Three families are suing Maine to require the state to pay tuition to the religious school of their choice. These families and the First Liberty Institute, the Christian Nationalist quasi-law firm defending them, believe freedom of religion includes forcing the state to finance religious education. However, freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. It is impossible to have one without the other. Freedom of religion prohibits states from using public tax dollars to pay for religious school tuitions. Doing so would violate Maine taxpayers’ freedom from religion by requiring them to support a religion not of their own choosing. Where then would their religious freedom be? Maine will pay public and private secular school tuition for students living in towns without public schools. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey outlined the state’s policy : “Instruction that inculcates, instills, imbues a religious view through its materials, through its teachings, prescribing that there’s one religion above others and that there are certain ways of the world that are consistent with that religion … contradicts a public education.” However, forcing Maine to pay religious school tuition is not the ultimate goal here; establishing America as a Christian nation with a Constitutional amendment […]
