An Under-The-Radar SCOTUS Case Could Obliterate The Line Between Church And State
Nearly a third of the schools that participated in a Montana education tax credit program at the center of a controversial Supreme Court case maintain explicitly anti-LGBTQ policies, according to a HuffPost analysis.
The program at the center of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which the Supreme Court is hearing later this month, provided tax credits to individuals and corporations that donated to private school scholarship groups. However, because Montana has a constitutional provision barring public dollars for religious schools ― and nearly all of the schools participating in the program were religious ― the Montana Supreme Court found the program unconstitutional and shut the program down in 2018.
Now, after the plaintiffs appealed, the case is before the Supreme Court, with public school advocates worrying the conservative-leaning court could call into question whether states are allowed to bar public funding for religious entities. But the issue isn’t just one of church and state or education funding, it is also about public dollars going to institutions with discriminatory practices, they say.
A previous HuffPost investigation found that at least 14% of private religious schools around the country that receive public funding through programs like the one in Montana actively discriminate against LGBTQ staff and employees. In the Montana tax credit program, these numbers were even higher.
Anti-LGBTQ Policies On The Books
Of the 13 schools that had signed up to participate in the Montana tax credit program as of 2018, when the program was shut down, four have anti-LGBTQ policies. One of these schools, Stillwater Christian School, is attended by the children of the plaintiffs in the case, who say they would benefit from the program.
Stillwater Christian School in Kalispell, Montana, says in its handbook that “God wonderfully and immutably creates each person as male or female” and “God created marriage to be exclusively the...
