Judith and Alan Gillis of Orrington, parents of Bangor Christian Schools junior Isabella Gillis at the school Aug. 28, 2018. The Gillis’ are one of three Maine families that are challenging the prohibition on using public money to pay tuition at religious schools after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. The American Civil Liberties Union, its Maine chapter and Americans United for Separation of Church and State on Tuesday filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit that claims the denial of public funds to religious schools in Maine is unconstitutional. “Maine’s state and federal courts have consistently held that Maine’s law is constitutional because taxpayers cannot be required to pay to teach children how to pray,” Zachary Heiden, legal director at the ACLU of Maine said in a press release. “We’ve helped defend this law four times already, and we hope to do so again.” Robert G. Hasson Jr., commissioner of the Maine Department of Education in U.S. District Court in Bangor on behalf of their children. Those towns don’t have their own high schools, and the families argued in their complaint that Maine’s tuition law “violates the principle that the government must not discriminate against, or […]
