Oklahoma Supreme Court shuts down ‘unconstitutional’ taxpayer-funded Catholic school

The country’s first-ever publicly funded religious charter school is an unconstitutional “slippery slope” infringement of the First Amendment, according to Oklahoma’s Supreme Court.

Last year, a state school board approved the creation of a taxpayer-supported online Catholic school — triggering a high-profile legal battle to decide whether public funds can be used to create religious schools.

On Tuesday, the state’s highest court said the contract violates the state constitution as well as the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“The framers’ intent is clear,” the court’s majority wrote. “The State is prohibited from using public money for the ‘use, benefit or support of a sect or system of religion.’”

The school is an “instrument of the Catholic church, operated by the Catholic church, and will further the evangelizing mission of the Catholic church in its educational programs,” justices wrote.

Enforcing the contract would “create a slippery slope and what the framers’ warned against — the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention,” they added.

Oklahoma’s Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who sued the Republican-appointed board to block the school’s creation after warning that it obviously violated the Constitution and would draw costly litigation, called Tuesday’s decision “a tremendous victory for religious liberty.”

“Now Oklahomans can be assured that our tax dollars will not fund the teachings of Sharia Law or even Satanism,” he said in a statement.

Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, however, said he is “disappointed” with Drummond and that the court’s ruling “sent a troubling message that religious groups are second-class participants in our education system.”