2026-04-20T13:39:30.181Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
最高法院将裁决拒绝同性伴侣子女的学前班能否获得州政府资助
作者：约翰·弗里茨
更新于2小时前
2026年4月20日，美国东部时间上午10:02更新
发布于2026年4月20日，美国东部时间上午9:39
LGBTQ议题 育儿 最高法院 宗教
华盛顿特区美国最高法院大楼外观的日出景象，2026年3月31日摄。
罗伯托·施密特/盖蒂图片社
最高法院周一同意审查一项科罗拉多州法律，该法律要求接受纳税人资金的学前班招收同性伴侣的子女——这将在最高法院引发一场重要的第一修正案对决，宗教权利与LGBTQ家庭的权益将在此交锋。
与此同时，最高法院拒绝审理另一起备受关注的案件，该案涉及马萨诸塞州一对夫妇，他们称学校未经他们同意，将他们的中学孩子认定为性别酷儿。
多年来，最高法院允许某些情况下的宗教学校与世俗学校一同获得州政府资助，如今由6名保守派大法官和3名自由派大法官组成的法庭将对此作出裁决，当学校负责人声称旨在保护同性恋和跨性别群体的反歧视法律与他们的宗教信仰冲突时该如何处理。这起来自天主教教区的上诉案件可能在秋季开庭审理，裁决结果预计于明年某个时间公布。
科罗拉多州2020年通过了一项全民公投条款，为普及学前教育项目提供州资金，允许公立和私立学校参与其中。该州项目包含一项反歧视条款，要求每所接受公共资金的学校为符合条件的儿童提供平等的入学机会，无论种族、宗教信仰、性取向、性别认同或其他因素。
科罗拉多州的两个天主教教区和一个孩子曾在其中一个教区的天主教学校就读的家庭提起诉讼，称该反歧视条款违反了第一修正案的自由实施条款，该条款保护美国人不受政府干预地践行宗教信仰的权利。该家庭和教区由宗教公共利益律师事务所贝克特代理。
“最高法院在奥伯格费尔案中承诺，当宗教团体反对关于婚姻和性的世俗正统观念时，他们将受到保护，”天主教教区在提交给最高法院的文件中表示，他们提及了2015年的《奥伯格费尔诉霍奇斯案》判决，该判决实际上使同性婚姻合法化。“如果自由实施条款可以如此轻易地被规避，那么它就无法完成这项重要工作——而最高法院曾将其描述为‘我们多元社会的核心’。”
相关报道 2025年1月20日，美国最高法院大法官索尼娅·索托马约尔和凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊在美国国会大厦圆形大厅举行的就职典礼上聆听唐纳德·特朗普总统讲话。唐纳德·特朗普宣誓就职美国第47任总统，开启第二任期。奇普·索莫德维拉/ pooled via 路透社 奇普·索莫德维拉/ pooled/路透社/档案 大法官们的口水战凸显最高法院“影子案卷”的紧张局势 阅读时长7分钟
从广义上讲，这起案件似乎是为6比3的保守派法庭量身定做的，近年来该法庭在其他案件中多次站在宗教利益一方。在一系列判决中，最高法院明确表示，当政府向公立和私立学校开放教育资助项目时，不能仅仅因为学校是宗教性质的就将其排除在外。
今年早些时候，特朗普政府未经邀请就向最高法院提交了支持该教区的案情摘要。司法部认为，维持该法律可能“阻碍美国大部分地区的宗教活动”。
但宗教团体所寻求的裁决可能也会对宗教利益挑战教育领域之外其他法律的权力产生广泛影响。首先，他们要求最高法院推翻一项已有36年历史的先例，该先例遭到两党诟病，但即便保守派法庭迄今为止也不愿将其废除。
该先例允许法院维护对宗教有影响的法律，只要这些法律是普遍适用的——也就是说，它们同等适用于宗教和世俗活动。
在最近一系列判决中，最高法院缩小了“普遍适用”的定义，将重点放在这些法律的“例外情况”上。在新冠疫情期间，在保守派大法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特取代自由派大法官露丝·巴德·金斯伯格后，最高法院叫停了仅适用于教堂但为五金店等企业设置了例外情况的人群管控规定。
在科罗拉多州这起案件中，宗教团体辩称，州法律为反歧视禁令设置了几个重要的世俗例外情况。例如，该项目允许学校优先录取低收入儿童或残疾儿童。贝克特律师事务所表示，这些豁免意味着该法律不再普遍适用，因此不受1990年先例的保护。
联邦地区法院和美国第十巡回上诉法院断然驳回了这一论点。天主教团体于11月向最高法院提起上诉。
最高法院驳回父母权利案
另外，最高法院拒绝受理一起已秘密审议数周的父母权利案件。
斯蒂芬·富特和玛丽莎·西尔维斯特里起诉他们所在的郊区学区，此前该中学允许他们当时11岁的孩子使用新名字，并使用男卫生间、女卫生间或性别中立卫生间。原告称，学校在他们不知情的情况下做出了这一决定。
直到最近，最高法院一直设法回避直接涉及父母权利的问题。今年6月，由6名保守派大法官和3名自由派大法官组成的多数派支持一群宗教父母，他们希望让自己的小学孩子不接触课堂上的LGBTQ主题书籍。富特和西尔维斯特里的上诉所涉及的父母反对学校的做法并非基于第一修正案保护的宗教理由，而是用他们自己的话说，基于“道德和科学原因”。
但最高法院在最近一起涉及加利福尼亚州教育政策的紧急案件中涉及了许多相同的问题，该政策限制教师告知家长学生的性别认同情况。一群教师和宗教父母对该政策提出质疑，称其与他们养育子女的信仰相冲突。
“我们得出结论，寻求宗教豁免的父母很可能在其自由实施条款主张的实质问题上胜诉，”最高法院在一份未署名的命令中表示。
