Amicus Curiae Brief — Tamer Mahmoud, et al., Petitioners v. Thomas W. Taylor, et al.

No. 24-297

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

_____________________________

TAMER MAHMOUD, ET AL.,

Petitioners,

v.

THOMAS W. TAYLOR, ET AL.,

Respondents.

_____________________________

On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court

of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

_____________________________

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE FOUNDATION FOR

MORAL LAW IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

_____________________________

Roy S. Moore*

*Counsel of Record

Jeffrey Tuomala

Talmadge Butts

FOUNDATION FOR MORAL LAW

P.O. Box 148

Gallant, AL 35972

(334) 262-1245

kayla@morallaw.com

jtuomala.home@outlook.com

talmadge@morallaw.org

March 10, 2024

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES .................................... ii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ......................... 1

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT......................... 1

ARGUMENT ............................................................ 4

I.

The

Montgomery

County

Schools

constitute an establishment of religion

that places a substantial burden on the

free exercise of religion. .................................... 4

A. The Virginia Declaration of Rights

provides an objective definition of

religion that is incorporated into the

First Amendment. ........................................ 5

B. The

Court

has

affirmed

the

fundamental principles of religious

liberty in numerous cases. ......................... 11

C. The Court has not consistently upheld

the

fundamental

principles

of

religious liberty in other cases. ................. 15

II. The Court has stated in numerous

decisions that the state must be neutral

in its treatment of religion and

nonreligion. ...................................................... 17

A. The Montgomery County Schools have

not treated religion and nonreligion

neutrally. .................................................... 19

ii

III. The Court operates on a false bifurcation

of reality between the secular and

religious as most notably articulated in

the Lemon test. ................................................ 22

A. The Court has implicitly defined

religion subjectively. .................................. 23

B. The Court has failed to define the term

secular. ....................................................... 25

C. The Court must resolve the false

bifurcation of secular and religious. .......... 26

IV. The school’s hostility toward religious

beliefs places a substantial burden on

parental and free exercise rights. ................... 27

A. Justice Scalia warned the Court not to

take sides in the culture war. .................... 28

B. The Montgomery County Schools have

taken sides in the culture war. .................. 31

CONCLUSION ....................................................... 32

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Page

Abington School District v. Schempp,

347 U.S. 203 (1963)........................................... 20

Abrams v. United States,

250 U.S. 616 (1919)........................................... 32

Brown v. Bd. of Educ.,

347 U.S. 483 (1954)...................................... 15-16

Carson v. Makin,

596 U.S. 767 (2022)........................................... 18

Davis v. Beason,

133 U.S. 333 (1890).......................................... 6-7

Edwards v. Aguillard,

482 U.S. 578 (1987)........................................... 30

Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue,

591 U.S. 464 (2020)........................................... 18

Everson v. Bd. of Educ.,

330 U.S. 1 (1947)......................... 3, 6-7, 10-11, 13

Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty., and Mun.

Emps.,

585 U.S. 878 (2018)......................................14, 26

Lawrence v. Texas,

539 U.S. 558 (2003)................. 4, 20-21, 28-29, 31

iv

Lemon v. Kurtzman,

403 U.S. 602 (1971)....................... 3, 16-17, 22-23

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colo. Civil Rights

Comm’n,

584 U.S. 617 (2018)...................................... 28-30

McCreary County v. Am. Civil Liberties Union of

Ky,

545 U.S. 844 (2005)........................................... 17

Nat’l Endowment of the Arts v. Finley,

524 U.S. 569 (1998)........................................... 15

Obergefell v. Hodges,

576 U.S. 644 (2015)...................................... 29-30

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum,

555 U.S. 460 (2009)........................................... 15

Plyler v. Doe,

457 U.S. 202 (1982)...................................... 15-16

Reynolds v. United States,

98 U.S. 145 (1879)............................................... 7

Romer v. Evans,

517 U.S. 620 (1996)........................................... 28

Schenck v. United States,

249 U.S. 47 (1919)............................................. 32

v

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v.

Comer,

582 U.S .499 (2017)........................................... 18

United States v. Windsor,

570 U.S. 744 (2018)...................................... 29-30

Va. Bd. of Pharmacy v. Va. Citizens Consumer

Council,

425 U.S. 746 (1976)........................................... 13

W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette,

319 U.S. 624 (1943)................................ 11-14, 26

Wooley v. Maynard,

430 U.S. 705 (1977)...................................... 11-12

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris,

536 U.S. 639 (2002)................................14, 18, 21

Codes, Constitutions,

Regulations & Statutes

Executive

Orders,

The Declaration of Independence .......................... 25

U.S. Const. amends. I, V .............. 3-12, 23, 29, 32-33

Va. Declaration of Rights § 16 ...................................

Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom

(1786)........................................ 3-4, 6-7, 10, 26-27

Other Authorities

Randy E. Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution:

The Presumption of Liberty 1 (2004) ................ 17

vi

William Barr, Speech at Alliance Defense Fund

Awards Banquet, May 20, 2021 ......................... 2

Nathan Chapman & Michael W. McConnell,

Agreeing to Disagree: How the Establishment

Clause Protects Religious Diversity and Freedom

of Conscience 146 (2023) ................................... 16

Philip Hamburger, Is the Public School System

Constitutional? Wall Street Journal, Oct. 23-24,

2021, p. A13 ........................................................ 2

Holy Bible, Colossians 2:3, Luke 10:25-30, Matthew

23:24, Proverbs 1:7, II Corinthians 10:5 .....14, 27

James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance in

Opposition to Religious Assessments (1786) .......

