Colorado refuses to quit. The state has lost four cases at the Supreme Court in the past ten years targeting religious practitioners exercising their beliefs peacefully. This upcoming term, the state has queued up its future fifth loss at the Court, St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy.
Colorado offers state-funded tuition assistance for preschool, a program common to many Blue states. The state imposes a number of conditions on receipt of those funds, particularly, requiring that providers cannot participate unless they admit students regardless of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” Catholic schools cannot treat same-sex unions or gender ideology as morally neutral and are therefore excluded from the program. The state defends this rule as neutral, since it does not name the religions it harms. Under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Employment Division v. Smith (1990) that a neutral law of general applicability does not violate the Free Exercise Clause, Colorado has a leg to stand on.…
