program funds seats for four-year-olds at public, private, and religious schools if providers agree not to discriminate on characteristics including race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The Archdiocese of Denver, parish preschools St. Mary and St. Bernadette, and two parents sued, arguing that the condition violates the First Amendment because Catholic teaching conflicts with enrolling children of same-sex couples or transgender children; the schools require parents to pledge support for Church teachings on marriage, sex, and gender and do not accommodate transgender students on bathrooms, pronouns, or uniforms. A federal district court and the Tenth Circuit ruled for Colorado, finding the nondiscrimination policy generally applicable to all participating schools. The Trump administration argued in support of the Catholic challengers.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
Left-leaning coverage treats the harm as exclusion of LGBTQ children from taxpayer-funded preschool, without reporting that none have applied to or been refused by the Catholic schools in this case. That omitted trial-record claim, carried only in right-leaning coverage, changes whether readers see an accomplished denial of seats or a dispute over a funding condition that has not yet blocked anyone. Right-leaning coverage also reports Colorado calling its own theory "speculative."
The two sides do not describe the same school policy. Left-leaning coverage in Vox says the schools "wish to exclude the children of same-sex couples." Right-leaning coverage in the New York Post says they "require pre-K parents to pledge in writing" that they will support Church teachings.
If a same-sex couple signed that pledge, would these schools enroll the child?
Bottom line
Only the New York Post reported that no LGBTQ family has applied to these Catholic preschools. That omission leaves Vox's "anti-LGBTQ schools" line standing without a documented refusal of any child.
The receipts — 5 facts one side's coverage lacks
- No LGBTQ family has been turned away from a Catholic pre-K because none has ever applied, according to the trial record.
- Catholic families pay up to $6,300 a year for preschool seats others receive free.
- A Catholic school that refuses the nondiscrimination condition may still operate; it simply will not receive state money.
- The Justice Department argued as amicus supporting the parishes.
- Dan and Lisa Sheley have lost $18,000 in tuition assistance.
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets portrayed the argument as a conservative majority ready to force states to subsidize religious schools that exclude LGBTQ families. Vox wrote that at least five justices seemed “hostile to a law requiring taxpayer-funded schools to treat gay families the same as anyone else” and that in this Court’s religion-versus-LGBTQ cases “religious conservatives always win.” They stressed that Colorado already admits religious schools and only conditions funds on equal treatment; schools that refuse may still operate without state money. Mother Jones quoted Justice Elena Kagan as saying the challengers want “something far beyond” equal treatment—a “special accommodation” to take taxpayer money without the nondiscrimination rules other schools follow. Slate and the others highlighted Democratic appointees’ warnings: Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked why a religious exemption from anti-LGBTQ rules would not also permit excluding Black children; Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said there is “no principled basis” to distinguish those claims and questioned compatibility with “a society where all people live and work together.” They described Justice Amy Coney Barrett as possibly favoring a narrower loss for Colorado that could still allow humiliating conduct restrictions on same-sex parents. The sources concluded taxpayers would likely have to “fund discriminatory institutions” and that LGBTQ families would “yield to the interests” of religious conservatives.
The Right View
The New York Post framed the case as Colorado withdrawing a promised universal benefit from Catholic parents who choose schools aligned with their faith. It said lawmakers treat Catholic doctrine on marriage, sex, and gender as “bigoted,” even though, according to the trial record, “there hasn’t been a single instance of an LGBTQ family being turned away from a Catholic pre-K—because none has ever applied,” and Colorado’s discrimination claim is “speculative.” Catholic families instead pay up to $6,300 a year; plaintiffs Dan and Lisa Sheley have “lost $18,000 in tuition assistance” and say, “We’re being discriminated against.” The Post argued the Bill of Rights exists to protect individuals from this “majoritarian tyranny,” noted that 23 red states back the parents as victims of “majoritarian hostility towards disfavored religious minorities,” and cited Carson v. Makin (2022)—in which the Court held Maine could not exclude religious schools from a tuition program that funded secular private schools—as already forbidding states from forcing schools to scrub religious character to receive generally available education funds. It expected the conservative majority to rule for the archdiocese.
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that Colorado already includes religious schools on equal terms and that the plaintiffs seek a special right to public money while refusing the same nondiscrimination conditions all other providers accept; the lower courts’ finding of general applicability, Kagan’s “special accommodation” framing, and the absence of a clear limiting principle short of race (as Jackson put it, “no principled basis”) are the best support for that view. The right’s strongest argument is that a program sold as universal still withholds aid from families whose chosen schools follow sincere religious teaching, despite zero documented turnaways of LGBTQ families and substantial out-of-pocket costs to Catholic parents, a burden they analogize to the exclusion the Court rejected in Carson v. Makin. The central unresolved tension is whether a facially neutral nondiscrimination condition on generally available public funds is a legitimate spending rule, or an unconstitutional penalty on religious exercise that triggers strict scrutiny and an exemption.
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