.................................................................. 7-10, 24

Richard L. Perry (ed.), Sources of our Liberties 312

(American Bar Foundation 1978) ...................... 6

John Ragosta, Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s

Legacy, America’s Creed (2013) .......................... 8

Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law

(Foundation Press 1978)................................... 23

Jeffrey C. Tuomala, Christian Legal Education:

From Bologna to Lynchburg and Beyond, 19

Liberty U. L. Rev. 60-65 (2024) ........................ 27

vii

Jeffrey C. Tuomala, Is Tax-Funded Education

Unconstitutional? 18 Liberty U. L. Rev. 1009

(2024)................................................................... 6

Roberto M. Unger, Law in Modern Society (The

Free Press 1976) ............................................... 26

1

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

Amicus curiae Foundation for Moral Law (“the

Foundation”) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, national

public interest organization based in Alabama,

dedicated to defending religious liberty, God’s moral

foundation upon which this country was founded,

and the strict interpretation of the Constitution as

intended by its Framers who sought to enshrine

both. To those ends, the Foundation directly assists

or files amicus briefs in cases concerning religious

freedom, the sanctity of life, and other issues that

implicate the God-given freedoms enshrined in our

Bill of Rights. The brief’s principal author, Jeffrey

Tuomala, is a constitutional scholar and professor of

law at Liberty University School of Law. His career

has been dedicated to teaching and restoring the

moral foundations of law.

The Foundation has an interest in this case

because the it believes the Montgomery County

Board of Education has placed a substantial burden

on parental rights and the free exercise of religion.

The Foundation believes that the root cause of these

infringements is tax-funded education writ large,

which necessarily promotes the establishment of

religion, be it secularism or otherwise. However, to

the extent that tax-funded education is public policy,

it cannot discriminate against religion.

1 Pursuant to Rule 37.6, amicus curiae certifies that no party

or party’s counsel authored this brief in whole or in part, or

contributed money that was intended to fund its preparation

or submission; and no person other than the amicus curiae, its

members, or its counsel, contributed money that was intended

to fund the preparation or submission of this brief.

2

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

The focus of attention in this case is whether the

Montgomery County Board of Education (Board of

Education) placed a substantial burden on parental

and free exercise rights when it denied requests to

opt out of religiously objectionable instruction.

There are many good reasons for arguing that the

Board of Education has substantially burdened

those rights, but this brief focuses on two of them.

The first reason is that tax-funded education

constitutes an establishment of religion. Few state

actions can impose a greater burden on the free

exercise of religion than a tax-funded church or

school with mandatory attendance. The second

reason is that the Board of Education’s words and

actions, and the circumstances in which it denied

requests for notice and opt-out, demonstrate a

hostility toward parents who objected to the use of

books promoting an LGBTQ agenda.

This case is emblematic of a clash of worldviews

taking place generally in America but particularly in

public schools. This state of affairs is so troubling

that two eminent American jurists—former

Attorney General William Barr and Professor

Phillip

Hamburger—have

concluded

that

compulsory public schooling as it now operates is

unconstitutional. 2 They believe that those

2 William Barr, Speech May 20, 2021, Alliance Defense Fund

Awards Banquet. Philip Hamburger, Is the Public School

System Constitutional? Wall Street Journal, Oct. 23-24, 2021,

at A13.

3

infirmities can be remedied by providing equal

funding for all educational preferences.

This brief argues that tax-funded education is

itself unconstitutional regardless of how it is

operated. The failure to recognize this fact derives

from three problems that the Court’s religious

liberty jurisprudence has failed to resolve. The first

problem is that the Court has never provided a

carefully articulated and satisfactory definition of

“religion.” The second and third problems are closely

related to the failure to resolve the first. The second

problem is that, although the Court often claims

that religion and nonreligion must be treated

neutrally, it usually approves of more favorable

treatment of nonreligion. Third, the Court falsely

bifurcates reality between the “secular” and

“religious,” most notably in its formulation of the

Lemon test, without defining either term. This

bifurcation is used to justify the states’ prescription

of an orthodoxy of secular opinions through

compulsory attendance at tax-funded public schools.

The term religion is defined in the Virginia

Declaration of Rights, and that definition provides

the foundation for the Virginia Statute Establishing

Religious Freedom (Virginia Statute), which the

Everson Court recognized as encapsulating the same

objective and protection as the First Amendment.

The Virginia definition draws a jurisdictional line

between civil government and religion. Matters that

are properly governed by “force or violence” are

within the jurisdiction of civil government. All other

matters are governed exclusively by conscience

because they are within the jurisdiction of religion.

The Virginia Statute identifies two fundamental

4

principles of liberty. The first is that “God has

created the mind free” and the second is that it is

“sinful and tyrannical” to tax a person for the

“propagation of opinions which he disbelieves.”

Compulsory attendance at tax-funded public schools

violates both principles, but the Court has been

inconsistent in acknowledging and applying these

fundamental principles of liberty.

This inconsistency has created an environment

wherein hostility towards religious belief, such as

Board of Education’s in this case, can fester and

place a substantial burden on parental and free

exercise rights.

ARGUMENT

I. The Montgomery County Schools constitute

an establishment of religion that places a

substantial burden on the free exercise of

religion.

