{"id":2696719,"date":"2026-11-03T08:08:43","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsupreme-court-weighs-if-colorado-can-make-christian-schools-enroll-trans-kids-to-get-funding\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T08:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T13:17:07","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsupreme-court-weighs-if-colorado-can-make-christian-schools-enroll-trans-kids-to-get-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsupreme-court-weighs-if-colorado-can-make-christian-schools-enroll-trans-kids-to-get-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS Weighs If Colo. Can Coerce Christians On Trans Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignsupreme-court-weighs-if-colorado-can-make-christian-schools-enroll-trans-kids-to-get-funding%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2696719&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>On Election Day the U.S. supreme Court will hear oral argument in St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton v. Roy, a case that challenges Colorado\u2019s conditions on its global preschool program and raises broader questions about the restoration of First Amendment religious-liberty protections.<\/p>\n<p>Background<\/p>\n<p>In 2020 Colorado voters approved Proposition EE to fund free, voluntary preschool through a \u201cmixed delivery\u201d system intended to include public, private, religious, and secular providers. The state required participating preschools to admit children regardless of religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or gender identity. the Archdiocese of Denver, which runs 36 Catholic preschools, says that requirement conflicts with its religious admissions practices and employee expectations. The Archdiocese sought an exemption, which Colorado denied, so the Catholic preschools stayed out of the program and some families lost access to the state-funded benefit.<\/p>\n<p>lower-court rulings<\/p>\n<p>A federal trial court and the Tenth Circuit sided with Colorado. The courts treated the mandate as a neutral nondiscrimination rule that applied to all providers, and thus permissible under Employment Division v. Smith. The courts viewed Colorado as welcoming faith-based schools so long as they complied with the nondiscrimination condition.<\/p>\n<p>Why that reasoning is flawed, the argument goes<\/p>\n<p>The article argues Colorado\u2019s policy is not truly neutral:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Colorado allowed multiple individualized exceptions (17 listed), which under Fulton v. City of Philadelphia undermines a claim of general applicability &#8211; if the state can grant exemptions to some secular interests, it cannot uniformly refuse religious exemptions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The program favors certain secular categories (e.g., special education and Head Start participants), which, under cases like Tandon, means religious reasons cannot be treated less favorably than comparable secular reasons.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Colorado\u2019s rhetoric in litigation, which compared the parishes\u2019 beliefs to segregation-era practices, reflects hostility toward religious beliefs &#8211; conduct the Supreme Court condemned in Masterpiece Cakeshop.<\/p>\n<p>Parents\u2019 rights<\/p>\n<p>The piece notes a related line of recent Supreme court decisions that emphasize parents\u2019 rights to direct their children\u2019s religious upbringing.mahmoud v. Taylor held that significant interference with those rights triggers strict scrutiny (drawing on Wisconsin v. Yoder), and subsequent decisions have reinforced that principle. That reasoning could benefit the preschools and the parents who wish to enroll their children in faith-based programs consistent with their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>Bigger picture: a trend restoring religious freedom<\/p>\n<p>St. Mary fits into a larger movement in the Court\u2019s religious-liberty jurisprudence &#8211; a shift away from tests like Lemon and toward protecting religious exercise (as seen in Kennedy v.Bremerton and other recent decisions).Lower courts are still applying this shift unevenly, but the trend is toward restoring protections for free exercise and respecting religion in the public square.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s at stake<\/p>\n<p>If the Tenth Circuit\u2019s approach stands, states could open programs to religious schools in name while imposing conditions that effectively exclude faith-based providers. That would render precedents like Carson v. Makin hollow, the piece contends.The key point: a program that requires religious institutions to abandon their faith to participate is not truly open.<\/p>\n<p>Conclusion<\/p>\n<p>St. Mary gives the Supreme Court a chance to make clear that public programs cannot close their doors to religious institutions by attaching conditions those institutions cannot, in good conscience, accept.<\/p>\n<p>Author note<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Kreutz,partner at Holtzman Vogel in Nashville and former deputy attorney general for Tennessee,wrote the piece; the views are his own.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>On Election Day, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/2026\/10\/court-to-hear-argument-in-religious-discrimination-challenge-brought-by-catholic-preschools-in-c\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">oral argument<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/cases\/st-mary-catholic-parish-v-roy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton v. Roy<\/em><\/a>, a case testing the constitutionality of Colorado\u2019s actions under an evolving area of case law that is restoring the religious liberty clauses of the First Amendment back to their original intent.