The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear a case of a group of anti-LGBTQ+ Catholic pre-schools in Colorado, which believe they should receive money from a state-run, taxpayer-funded preschool program, even though the schools violate the program’s nondiscrimination provision by rejecting children who have LGBTQ+ parents.

The Archdiocese of Denver, which runs 34 preschools, says the state program’s nondiscrimination provision violates the Church’s First Amendment right to practice freedom of religion without being excluded for its religious doctrine, which recognizes neither same-sex relationships nor transgender people.

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The state program, voted into existence through a 2020 referendum, provides taxpayer funds for parents to send their children to their preferred preschool. The lawyers for the archdiocese say the anti-LGBTQ+ schools should get an exemption because the program already makes special consideration for schools that offer discriminatory and preferential treatment for students with disabilities and those from low-income families, NBC News reported.

The current presidential administration reportedly urged the court to take up the case, filing a brief in support of the archdiocese.

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Two Catholic parishioners involved in the case, Daniel and Lisa Sheley, said in a joint statement, “All we want is the freedom to choose the best preschool for our kids without being punished for our faith. Colorado promised families a universal preschool program, then cut out families like ours because we chose a Catholic education.”

The Colorado state government has argued that the Church deserves no special exemption from its nondiscrimination provision because it applies equally to all schools.

The archdiocese sued over the policy in 2023, but both a federal district court and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against it.

Trans activist and civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo wrote on Bluesky that the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority seems likely to side with the archdiocese.

She may be right, considering that the archdiocese is being represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which won Mahmoud v. Taylor, a 2025 decision that ruled that schools must allow religious parents to opt their students out of classes containing LGBTQ+ content. The group signed onto the infamous 2009 Manhattan Declaration, which told Christians to “civilly disobey” LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws.

The court has consistently found in favor of Christians who have claimed that nondiscrimination policies violate their right to religious expression, including in the following cases:

• 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a 2023 decision that ruled that Colorado can’t enforce its anti-discrimination law against a Christian web designer.
  
• Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a 2022 decision that ruled that the school district violated a football coach’s First Amendment rights by preventing him from praying on the field after games.

“It’s not enough for these schools to discriminate against LGBTQ families,” Caraballo wrote. “They must also be subsidized by taxpayers while doing so. They feel entitled to be rewarded for discriminating using public funds.”

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