The Montgomery County Board of Education has

refused to provide parents notice and opportunity to

opt their elementary school children out of

religiously objectionable instruction involving

matters of sex and gender. The critical issue is

whether the state’s refusal constitutes a substantial

burden on parental rights and the free exercise of

religion. The assumption is that finding a

substantial burden will trigger a heightened

scrutiny standard of review.

The most impactful and pervasive burden on free

exercise is a state establishment of religion. Taxfunded education, including public schools,

constitutes a religious establishment. The Fourth

5

Circuit failed to address or even identify this burden

on the rights of parents and children. Mahmoud v.

McKnight, 102 F.4th 191 (4th Cir. 2024). This failure

is due in large measure to the fact that the Court has

failed to give serious attention to providing a

cohesive definition of religion. Just as compulsory

attendance at tax-funded churches constitutes a

prohibited establishment of religion, compulsory

attendance at tax-funded schools constitutes a

prohibited establishment of religion.

Three unresolved problems make it impossible to

decide cases under the religion clauses in a coherent

and consistent manner. The first problem is the

Court’s failure to adequately define the term

“religion” as it is used in the First Amendment. The

second problem is the Court’s failure to ensure

neutrality or even-handed treatment of “religion”

and “nonreligion.” The third problem is the false

bifurcation of reality that the Court draws between

matters “secular” and matters “religious.” The

second and third problems arise from the failure to

define religion.

A. The Virginia Declaration of Rights

provides an objective definition of

religion that is incorporated into the

First Amendment.

On June 12, 1776, Virginia adopted its

Declaration of Rights, which includes a provision

guaranteeing religious liberty:

Sec. 16. That religion, or the duty which we

owe to our Creator and the manner of

discharging it, can be directed only by reason

and conviction, not by force or violence; and

6

therefore all men are equally entitled to the

free exercise of religion, according to the

dictates of conscience; and that it is the

mutual duty of all to practise Christian

forbearance, love, and charity towards each

other.3

This definition of religion became a focal point

around

which

the

Virginia

establishment

controversy culminated in 1786 with the enactment

of the Virginia for Statute Establishing Religious

Freedom. 4 In Everson v. Board of Education, the

Court identified the Virginia Statute as the

progenitor of the First Amendment Establishment

Clause. U.S. Const. Amend I.

This Court has previously recognized that the

provisions of the First Amendment, in the

drafting and adoption of which Madison and

Jefferson played such leading roles, had the

same objective, and were intended to provide

the same protection against governmental

intrusion on religious liberty as the Virginia

statute.5

3 Richard L. Perry (ed.), Sources of our Liberties 312 (American

Bar Foundation 1978).

4 See generally Jeffrey C. Tuomala, Is Tax-Funded Education

Unconstitutional?, 18 Liberty U. L. Rev. 1009, 1016-38 (2024)

for a survey of the key persons, events, and documents involved

in the Virginia establishment controversy.

5 In Davis v. Beason, the Court gave a longer explanation of the

term “religion” but cited neither Madison nor Jefferson. The

Davis Court’s definition of religion does not address the

implications for education. 133 U.S. at 342.

7

390 U.S. 1, 13 (1947) (citing Reynolds v. United

States, 98 U. S. 145, 164 (1878); Davis v. Beason, 133

U. S. 333, 342 (1890)).

Although the Everson Court did not offer a

definition of religion, it did cite Reynolds v. United

States, which quoted part of the definition provided

in section 16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

98 U.S. at 163. The Everson Court also cited

Madison’s famous Memorial and Remonstrance

against Religious Assessments (Remonstrance) in

support of its decision. 390 U.S. at 12, n.12. Justice

Rutledge’s dissent, agreeing with the importance of

the Remonstrance, attached it as an appendix to his

opinion. Id. at 63. The Remonstrance begins by

quoting the definition of religion from section 16 of

the Virginia Declaration of Rights. In large measure,

Madison’s Remonstrance is an extended explication

of that definition of religion. Tuomala at 1029-34.

The most important point is that Virginia defines

religion by drawing a jurisdictional line between

matters belonging to the state and those belonging

to religion. Matters properly within the jurisdiction

of the state may be directed by “force or violence.”

Those belonging to religion may be directed only by

“reason and conviction.” Once a matter is

determined to be outside the jurisdiction of the state

and within the jurisdiction of religion, a person’s

words and actions are governed solely by the

individual’s conscience. 6 The individual conscience

6

For good reason, religious liberty has been called the

8

does not determine what falls within the jurisdiction

of religion. Tuomala at 1024-26.

Certainly, a parent’s decision whether to read

Curious George, the Bible, or even Pride Puppy to his

or her child is governed by conscience, not by “force

or violence.” In other words, it is a matter within the

jurisdiction of religion, not civil government. The

state has no jurisdiction over the mind of the parent

or the child; thus, the state may not use force or

violence to decide what they may read or listen to.

Education is within the jurisdiction of religion;

therefore, all tax-funded education constitutes an

establishment of religion.

Maryland mistakenly believes that reading Pride

Puppy to school children is within the jurisdiction of

civil government and that it may therefore compel

children to attend school, force them to listen to their

teachers read religiously objectionable books, and

pressure them to discuss the materials with the

teacher and classmates. Maryland even taxes the

parents to fund the very instruction to which they

object. Parents may opt their children out of

instruction only if they can afford tuition at a private

school or forfeit one parent’s income to homeschool.

