‘Discriminatory’: Colorado expands anti-Christian warfare to target Catholic preschools * WorldNetDaily * by WND Staff

‘Discriminatory’: Colorado expands anti-Christian warfare to target Catholic preschools

By WND Staff

July 1, 2026

Colorado, now in the final months of the administration of homosexual Gov. Jared Polis, has attacked a Christian baker for refusing to adopt the state’s LGBT faith and compromise his own beliefs.

The state lost at the Supreme Court.

Then it attacked a web designer for the same issue: Refusing to compromise her Christian beliefs and accept the state’s LGBT beliefs.

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It lost again at the Supreme Court.

And the Democrat-run state – a Democrat executive, Democrat majorities in the legislature and even a Democrat-run state Supreme Court which is so wildly partisan it tried to keep President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot, then attacked Christian counselors.

And again it lost at the Supreme Court.

Now it is attacking Catholic preschools – depriving them of participation in an otherwise generally available public benefit of subsidized tuition for preschool students – because they won’t compromise their faith.

The case, now pending before the high court, involves St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, with the school represented by Becket.

It’s over Colorado’s “universal” preschool program that is discriminating against Catholic parents and preschools.

The program was supposed to offer “all Colorado families 15 hours of free preschool per week at the public or private preschool of their choice, a benefit worth about $6,000 per child.”

But the state created a hook in the program, in that it demands faith-based schools to live within the boundaries of the state’s LGBTQ beliefs.

Secular schools are allowed to impose their own registration requirements, but not the Catholic schools.

Now Liberty Counsel, a legal team that often has fought similar battles, has filed a friend-of-the-court brief explaining the state can use “neutral” language but still discriminate.

“States are increasingly enacting nondiscrimination provisions that reflect the modern approach to sexual orientation and gender identity, a stance many religious adherents do not share,” reads the brief. “Each time such a requirement is dressed in neutral language and imposed as a condition to participate in a government program, Smith seriously hampers Free Exercise review of its exclusionary or marginalizing effect on religious objectors.”

In fact, Colorado officials knew in advance of the injurious effect of their plan and adopted it anyway, Liberty Counsel explains.

“Colorado officials knew in advance the rule would exclude certain religious schools. Before the UPK took final form, state officials convened a working group in which St. Mary Catholic Parish took part and informed the state that the sexual orientation and gender identity provisions could not be reconciled with its faith-based admissions practices. While knowing whom the rule would exclude, state officials imposed the requirement anyway,” the briefing explains.

That means, Liberty Counsel said, “A state that knowingly closes a public benefit program to an identifiable religious community ‘has done more than incidentally burden religion,’ it has imposed a ‘religious gerrymander’ on religious objectors.”

Liberty Counsel chief Mat Staver said, “When a state promises a ‘universal’ program but rejects a religious organization because it won’t compromise its religious doctrine, then it has become discriminatory. Since the Smith decision blocks a strict analysis in this case, the courts can then rely on the Equal Protection Clause to give this so-called ‘neutral’ law the strict scrutiny it deserves. States cannot exclude religious families or organizations from a public benefit because of their religious practice.”