Two religious schools in Maine are asking the federal appeals court to rule in a dispute over the state's human rights law.
Attorneys for St. Dominic Academy in Auburn and Crosspoint Church, which operates Bangor Christian Schools, argued that the state's antidiscrimination law should not apply to them, even if the schools accept public tuition funds.
But Chief Deputy Attorney General Christopher Taub said antidiscrimination policies are applied equally to secular private schools, and the state has a strong interest in ensuring public funds are not used to discriminate.
"But Crosspoint is not looking for equal treatment," Taub said. "It's not looking to be treated equally to non-religious schools. It's looking for preferential treatment, and specifically, it wants to be exempted from complying with the Maine Human Rights Act, even though every other school that receives public tuition payments in the program must comply with that law."
And Taub argued that the lawsuit in federal court is premature, because it focuses on hypotheticals, rather than any actual harm to the schools.
Tiffany Bates is an attorney for Crosspoint Church, which runs Bangor Christian Schools.
She said the state is targeting religious schools, as it tried to do before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Carson v Makin that Maine must include them in its public tuition program.
"The entire story of this case and of Carson is Maine trying to keep out religious schools from participating in this program," Bates said. "They have fought tooth and nail every step of the way."
But Taub argued that the Maine Human Rights Act is applied equally to secular private schools.
Some of the arguments at the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston compared the rules for in state religious schools to those for out of state schools that use Maine students public tuition funds.
Out of state schools are not subject to the Maine Human Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Adele Keim represents St. Dominic Academy in Auburn and a Maine family. She argued religious schools in Maine are being treated differently than out of state secular schools, and families are being harmed.
"Many of these families have very limited means," she said. "We have parents who are working three jobs to send their kids to St Dominic's, and they are entitled to the state's benefit, and the state is just playing this game in court."
Taub countered that the only reason out of state schools are not subject to the antidiscrimination law is that the state does not have geographic jurisdiction.
He added that of the 4,500 students that use the state tuition program, only a few attend schools out of state.