The Fourth Circuit justified this as government

“fundamental liberty upon which all other forms of civil liberty

depend.” John Ragosta, Religious Freedom: Jefferson’s Legacy,

America’s Creed 125 (University of Virginia Press, 2013). The

reason all other forms of liberty depend on religious liberty is

that it draws a jurisdictional line between those matters that

are properly governed by the state and those matters that are

governed exclusively by individual conscience.

9

conduct of its own internal affairs. Mahmoud, 102

F.4th at 205, 212. In other words, it analogizes the

operation of public schools to the operation of

prisons, the military, and other governmental

agencies.

The immediate flash point for the Virginia

establishment controversy was the proposal for taxfunded education to counter the breakdown of public

morals. Patrick Henry introduced “A Bill

Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the

Christian Religion,”7 which if enacted, would have

established a voucher system for instruction in

morals. Taxpayers would direct payment to the

“society of Christians” of their choice or to a fund for

the establishment of public schools. Henry’s Bill

shared a purpose like the Montgomery County

schools, which is to promote moral values at

taxpayer expense. One key difference with Henry’s

Bill is that it would have given parents freedom to

choose which school to send their children and taxes

to. Tuomala at 1026-28.

Madison wrote his Remonstrance, successfully

rallying support to defeat Henry’s voucher Bill. Not

only did Madison defeat Henry’s Bill, but he also

persuaded the Virginia legislature to enact the

Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious

Freedom. That Statute, which the Everson Court

Id. at 13. Justice Rutledge’s dissenting opinion appended

Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance and Henry’s Bill for

Establishing a Provision for Teachers. Id. at 63, 72 (Rutledge,

J., dissenting).

7

10

identified as particularly significant, articulated two

principles of fundamental importance. The first is

that “Almighty God has created the mind free,” and

the second is “that to compel a man to furnish

contributions of money for the propagation of

opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and

tyrannical.” The Virginia Statute makes explicit

what is implied in the definition of religion: the

imposition of a tax for educational purposes

constitutes unlawful force or violence, which seeks

to shape the conscience. The conscience can be

directed only by reason and conviction and not by

force or violence. The entire state educational

venture constitutes an establishment of religion

regardless of whether it promotes a particular

theological or philosophical perspective, or many

perspectives. Tuomala at 1034-38.

The Montgomery County Board of Education has

staked its case on the propositions that the mind is

not created free and that the state may legitimately

tax people to propagate ideas that they don’t believe

or even find antithetical to their beliefs. Parents are

forced to pay the salaries of those state officials who

are determined to impose an alien system of beliefs

on their children. In other words, the role of the state

becomes that of imposing an orthodoxy of beliefs on

citizens, whom they treat more as subjects than

citizens. In a republic it is the people who should

school their officials. It is not the officials who should

school the people.

11

B. This Court has affirmed the fundamental

principles of religious liberty in

numerous cases.

In all fairness to the parties and counsel involved

in this case, it must be noted that the Court has not

only failed to adequately define religion, but it has

also sent mixed signals regarding the freedom of the

mind, the power of the government to impose taxes

for the propagation of opinions, and the imposition

of state-favored orthodoxies of opinion.

Often the Court has affirmed the principle that

God has created the mind free and that the state has

no jurisdiction to impose an orthodoxy of opinion or

belief through force or violence. An oft quoted and

celebrated statement of these principles comes from

the Court’s opinion in W. Va. Bd. of Educ. v.

Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943):8

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional

constellation, it is that no official, high or

petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in

politics, nationalism, religion or other matters

See, e.g., Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 12–13 (1947); id.

at 22 (Jackson, J., dissenting); Schware v. Bd. of Bar Exam’rs

of N.M., 353 U.S. 232, 244 n.15 (1957); Agency for Int’l Dev. v.

All. for Open Soc’y Int’l, 570 U.S. 205, 220–21 (2013); Wallace

v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 51–52, 55 (1985); Wooley v. Maynard,

430 U.S. 705, 714 (1977); Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v.

Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992); Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S.

397, 415 (1989); Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 638–39 (1992)

(Scalia, J., dissenting); Beilan v. Bd. of Pub. Educ., 357 U.S.

399, 413 (1958) (Douglas, J., dissenting); First Unitarian

Church of L.A. v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 357 U.S. 545, 548 (1958)

(Douglas, J., concurring).

8

12

of opinion or force citizens to confess by word

or act their faith therein.

In Wooley v. Maynard, the Court affirmed the

proposition that the First Amendment secures “the

right of freedom of thought.” 430 U.S. 705, 714

(1977). 9 The Wooley Court recognized the right as

extending equally to “religious, political, and

ideological causes.” The rights to speak and refrain

from speaking “are complementary components of

the broader concept of ‘individual freedom of mind.’”

Id.10

The Board of Education has so much as

acknowledged that it set out to establish an

orthodoxy of opinion about an ideological cause—the

LGBTQ agenda on matters of human sexuality—

beginning with pre-K children. Teachers are given

instruction on how to “disrupt the either/or

thinking” of children that boys should only like girls

and girls only like boys. 102 F.4th at 199 (quoting JA

595). Teachers may tell students that sometimes

people make mistakes assigning gender “based on

our body parts” and “Our body parts do not decide

our gender. Our gender comes from our inside.” Id.

(quoting JA 596). Teachers are also given instruction

on how to counter parents’ concerns that the books

read in school counter the values they are instilling

at home. Id. (citing JA 601). The fact that children

are expected to listen and interact with the stories is

clear from the instructions given to the teachers.

