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| The Supreme Court Justices |
Can a religious school limit who may send their children
there by virtue of its religious doctrine and still receive government funding?
On the surface, it would seem unconstitutional for the
government to support a school whose religious rules violate the civil rights
of members of the public. If an LGBTQ couple is denied enrollment for their
child because a religious school’s doctrines do not permit such a couple to be
part of its community, it would appear to conflict with their constitutionally
guaranteed civil rights. Additionally it would raise First Amendment concerns
about the separation of church and state. But what about the school’s religious
rights?
The classic argument has been that while a religious school
may have the right to discriminate based on religious doctrine, the government
ought not fund it because of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
But that is not necessarily the case. The Supreme Court has
recently ruled that denying religious schools funding available to everyone
else can itself constitute a violation of religious liberty under the very same
First Amendment. As noted by Michael Helfand in City
Journal:
“After a decade of decisions barring governments from
excluding religious institutions from public-funding programs, St. Mary
Catholic Parish v. Roy will move the fight to new—and far
murkier—terrain: what to do about conditions imposed on government funding that
collide with schools’ religious commitments.”
The argument made by religious schools is that denying them
public funding because they implement their religious principles amounts to
unequal treatment. They contend that educational funds should be distributed
equally to all citizens regardless of religious belief or practice.
At the same time, the government may impose standards for
receiving those funds—standards that also apply to public schools. The question
then becomes: how far may those standards go? What happens when they cross the
line into the religious rights of the school? Do the rights of a religious
school to deny admission to an LGBTQ family violate the civil rights of that
family? When that conflict inevitably arises, who wins…
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