Faith Based Discrimination is Still Discrimination and the Government Should not be Forced to Subsidize It
St. Mary Catholic Parish ("St. Mary") is a private school in Denver, Colorado that openly discriminates against LGBTQ families. Because St. Mary is a private school, nothing in the Constitution forbids it from admitting whomever it pleases or requiring its students and families to adhere to its religious teachings. And nothing in this blog post should be interpreted by anyone to suggest any justification for coercive governmental intervention into the discriminatory policies of St. Mary or any other private religious school (unless the school accepts public money). But what St. Mary does on its own dime is different from how the government spends taxpayer dollars. Yet tomorrow, St. Mary will argue to the United States Supreme Court that Colorado violated the Free Exercise Clause by excluding it from a state-wide program that provides public money to participating pre-schools. Colorado law requires schools that want the state's money to agree not to discriminate on the bas...