9 Citing

Barnette, 319 U.S. at 633-34.

Barnette, 319 U.S. at 637.

10 Citing

13

In Va. Bd of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens of

Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976), the Court

made it clear that the freedom of speech includes the

right to receive information. If the right to speak

includes the right not to speak, then surely the right

to hear the speech of others must include the right

not to hear unwanted speech. Does a child compelled

to leave his home have the freedom not to listen to

unwanted speech when restricted to a classroom?

Can a person really maintain freedom of thought

while being forced to listen to someone else’s

politically, religiously, or ideologically offensive

speech?

On numerous occasions the Court or individual

justices have quoted or cited the Virgina Statute for

Establishing Religious Freedom’s maxim that it is

“sinful and tyrannical” to tax a person for the

“propagation of opinions which he disbelieves.”11 For

example, in Janus v. Am. Fed’n of State, Cnty., and

Mun. Emps, 585 U.S. 878 (2018), the Court ruled

that public employees can’t be forced to fund any

category of labor union speech. In support of that

holding, the Court quoted the celebrated statement

in Barnette “that no official, high or petty, can

See, e.g., Everson, 330 U.S. at 12–13 id. at 45 (Rutledge, J.,

dissenting); Chi. Tchrs. Union v. Hudson, 475 U.S. 292, 305

(1986); Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U.S. 1, 10 (1990);

McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 465 (1961) (Frankfurter,

J., separate opinion); Int’l Ass’n of Machinists v. Street., 367

U.S. 740, 791 (1961) (Black, J., dissenting); Rosenberger v.

Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 869–71 (1995)

(Souter, J., dissenting); Johanns v. Livestock Mktg. Ass’n, 544

U.S. 550, 572 (2005) (Souter, J., dissenting); Zelman v.

Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639, 689 (2002).

11

14

prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics,

nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”

Id. at 892 (quoting Barnette, 319 U.S. at 642). The

Janus Court then quoted Jefferson’s Bill 12 : “to

compel a man to furnish contributions of money for

the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and

abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Janus, 585 U.S. at

893. The Court drove its point further home by citing

Jefferson’s Bill a second time. Id. at 905.

Assume that Janus had been a public-school

teacher who was required to pay union agency fees.

It would be “sinful and tyrannical” to force him to

pay those fees. How much more sinful and

tyrannical is it to force taxpayers to pay a teacher’s

salary to indoctrinate very young children in any

number of matters that taxpayers disapprove of? To

label compulsory union fees sinful and tyrannical,

but not taxes for public schools as sinful and

tyrannical, constitutes a classic case of “straining

out a gnat but swallowing a camel.” Matthew 23:24

(NIV).

C. This Court has not consistently upheld

the fundamental principles of religious

liberty in other cases.

Contrary to the Court’s protections for freedom of

the mind in some cases, passages from opinions in

other cases can be cited for the proposition that one

of the high purposes of civil government is to tell

citizens what they should think and what they

12 Note that Jefferson’s Bill, with minor changes, was enacted

by the Virginia legislature as the Virginia Statute for

Establishing Religious Freedom.

15

should value. The Court in Pleasant Grove City v.

Summum stated that “[I]t is the very business of

government to favor and disfavor points of view.”

555 U.S. 460, 468 (2009) (quoting Scalia, J.

concurring opinion in National Endowment for the

Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569, 598 (1998)).

Although the Court has never held that people

have a constitutional right to a tax-funded education

that the states must provide, it has stated that the

establishment of public schools is instrumental for

inculcating proper values and political beliefs in

citizens. In Brown v. Bd of Educ., the Court in dicta

touted what it considered to be the importance of

compulsory attendance at public schools for “our

democratic society”: “It is the very foundation of good

citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in

awakening the child to cultural values.” 347 U.S.

483, 493 (1954). The mind is created free, but the

state has the power to prescribe what children shall

believe and value regarding politics?

In Plyler v. Doe, the Court made similar claims

about the importance of public schools for imposing

a system of acceptable political values:

We have recognized “the public schools as a

most vital civic institution for the

preservation of a democratic system of

government,” and as the primary vehicle for

transmitting “the values on which our society

rests.” . . . And these historic “perceptions of

the public schools as inculcating fundamental

values necessary to the maintenance of a

democratic political system have been

confirmed by the observations of social

16

scientists.” . . . In sum, education has a

fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of

our society.

457 U.S. 202, 221 (1982).

Both Brown and Plyler contain odes to the power

and importance of public schools as a means of

imposing an orthodoxy of opinions, beliefs, and

values on children. Even though public schools were

virtually nonexistent at the time of the founding of

this nation and could not have been essential for

creating the fabric of our society, those schools are

apparently necessary for maintaining it.13

These inconsistencies stem in part from the

attempt to compartmentalize reality into separate

realms of secular and religious. This leaves the state

free to establish an orthodoxy of secular beliefs in

public schools and to prohibit teaching from a

perspective based on the authority of the Christian

faith or any other disapproved faith or ideology. This

bifurcation has been especially evident in

Establishment Clause cases. Although the Court has

strongly hinted at the death of the Lemon test, it will

not be able cast aside the secular-religious

bifurcation without a major shift in its thinking.