<\/p>\n<p>The <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/cases\/st-mary-catholic-parish-v-roy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">St. Mary v. Roy<\/a><\/em>  case presents the Supreme Court with the opportunity to continue a broad course correction in religious liberty jurisprudence. The state of Colorado told religious preschools they could join its universal preschool program and receive government funding \u2014 but only if they stopped acting religious. <\/p>\n<p>In 2020, Colorado voters approved <a href=\"https:\/\/ballotpedia.org\/Colorado_Proposition_EE,_Tobacco_and_E-Cigarette_Tax_Increase_for_Health_and_Education_Programs_Measure_(2020)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Proposition EE<\/a> to fund free, voluntary preschool for every family. The legislature promised a \u201cmixed delivery system\u201d available to public and private, religious and secular schools alike. Then it attached a condition: every participating preschool must agree to enroll children \u201cregardless of \u2026 religious affiliation, sexual orientation \u2026 or gender identity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For the Archdiocese of Denver, which oversees 36 Catholic preschools, that condition was no technicality. Teachers, staff, and parents sign a statement affirming they will live according to church teaching and the parishes\u2019 sincerely held belief that they must consider a family\u2019s sexual orientation and gender identity at admission.<\/p>\n<p>The archdiocese asked for an exemption. The state said no. So Catholic preschools stayed out, and families like Daniel and Lisa Sheley lost a benefit their own tax dollars support.<\/p>\n<h2>The Tenth Circuit\u2019s Sleight of Hand<\/h2>\n<p>The federal trial court sided with Colorado, concluding that the state did not exclude religious schools at all. Colorado, it said, \u201cwelcomed and actively solicited\u201d the participation of faith-based schools, subject only to a nondiscrimination rule that applies to everyone.<\/p>\n<p>That is a distinction without a difference. In just the last ten years, the Supreme Court has held three times that a state that funds private education may not withhold those funds because a school is religious or because it will use them religiously: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/16pdf\/15-577_khlp.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer<\/a><\/em>, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/19pdf\/18-1195_g314.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue<\/a><\/em>, and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/21pdf\/20-1088_dbfi.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Carson v. Makin<\/a><\/em>. A condition that a faithful Catholic school cannot satisfy excludes that school just as surely as a sign on the door reading \u201cNo Catholics Need Apply.\u201d Colorado simply moved the exclusion from the statutory rules to the contract between the state and the schools.<\/p>\n<p>The federal appellate court then deemed the mandate \u201cneutral and generally applicable\u201d under <em><a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/494\/872\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Employment Division v. Smith<\/a><\/em>, in which the Supreme Court let governments burden religion so long as they do it evenhandedly.<\/p>\n<h2>The Rules Are Not So Neutral<\/h2>\n<p>Colorado\u2019s promise of program fairness and the federal courts\u2019 \u201cbenefit of the doubt\u201d review fall apart under closer analysis:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Grace for some, not for others.<\/strong> Colorado approved 17 exceptions, including for vaccinated children and families from a particular subdivision. Under <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/20pdf\/19-123_g3bi.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fulton v. City of Philadelphia<\/a><\/em>, a formal mechanism for individualized exemptions renders a policy not \u201cgenerally applicable.\u201d In other words, a state that can say yes to a residential subdivision but no to a church is not neutral.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Secular preferences get a pass.<\/strong> The program\u2019s preferences for special education and Head Start students turn on disability and income. The Supreme Court held in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/20pdf\/20a151_4g15.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tandon v. Newsom<\/a><\/em>  that a law triggers strict scrutiny whenever it treats <em>any<\/em> secular activity more favorably than comparable religious activity. Colorado has, impermissibly, made a value judgment that some secular reasons justify departing from its rule, but religious reasons never do.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The state\u2019s condescending rhetoric tips its hand.<\/strong> In litigation, Colorado cast the parishes\u2019 millennia-old beliefs as stigmatization and bullying, comparing them to 1970s Southern segregation academies. The Tenth Circuit waved this off as mere legal argument. But in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/17pdf\/16-111_j4el.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission<\/a><\/em>, the court struck down Colorado\u2019s treatment of a Christian baker precisely because officials showed \u201chostility toward [his] sincere religious beliefs.\u201d In other words, Colorado has been here before.