最高法院的三名自由派大法官持反对意见。
最高法院拒绝审理的实质案件涉及一名被称为“B.F.”的学生。在2021年发给教师和学校管理人员的电子邮件中，B.F.自称性别酷儿，并要求使用新名字，且学校使用包括“她/她”和“他/他”在内的一系列代词。根据法庭记录，在家中，B.F.使用“她/她”代词，并要求学校在与她父母的通信中也这样使用。
“我告诉你们这件事是因为我觉得我可以信任你们，”B.F.在邮件中写道。“你们可以使用的代词列表是：她/他、他/他、他们/他们、fae/ faerae/aer、ve/ver、xe/xem、ze/zir。我添加了一个链接，你们可以查看如何发音这些代词。请只使用我列出的这些代词，不要用其他的。我不喜欢它们。”
援引禁止基于性别认同歧视的州指导方针和州法律，学校同意了这一请求。该指导方针承认学校管理人员可能会面临跨性别或性别非二元学生的挑战：这些学生并不总是愿意告诉父母，“原因包括安全问题或缺乏接受度”。
性别酷儿是指性别表现超出传统男性-女性二元分类的身份。
Supreme Court will decide if preschools that decline children of same-sex couples may receive state funding
2026-04-20T13:39:30.181Z / CNN
Supreme Court will decide if preschools that decline children of same-sex couples may receive state funding
By John Fritze
Updated 2 hr ago
Updated Apr 20, 2026, 10:02 AM ET
PUBLISHED Apr 20, 2026, 9:39 AM ET
LGBTQ issues Parenting Supreme Court Religion
The sun rises above a facade of the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, on March 31, 2026.
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to review a Colorado law that requires preschools receiving taxpayer money to enroll children of same-sex couples — setting up an important First Amendment showdown at the high court that pits religious rights against LGBTQ families.
At the same time, the court declined to hear another high-profile case involving a Massachusetts couple who said their school began treating their middle school child as genderqueer against their wishes.
After years of allowing religious schools in some settings to receive state funding alongside secular schools, the 6-3 conservative court will now decide what to do when school leaders assert that anti-discrimination laws intended to protect gay and transgender people conflict with their religious beliefs. The appeal from the Catholic parishes will likely be heard in the fall and a decision is likely sometime next year.
Colorado enacted a ballot provision in 2020 that provides state funding for a universal preschool program, allowing both public and private schools to take part. The state program includes a nondiscrimination provision that requires each school receiving public money to provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll, regardless of race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors.
