(LifeSiteNews) — Christian schools that participate in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program cannot exclude LGBT children, or children with LGBT parents, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
When Colorado in 2023 launched its Universal Preschool Program (UPK), which provides free preschool education to four-year-olds from public or private schools, St. Mary Catholic Virtue School in Littleton and St. Bernadette Catholic School in Lakewood sought to participate.
However, the schools maintained the right not to hire LGBT staff or accept children of LGBT parents or “LGBT” children themselves, such as a little boy who identifies as a girl. This Catholic school policy violated state rules against discrimination based on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.”
As Tuesday’s 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling noted, the Archdiocese of Denver, under which the preschools operated, holds that enrolling a child of a same-sex couple in a Catholic school is “likely to lead to intractable conflicts.”
While the Archdiocese of Denver instructed its preschools not to enroll in UPK so that they would not have to sign its requisite nondiscrimination agreement, it allowed certain preschools “aimed at low-income families” to register with UPK.
The above-mentioned schools subsequently asked for an exemption to the nondiscrimination agreement from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood but were denied.
The parishes that ran the schools went on to sue the state of Colorado. The lawsuit noted that St. Mary’s and St. Bernadette’s each require their preschool staff to sign contracts “affirming their willingness to abide by and uphold Catholic teachings on … life, marriage, and human sexuality.”
“Abiding by Catholic teaching on these issues would violate the Department’s ban on sexual-orientation and gender-identity ‘discrimination,’ though Plaintiffs do not believe adhering to these beliefs constitutes discrimination,” the lawsuit stated.
The state would similarly classify as discrimination their consideration of whether parents who send children to their preschool understand and accept their Catholic convictions, the lawsuit noted.
The resultant exclusion of these Catholic schools from the UPK program would deter low-income families from sending their children to their preschools or entirely prevent them from applying.
In June 2024, a federal district court judge ruled in favor of the state, writing, “The purpose of the requirement is not to invade religious freedom but to further the implementation of a strongly embraced public value.”
The parishes immediately appealed the decision, only to have the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirm the lower court ruling.
The appeals court found that “the nondiscrimination requirement exists in harmony with the First Amendment and does not violate the Parish Preschools’ First Amendment rights.”
The judges did not oppose the preschools’ rights to hire staff who agreed with the Catholic position on sexuality while participating in UPK but rather their denial of “LGBT preschoolers.”
“This is a case about preschoolers. No one would reasonably mistake the views of preschool students for those of their school,” the judges wrote.
The ruling judges were Obama appointee Gregory Phillips, and Biden appointees Veronica Rossman and Richard Federico.
It is notable that many religious and civil advocacy organizations have filed amicus briefs in this case, including the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, the Rocky Mountain District Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and the Colorado Association of Private Schools.
