> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theredlighthouse.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Everyone Will Call This the Catholic Preschool Case. Read the Second Question. - URL: https://www.theredlighthouse.org/advocate-st-mary-second-question/ - Published: 2026-08-13T14:24:44.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-13T14:24:44.000Z - Description: The Court set St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy for November 3, election day. The question everyone will report is not the one that decides the most. - Author: The Red Lighthouse - Tags: The Advocate, News Stories Strip the case to its principle and it is not about preschool at all. On Tuesday morning the Supreme Court released its November argument calendar. Seven hours of argument across five days, November 2 to November 10\. One of those hours belongs to *St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy*, No. 25-581, set for November 3, which is also the day the country votes in the midterms. The coverage that day will be thin and the commentary will be loud. You will be told this is a fight about whether a Catholic preschool in Littleton, Colorado has to admit the children of same sex couples to receive public money. That description is accurate. It is also the smaller half of the case. The Court granted two questions. The second one is the one that will still matter in twenty years. ## The ground Colorado runs a universal preschool program. It offers every child up to fifteen hours a week of tuition free preschool, and it requires participating schools to give an equal opportunity to enroll regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. St. Mary Catholic Parish, joined by a second parish, two Catholic parents, and the Archdiocese of Denver, asked for an exemption. Colorado declined. Lisa Roy, who runs the state's Department of Early Childhood, is the named defendant. A federal district court and the Tenth Circuit both sided with the state, and they did it under *Employment Division v. Smith*, the 1990 decision holding that a law which is neutral toward religion and generally applicable does not offend the Free Exercise Clause simply because it burdens someone's faith. Colorado's rule, the courts said, applies to every preschool in the program without regard to religion. Neutral. General. End of inquiry. Concede the honest part of that: it is true. Colorado did not write a rule aimed at Catholics. The condition is on its face indifferent to what anyone believes, and the state's brief puts its position plainly, that the parish is seeking an exemption allowing it to take public funding while turning away preschoolers over their own or their parents' identity. That is a real argument made by serious lawyers, and pretending otherwise would waste your time. ## The second question Here is what the Court actually agreed to decide, in its own framing. First, whether showing that a law is not generally applicable under *Smith* requires proving that officials have unfettered discretion, or that the state grants categorical exemptions for identical secular conduct. Second, whether *Carson v. Makin*, the 2022 decision striking down Maine's ban on using public tuition funds at religious schools, displaces the rule of *Smith* only when the government explicitly excludes religious people and institutions. Read that second one again. It asks whether the whole line of funding cases the religious side has been winning applies only when a state is careless enough to say the quiet part in the statute. If the answer is yes, the holding doubles as a drafting manual. Every legislature in the country learns the same lesson on the same afternoon: do not name religion. Write the condition in neutral terms, attach it to the money, and the funding precedents never reach you. A right that can be avoided by better wordsmithing is a right with a very short shelf life. If the answer is no, then neutral drafting starts an inquiry rather than ending it, and courts have to look at what a condition does rather than only at how it reads. That is the case. The preschool is the vehicle. ## Why this is not a team sport The rule the Court announces in *St. Mary* will belong to every state, not to the states you like. A condition that is neutral on its face is still a condition, and the question the justices took is whether neutral drafting is enough to end the argument or only enough to begin it. Whichever way that comes out, it comes out for everyone. If a neutrally written condition can keep a Catholic preschool out of a funding program, the same tool is available to keep out a mosque running an after school program, a Quaker agency doing foster placements, or a Black congregation operating a state funded food pantry in a state whose legislature has decided it dislikes something that congregation teaches. The liberty claimed here has to shield people the parish would argue with, or it shields no one for long. There is one more thing worth knowing before the takes arrive. The parish's filings point out that two federal appeals courts and two state supreme courts have come out differently from the Tenth Circuit on the same question. This is not a lone church testing a novel theory. It is a genuine split, which is usually why the Court takes a case at all. ## What to do with this Read the questions presented before you read anyone's summary. They are two sentences long and they are public. On November 3 you will be busy, and the first accounts of the argument will be written by people who had one eye on returns. The Red Lighthouse will read the transcript and tell you what the justices actually pressed on. That work is paid for by members. If you want more of it, you know where the button is. ## Sources - SCOTUSblog, "Court announces cases it will hear in November, including religious discrimination dispute," Amy Howe, August 11, 2026\. [Link](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/08/court-announces-cases-it-will-hear-in-november-including-religious-discrimination-dispute/?ref=theredlighthouse.org) - The Daily Signal, "Supreme Court to Hear Case of Catholic Preschool Excluded From Colorado Program Over State's LGBTQ Policy," Fred Lucas, August 11, 2026\. [Link](https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/08/11/supreme-court-arguments-lgbtq/?ref=theredlighthouse.org) - Supreme Court of the United States, November 2026 argument calendar. [Link](https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral%5Farguments/argument%5Fcalendars/MonthlyArgumentCalNovember2026.pdf?ref=theredlighthouse.org) - Supreme Court docket, *St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy*, No. 25-581\. [Link](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-581.html?ref=theredlighthouse.org)