The Court’s profession of neutrality between

religion and nonreligion is another variation on the

secular-religious bifurcation. It is this bifurcation

that allows the Court to profess neutrality between

religion and nonreligion while giving secular or nonSee Nathan Chapman & Michael W. McConnell, Agreeing to

Disagree: How the Establishment Clause Protects Religious

Diversity and Freedom of Conscience 146 (2023).

13

17

religious speech a privileged status in public schools.

Religious freedom in public schools is restricted to

little islets of liberty in the vast sea of secular

orthodoxy. 14 Those little islets may include

afterhours Bible clubs inside the schoolhouse or

private prayer on the 50-yard line after a high school

football game. These two problems—the lack of

neutrality between religion and nonreligion and the

false bifurcation of secular and religious—are the

subjects of the next two sections.

II. The Court has stated in numerous decisions

that the state must be neutral in its

treatment of religion and nonreligion.

The Court often states that the religion clauses

require the government to maintain neutrality of

treatment between religion and nonreligion. See e.g.

McCreary Cnty v. Am. Civil Liberties Union of Ky.,

545 U.S. 844, 860 (2005). It’s not clear whether

“neutrality” means impartiality, equality of

treatment, or something else. For separationists on

the Court, neutrality allows tax-funding for secular

(non-religious) education but not for religious

education. For non-preferentialists on the Court,

neutrality has meant that the state may fund at

least the secular component of religious schools, but

it is not required to provide any funding for

personnel, material, or services support at all. See

Tuomala, at 1079-1082.

Both separationists and non-preferentialists

advocate very strange notions of neutrality. The

See Randy E. Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution: The

Presumption of Liberty 1 (2004).

14

18

state taxes everyone and provides so-called nonreligious education that is free, but the parent who

is motivated by conscience to provide his or her

children with a religious education must pay both

taxes and tuition. The Court’s more recent

Establishment Clause jurisprudence allows for

amelioration of this lack of neutrality and disparity

of treatment to some degree, especially in Zelman v.

Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002) (vouchers can

be used in non-religious and religious private

schools). The Court’s Free Exercise Clause

jurisprudence also allows for amelioration of this

lack of neutrality and disparity of treatment to some

degree, in particular in Trinity Lutheran Church of

Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 582 U.S. 449 (2017),

Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591

U.S. 464 (2020), and Carson ex rel. O.C. v. Makin,

596 U.S. 767 (2022), (requiring equal treatment of

religion

and

nonreligion

under

certain

circumstances).

Although the parents are asking for very little in

this case—exemption from forced instruction in

values that undermine their own religious values—

they are not asking for equal treatment of religious

and non-religious ideology, nor are they asking for

equal funding of religion and nonreligion. But there

is an even greater principle at stake here than

equality of treatment. It is the freedom from a stateestablished orthodoxy of opinion and belief.

A. The Montgomery County Schools have

not treated religion and nonreligion

neutrally.

19

The disparity of treatment between religion and

nonreligion can be illustrated by comparing the

treatment of two different selections for teaching

morals during storybook hours. The first story is

Pride Puppy. The second is the biblical story of the

“Good Samaritan.”

Pride Puppy is used here as representative of the

array of books that the Montgomery County schools

read to preschoolers portraying homosexual

conduct,

homosexual

“marriage,”

and

transgenderism in a very favorable light with the

aim of shaping the values and belief systems of

school children. These books are purportedly read to

teach students a variety of moral values that in the

abstract no one would reasonably find objectionable.

These values include “provid[ing] a culturally

responsive . . . curriculum that promotes equity,

respect, and civility.” The curriculum is designed to

support “a student’s ability to empathize, connect,

and collaborate with diverse peers and encourages

respect for all.” To help achieve these goals the books

feature “people and characters from different

backgrounds.” Brief in Opposition to Pet.4.15

The “Parable of the Good Samaritan” is a timehonored story found in Luke 10:25-37 of the Bible. It

involves a crime victim whose religion and ethnicity

are not identified but is presumably Jewish, a priest

and a Levite who are obviously Jewish, and a

Samaritan whose race and ethnicity differ from that

of the others. For centuries this parable has been

used to teach the moral values of empathy, kindness,

15 Citing Pet. App. 589a, 599a, 602a-604a.

20

and respect for our “neighbors,” meaning all other

human beings despite ethnic, religious, or other

differences. It teaches that we should provide this

treatment despite the risk to ourselves, financial

cost, and demand upon our time. Is there any

question how this Court would rule if the school

were challenged for reading the Parable of the Good

Samaritan to students from the Bible? See Abington

School District v, Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)

(invalidated a state law that required reading ten

Bible verses to start each public-school day). The

parents would not have to request an opt-out from

reading the Good Samaritan. The school could not

even allow parents and students to opt-in.

What explains the likely difference in treatment

between Pride Puppy and the “Good Samaritan”?

The answer is the source of authority to which the

stories point. The school may not tell a child that he

or she must obey the lessons of the Good Samaritan

because Jesus tells us to. For young children, the

public-school teacher, hired by the state to serve as

its representative, becomes the source of authority

in the classroom and beyond. This is not neutrality

between religion and nonreligion.

If pressed to identify a higher source of authority

than itself, the school might point to this Court’s

opinions in the homosexual rights cases. The Court

in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), said that

it was not “blind . . . to certain truths” that were

previously unknown, but it never identified the

source of that truth. Id. at 579. Is the source of truth

the evolving collective conscience of the American

people as mediated by the Court? For originalist

Justices looking to history and tradition, is it the

21

collective conscience of the American people in 1791

or 1868?