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><em>Mahmoud<\/em> and the Rights of Parents<\/h2>\n<p>The strongest argument for reversal may belong to the parents. In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/24pdf\/24-297_4f14.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Mahmoud v. Taylor<\/em><\/a>, the Supreme Court held that a Maryland school board violated parents\u2019 free exercise rights by refusing to let families opt out of LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks. Policies that substantially interfere with the right of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children, the court said, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/l-a-county-to-pay-400000-to-john-macarthurs-grace-community-church\/\" title=\"L.A. County To Pay 0,000 To John MacArthur\u2019s Grace Community Church\">trigger strict scrutiny<\/a> under <em><a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/406\/205\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Wisconsin v. Yoder<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Just this March, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/search.aspx?filename=\/docket\/docketfiles\/html\/public\/25a810.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Mirabelli v. Bonta<\/em><\/a>, the Supreme Court reinforced this point, rejecting the Ninth Circuit\u2019s attempt to narrowly cabin <em>Mahmoud<\/em>. Its consistent message is clear: Parents, not the state, direct their children\u2019s religious upbringing.<\/p>\n<h2><strong><em>St. Mary<\/em><\/strong>  Fits Within SCOTUS\u2019 Broader Trend of Restoring Religious Freedoms<\/h2>\n<p>The <em>St. Mary<\/em> case presents SCOTUS with the opportunity to continue a broad course correction in religious liberty jurisprudence. In <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/21pdf\/21-418_i425.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kennedy v. Bremerton School District<\/a><\/em>, the court discarded <em>Lemon<\/em>\u2019s \u201cahistorical, atextual\u201d test, recognizing that officials terrified of an establishment clause violation had been suppressing protected religious exercise.<\/p>\n<p>The lower courts are now working through the implications of this long-overdue pivot. For instance, in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/cases\/nathan-v-alamo-heights-independent-school-district\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District<\/a><\/em>, the Fifth Circuit rejected an on point but pre-<em>Kennedy<\/em> precedent and upheld Texas\u2019s Ten Commandments law as not coercing students. Meanwhile, in Arkansas, a district court reached the opposite conclusion, and the Eighth Circuit is considering the state\u2019s appeal in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/law.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/district-courts\/arkansas\/arwdce\/5:2025cv05127\/74528\/71\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1<\/a><\/em>. These decisions represent a slow but steady restoration of the free exercise and establishment clauses back to their original meaning.<\/p>\n<h2>What Comes Next<\/h2>\n<p>The stakes reach well beyond Colorado. As school choice spreads, the Tenth Circuit\u2019s reasoning would let any state open a program to religious schools in name while writing conditions faithful institutions cannot meet. <em>Carson<\/em> would become a dead letter, defeated by clever drafting.<\/p>\n<p>A door that is open only to those willing to compromise their faith is not open at all. <em>St. Mary<\/em> presents the Supreme Court with the chance to say exactly that.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Kevin Kreutz is a partner in Holtzman Vogel\u2019s Nashville office, where he focuses on healthcare, financial services, and constitutional litigation. He previously served as deputy attorney general at the Tennessee Attorney General\u2019s Office. The views expressed here are his own.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8211; Paraphrase:<br \/>\nSCOTUS will hear St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, challenging Colorado\u2019s universal pre-K funding rules that require participating schools to admit children regardless of religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Catholic preschools refused to certify under church teachings and asked for an exemption, but were denied, leaving many families unable to access the funded program. The case sits within a broader effort to restore the original scope of the First Amendment\u2019s religious-liberty protections and tests whether states can fund private schools without excluding religious institutions or pressuring them to change their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; 55-character summary:<br \/>\nSCOTUS weighs Colorado preschool funding vs liberty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4474,"featured_media":2696720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1280px-Holy_Family_-_Davenport_08-e1793650326426.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[7072,6024,72820,6994,4019],"class_list":["post-2696719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-christians","tag-colorado","tag-religious-liberty-2","tag-scotus","tag-transgender"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1280px-Holy_Family_-_Davenport_08-e1793650326426.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2696719"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2696735,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2696719\/revisions\/2696735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2696720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2696719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2696719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2696719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}