A Colorado Christian school has sued state officials for requiring them to abandon their religious beliefs in order to participate in a universal preschool program, which conveys the message to families that they “cannot be religious” to receive equal opportunities, an attorney representing the school told Fox News Digital.
“It says to the families that they’re second-class citizens and that their religious beliefs aren’t important,” senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom Jeremiah Galus said. “It’s the type of message that is not just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”
Darren Patterson Christian Academy, a faith-based school in Buena Vista, Colorado, applied and was approved for the state’s new universal preschool program set to go into effect July 1, which guaranteed every four-year-old in the state at least 15 hours per week of state-funded preschool services for the upcoming school year.
However, The Colorado Department of Early Education mandated that for a school to participate and receive state funding, the school can’t hire employees based on the school’s religious beliefs, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group committed to protecting the First Amendment and representing DPCA in their lawsuit.
“The state of Colorado is conditioning participation in this program, which was designed for everybody, all families, all children, all eligible preschools,” Galus said.
The state’s early education department, which has encouraged all preschools to participate, included two discrimination clauses in the bill’s provisions prohibiting any participants from discriminating “against any person on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship status, education, disability, socio-economic status, or any other identity.”
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