Children are impressionable, they want to

emulate and please their teachers, and they are

subject to peer pressure, but this is true regardless

of the perspective from which they are taught. There

is no neutrality of treatment between religion and

nonreligion when children can receive a free nonreligious public-school education but must pay

tuition to receive a religious education. Even if the

Court grants the parents in this case an opt-out of

storybook hour, the state will not be treating religion

and nonreligion in anything approximating

neutrality or equality of treatment. Mandating as

much as thirteen years of education in which

religious authority is censored sends a very powerful

message that religion is irrelevant for life in a

democracy. Separationists on the Court have

expressed moral indignation that “religious” speech

they disagree with should be supported by their

taxes. They claim it is a violation of their

consciences, and they are right, but their empathy

for the violation of the consciences of others is

lacking. See e.g., Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536

U.S. 639, 715 (2002) (Souter, J. Dissenting).

III. This Court operates on a false bifurcation

of reality between the secular and

religious as most notably articulated in the

Lemon test.

How can this lack of neutrality and equality of

treatment be justified even though the Court

frequently claims that the state must be neutral

22

between religion and nonreligion? If pressed for an

answer, it would likely be that Pride Puppy is

secular literature, and the Good Samaritan is

religious literature. That doesn’t solve the problem

of inequality of treatment between religion and

nonreligion; it just changes the nomenclature.

Stated another way, a false bifurcation of reality is

utilized to justify viewpoint discrimination against

religion. The likely response to this inconsistency is

that education can’t be conducted without engaging

in subject matter and viewpoint discrimination. This

is true, and for that reason the Court should

recognize that education is outside the jurisdiction

of the state because the state has no lawful power to

prescribe what shall be orthodox in any matter of

opinion.

The Court has attempted to base its religious

liberty jurisprudence on the false bifurcation of

reality between the secular and religious. This is

most clearly illustrated in the Court’s Lemon test as

applied in cases challenging tax-funding for

religious schools. This includes funding given either

directly to a school or indirectly through aid to

children attending religious schools or to their

parents. Prong one of Lemon requires a secular

purpose, and prong two prohibits state action that

has a primary effect of advancing or inhibiting

religion. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13

(1971). But just as the Court has not defined what

religion means in the First Amendment, it has not

defined what secular means in Lemon. Even though

the death of Lemon is rumored, not until members

of the Court shift their worldview paradigm, will the

23

false bifurcation between secular and religious be

dissolved.

A. The Court has implicitly defined religion

subjectively.

As in this case, the problem of defining religion is

usually not obviously in issue. Here all parties have

simply assumed that the objection to listening to

Pride Puppy is contrary to the parents’ sincerely

held religious beliefs. If a claimant says, “these are

my religious beliefs,” and if a court believes that they

are sincerely held, those beliefs are deemed

religious. In other words, the definition of religion is

treated as subjective in nature and thus varies from

individual to individual. See Tuomala at 1038-53

(addressing the problem of defining religion

subjectively).

But if the appellants’ views are based on religion,

then how can the state require reading these stories

to anyone? That would constitute an establishment

of religion. If something constitutes religion under

the Free Exercise Clause, how can it not constitute

religion under the Establishment Clause? Professor

Tribe suggested a possible fix—give religion a broad

definition under the Free Exercise Clause but a

narrow definition under the Establishment Clause.

Laurence H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law

826-28 (1978). If religion has no objective meaning

under the Establishment Clause, who is the

authority, i.e., whose subjective conscience, that

gives it meaning? It must be the collective subjective

conscience of the American people in 1791 or 1868

for the originalist and the ever-evolving collective

24

conscience of the American people for the nonoriginalist.

The Virginia definition of religion as addressed

above points to an objective standard for defining

the respective jurisdictions of civil government and

religion. That is, “religion” is not defined

subjectively by individual conscience or the

collective conscience. Individual conscience governs

thought, speech, and action falling outside the

jurisdiction of the state and within the jurisdiction

of religion, but the individual conscience does not

determine what falls outside the jurisdiction of civil

government. See Tuomala at 1040-1053 (addresses

the Court’s attempt to provide a subjective definition

of “religious” beliefs in several Vietnam War era

conscientious objector cases and Congress’s

implicitly subjective definition of religion in the

Restoration of Religious Freedom Act).

In his Remonstrance, Madison identified the

objective standard by which to determine the

respective jurisdictions of civil government and

individual conscience. He invoked “our Creator,” or

“Universal Sovereign” who governs by “the light of

Christianity,” “the light of revelation,” and “Truth.”

Remonstrance paras. 1, 12. In other words, it is the

Christian

faith

based

most

clearly

and

authoritatively in the Bible that places jurisdictional

limits on the state, thus guaranteeing the freedom

of conscience for those matters falling within the

jurisdiction of religion. The Declaration of

Independence likewise recognizes the distinction

between the Creator and the creature, thus

providing the only possible basis for objective

25

standards of law and jurisdictional restrictions on

state power that guarantee religious liberty.

B. The Court has failed to define secular.

Historically, “secular” meant the temporal order.

In Christianity, the temporal or earthly order is

governed by God and His law. Most of the Bible

addresses how we are to live in the temporal, i.e.,

secular order, not how we will live in the eternal or

heavenly order. This is evident from the fact that it

is the “secular priest” who in the Catholic Church

has his primary ministry among the laity. See

Tuomala at 1075-79. The false distinction between

the realms of knowledge (secular) and faith

(religion) is rooted in the philosophy of Immanuel

Kant and has been adopted by modernist Protestant

and Catholic theologies over the past two centuries.

