South Carolina – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson is a key player in a rising national debate about religious freedom in early education. Just recently, Wilson led a group of 20 state attorneys general in sending a “friend of the court” brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The filing backs up a Colorado Christian daycare that believes it has to give up its religious practices in order to take part in the state’s publicly financed preschool program.
The dispute is about Darren Patterson Christian Academy, a preschool in Colorado that has religious rules about bathrooms, clothing codes, and how to use pronouns. All preschools in Colorado that want to be part of the program must follow state rules against discrimination. The academy says that this mandate goes against its religious beliefs. A federal district judge ruled in favor of the school before, and now the group of attorneys general is asking the appellate court to do the same.
Wilson said that the problem is bigger than just one school and has to do with bigger constitutional protections.
“The radical left cannot force its woke agenda on people of faith. Period. I will always fight for religious liberty and defend our traditional values,” Attorney General Wilson said. “Woke indoctrination has no place in our schools, and that includes preschools. Christians should not be punished for following their faith.”
The attorneys general use previous Supreme Court cases about tuition aid programs in their legal brief. They stress a decision in which the Court said that not allowing religious schools to operate just because they are religious violates the Free Exercise Clause. The coalition says that Colorado’s rules are like that form of exclusion and make it harder for people to follow their religion by requiring them to give up their essential convictions in order to take part.
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The brief also talks on how important religious schools are to communities and how they give families real choices in schooling. The attorneys general said that state preschool programs can meet the needs of families without making religious providers change who they are or give up long-held beliefs.
Attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming all signed the filing along with Wilson. Their work together shows that multiple states are working together to fight what they see as government overreach into religious education.
The Tenth Circuit will now decide whether to uphold the lower court’s finding. This might affect how states around the country set up their preschool programs and how religious groups take part in them.
You can read the brief here.
