A Bangor church whose affiliated schools won a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in June that lifted a ban on public funding for religious schools has sued Maine officials over its inability to accept that money unless it abides by the Maine Human Rights Act.
On Monday, Crosspoint Baptist Church sued Maine’s commissioner of education and members of the Maine Human Rights Commission in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
The church claims the law — which requires schools that take tuition from towns without high schools accept students and hire employees who are LBGTQ — violates the U.S. Constitution.
The church, formerly known as Bangor Baptist Church, operates Bangor Christian Schools with students from pre-kindergarten age through grade 12 on outer Broadway in Bangor.
A spokesperson for the Maine attorney general’s office, which must defend those named in the lawsuit, did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday morning. The office typically does not comment on pending litigation.
Crosspoint Baptist claims that 28 of the 92 students enrolled this school year at Bangor Christian High School live in the tuitioning towns of Bradford, Glenburn, Levant, Orrington and Veazie. The church pays 95 percent of tuition for the eight children of Crosspoint and school employees to attend Bangor Christian this year at a cost of more than $47,000.
An Act to Improve Consistency in Terminology and within the Maine Human Rights Act went into effect in October 2021 while the school funding was pending before the nation’s high court. It repealed the provision that exempted religious schools from abiding by the Maine Human Rights Act if its terms violated its religious beliefs, according to the lawsuit. The complaint calls the act “a poison pill.”
“By narrowing the religious exemption for the sexual orientation and gender identity provisions, the poison pill operates to deter religious schools from participating in the tuitioning program if they hold disfavored religious beliefs, including teaching from a particular religious perspective or operating in accordance with traditional beliefs about the nature of marriage and sexuality,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit claims the law prevents Bangor Christian from teaching and following its religious tenets if it accepts LGBTQ students. The law states the school can’t require that students adhere to a code of conduct consistent with the school’s statement of faith.
The lawsuit is seeking a declaratory judgment that the religion, sexual orientation and gender identity provisions of the law are unconstitutional, and an injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing its provision, which include a $20,000 fine for a first violation and a $50,000 fine for a second.
This story will be updated.
