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Preschool case tests religious conservatives' Supreme Court win streak · GNN Daily Breaking News

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  Speaker 1: The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments
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  Speaker 1: on Nov. 3 in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy.
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  Speaker 1: A high-stakes First Amendment case testing weather states can require
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  Speaker 1: religious schools to follow public nondiscrimination mandates as a condition
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  Speaker 1: of receiving taxpayer education funding. The lawsuit, brought by Catholic
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  Speaker 1: preschools in the Archdiocese of Denver. challenges rules within Colorado's
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  Speaker 1: universal preschool program that prohibit participating providers from discriminating on
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  Speaker 1: the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The dispute
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  Speaker 1: pits the conservative legal movement's recent streak of religious liberty
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  Speaker 1: victories against state authority to enforce civil rights protections in
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  Speaker 1: government-funded programs. At the center of the litigation is Colorado's
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  Speaker 1: 2023 Universal Pre-K Initiative, which provides free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide. St.
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  Speaker 1: Mary Catholic Parish and St. Bernadette Catholic Parish sought to
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  Speaker 1: participate in the program, but requested an exemption from state
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  Speaker 1: equal opportunity rules. arguing that enrolling children from LGBTQ plus
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  Speaker 1: families or employing staff who violate Catholic doctrine on marriage
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  Speaker 1: conflicts with their religious mission. State officials denied the exemption,
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  Speaker 1: prompting the schools to sue under the First Amendment's Free
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  Speaker 1: Exercise Clause. Lower federal courts, including the 10th U.S. Circuit
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  Speaker 1: Court of Appeals, ruled in favor of Colorado, finding the
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  Speaker 1: state's nondiscrimination requirements to be neutral, generally applicable rules that
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  Speaker 1: apply equally to all public and private providers. The Catholic
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  Speaker 1: preschools contend that excluding them from the universal funding program
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  Speaker 1: violates recent Supreme Court precedents, including Trinity Lutheran v. Comer, 2017,
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  Speaker 1: Espinoza v. Montana, 2020, and Carson v. Macon, 2022. In
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  Speaker 1: those landmark cases, The conservative majority established that states cannot
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  Speaker 1: exclude religious institutions from public aid programs simply because of
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  Speaker 1: their faith-based character or religious instruction. The preschools argue that
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  Speaker 1: forcing them to choose between their religious beliefs and equal
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  Speaker 1: access to public benefits imposes an unconstitutional condition on state funding.
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  Speaker 1: Attorneys for Colorado argue that the state is not discriminating
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  Speaker 1: against religious character, but rather setting uniform standards for institutions
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  Speaker 1: that accept government dollars. Supported by civil rights organizations, state
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  Speaker 1: officials maintain that under the 1990 precedent Employment Division v. Smith,
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  Speaker 1: neutral laws of general applicability remain constitutional even if they
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  Speaker 1: create an incidental burden on religious exercise. Legal scholars note
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  Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court's eventual ruling, expected by late spring 2027,
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  Speaker 1: will establish critical national boundaries for how states structure public-private
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  Speaker 1: partnerships across education, child care, and social services.