The plaintiffs sought taxpayer dollars to send their children to two Christian schools that integrate religion into their classrooms and maintain policies against gay and transgender students and staff. Roberts wrote that Maine's program "operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise." Maine required eligible schools to be "nonsectarian," excluding those promoting a particular religion and presenting material "through the lens of that faith." Maine's program provides public funds for tuition at private high schools of a family's choice in sparsely populated areas of the northeastern state lacking public secondary schools. The decision built upon the court's 2020 ruling in a Montana case that paved the way for more taxpayer dollars to flow to religious schools. The court's conservative justices were in the majority in the 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, with its liberal members dissenting. Constitution, including the First Amendment protection of the free exercise of religion.
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In the latest in a series of decisions in recent years expanding religious rights, the justices overturned a lower court ruling that had rejected the families' claims of religious discrimination in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court further reduced the separation of church and state in a ruling on Tuesday endorsing more public funding of religious entities as its conservative justices sided with two Christian families who challenged a Maine tuition assistance program that excluded private religious schools. Court has expanded religious rights in recent years.Conservative justices power 6-3 ruling liberals dissent.