Two Catholic parishes in Colorado and a family whose children have attended Catholic school in one of those parishes sued, claiming that the nondiscrimination provision violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, which protects Americans’ ability to practice their religious beliefs without government interference. The family and the parishes are represented by the religious public interest firm Becket.
“This court promised in Obergefell that religious groups would be protected when they dissent from secular orthodoxies about marriage and sexuality,” the Catholic parishes told the Supreme Court, referencing the 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that effectively legalized same-sex marriage. “The free exercise clause simply cannot do that important work – which this court has described as ‘at the heart of our pluralistic society’ — if it can be so easily evaded.”
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At a broad level, the case appears ready-made for a 6-3 conservative court that has repeatedly sided with religious interests in other cases in recent years. In one series of decisions, the court has made clear that when the government opens educational funding programs up to public and private schools, it cannot bar religious schools from taking part in those programs just because they are religious.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration submitted an uninvited brief in the Supreme Court supporting the dioceses. Upholding the law, the Justice Department said could “stymie religious exercise in major portions of the country.”
But the religious groups were asking for a decision that could also have sweeping implications for the power of religious interest to challenge other laws beyond education. To begin with, they asked the Supreme Court to overturn a 36-year-old precedent that has been maligned by both Democrats and Republicans but that even the conservative court has, so far, been unwilling to nix.
That precedent allows courts to uphold laws that affect religion as long as they are generally applicable – that is, they apply equally to religious and secular activity.
In a series of more recent decisions, the court has narrowed the definition of “generally applicable,” zeroing in on “exceptions” to those laws. During the pandemic, and after conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett replaced liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court shut down crowd control regulations that applied to churches but included exceptions for businesses like hardware stores.
In the Colorado case, the religious groups argued that the state law carved out several important secular exceptions to the nondiscrimination prohibition. For instance, the program allows schools to favor low-income children or children with disabilities. Those exemptions, Becket said, meant that the law was no longer generally applicable and therefore not protected by the 1990 precedent.
A federal district court and the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals flatly rejected that argument. The Catholic groups appealed to the Supreme Court in November.
Court declines parental rights case
Separately, the court declined to take up a parental rights case it had been considering behind closed doors for weeks.
Stephen Foote and Marissa Silvestri sued their suburban district after the middle school allowed their then 11-year-old to use a new name and visit the boys’ bathroom, the girls’ bathroom, or a gender-neutral bathroom. The plaintiffs said that happened without their knowledge.
The case dealt directly with the issue of parental rights in a way that the court has, until recently, managed to avoid. In June, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority backed a group of religious parents who wanted to opt their elementary school children out of engaging with LGBTQ books in the classroom. The appeal from Foote and Silvestri deal with parents who object to the school’s action based not on religious grounds protected under the Frist Amendment but rather, in their words, on “moral and scientific reasons.”
But the Supreme Court wound up getting into many of the same questions in a recent emergency case involving a California education policy that restricts teachers from informing parents about a student’s gender expression. That policy was challenged by a group of teachers and religious parents who said it conflicted with their own beliefs about how to raise their children.
“We conclude that the parents who seek religious exemptions are likely to succeed on the merits of their Free Exercise Clause claim,” the court said in an unsigned order.
The court’s three liberals dissented.
The merits case the court declined to hear involves a child identified as “B.F.” In a 2021 email to teachers and school officials, B.F. identified as genderqueer and asked to be called by a new name and for the school to use a range of pronouns that included both “she/her” and “he/him.” At home, according to court records, B.F. used “she/her” pronouns and requested that the school do so in correspondence with her parents.
“I am telling you this because I feel like I can trust you,” B.F. wrote in the email. “A list of pronouns you can use are: she/her he/him they/them fae/ faerae/aer ve/ver xe/xem ze/zir. I have added a link so you can look at how to say them. Please only use the ones I have listed and not the other ones. I do not like them.”
Citing state guidance and state law that bars discrimination on the basis of gender identity, the school obliged the request. That guidance recognizes a challenge school officials can face with transgender or gender nonconforming students: Those students are not always comfortable telling their parents “for reasons such as safety concerns or lack of acceptance.”
Genderqueer is an identity that describes people whose gender expression falls outside traditional male-female binary categories.