Id. at 1092-98. The reason for drawing this false

distinction is to ensure that the public sphere is

governed by no authority other than the collective

conscience of society while permitting people to

conduct their private affairs according to their

personal religious beliefs.

Acknowledging God as the source of authority for

the state, for law, and religious liberty does not

constitute a religious establishment. In fact, there is

no other basis for a belief in the rule of law or rights

of any kind. This proposition is well-stated as a

rhetorical question:

What happens when the positive laws of the

state lose all touch with the higher law and

come to be seen as nothing more than the

outcomes of a power struggle? Can the ideals

of autonomy and generality in law survive the

26

demise of the religious beliefs that presided

over their birth?16

The answer is obviously “No!”

What the state may not do is set up institutions,

be they churches, schools, or media, for the purpose

of establishing an orthodoxy of opinion which should

be governed solely by one’s conscience as directed by

reason and conviction rather than force or violence.

C. The Court must resolve the false

bifurcation of secular and religious.

The factual contexts in which both Janus and

Barnette, and the principles stated in those opinions,

implicitly undermine the false bifurcation of secular

and religious and of nonreligion and religion. The

speech in Janus was “secular” in most peoples’

minds, but it was protected by principles set out in

the Virginia Statute for Establishing Religious

Freedom. Barnette made no distinction between

religious and other kinds of speech when it denied

the state the power to establish an orthodoxy of

opinion. The principle of the freedom of the mind,

and the fact that the state has no jurisdiction over

the mind, applies to all ideologies regardless of any

theological or philosophical characterization. The

Virginia Statute places even “opinions in physics

and geometry” within the Statute’s protection.

False distinctions between secular and religious,

or knowledge and faith, force an alien belief system

on those who hold to biblically based orthodox

16 Roberto M. Unger, Law in Modern Society 83 (The Free Press

1976).

27

Christianity. See Tuomala at 1101-1109. For the

Christian, education begins with a proper

orientation toward God—“The fear of the Lord is the

beginning of knowledge.” Proverbs 1:7 (NIV). The

entire curriculum must be based on the truth that

“all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are

hidden in Christ (Colossians 2:3 (NIV)) to whom the

Chrisitan must make every thought captive (2

Corinthians 10:5 (NIV)). In fact, the only basis for

the unity of all knowledge and for the objectivity of

truth, including truth about the law, is the fact that

through Christ all things were created, and in Him

all things hold together. Colossians 1:16-17 (NIV).17

IV. The school’s hostility toward religious

beliefs places a substantial burden on

parental and free exercise rights.

The remainder of this brief draws attention to a

connection between the Court’s opinions regarding

homosexual rights and marriage and the attitude

and actions of the Board of Education in denying

requests for excusal from certain instruction based

on religious beliefs. The similarity between the

heavy handedness of government officials in waging

the culture war in Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colo

Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U.S. 617 (2018) and the

treatment of parents and children in the

Montgomery County Schools belies an innocence of

motive in refusing opt-outs.

See Jeffrey C. Tuomala, Christian Legal Education: From

Bologna to Lynchburg and Beyond, 19 Liberty U. L. Rev. 60-65

(2024).

17

28

A. Justice Scalia warned the Court to not

take sides in the culture war.

Justice Scalia’s dissents in Romer v. Evans, 517

U.S. 620, 652 (1996), and Lawrence v. Texas, 539

U.S. 558, 602 (2003), warned the Court against

taking sides in the culture war. The Romer Court,

ostensibly applying minimal scrutiny, could find no

conceivable legitimate state interest in what it

considered to be discriminatory treatment of

homosexuals. The Court wrote that the Colorado law

“seems inexplicable by anything but animus” toward

homosexuals and implied that it was motivated by a

“bare . . . desire to harm” them. Romer at 632, 634.

Similarly, the Lawrence Court could find no

conceivable

legitimate

state

interest

in

criminalizing sodomy, despite the well-known

worldwide AIDS epidemic that was spread largely

by male homosexual sodomy. The Lawrence Court

said that moral disapproval, like “a bare desire to

harm,” is not a legitimate government interest.

Lawrence at 582.

In United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744 (2013),

the Court ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage

Act (DOMA), which recognized only heterosexual

marriage, violated the equal protection principle of

the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause. Congress

had no legitimate interest in discriminating against

homosexual “marriage.” The Windsor opinion spoke

of DOMA in very derogatory terms. The Court

faulted Congress with seeking to “injure”

homosexuals, of having a “bare . . . desire to harm,”

as being motivated by “an improper animus or

purpose,” of engaging in “‘discriminations of an

unusual character,’” of having the purpose of

29

imposing “a disadvantage, a separate status, and so

a stigma” on same-sex marriages. Id. at 770. The

Court accused Congress of expressing “‘both moral

disapproval of homosexuality, and a moral

conviction that heterosexuality better comports with

traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.’”

Id. at 771. Lastly, DOMA’s “purpose and effect [was]

to disparage and to injure” same-sex couples. Id. at

775.

Perhaps seeing the implications of its own

language regarding traditional Judeo-Christian

morality in Windsor, the Court tempered its

language in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644

(2015). The Court stated that “[m]any who deem

same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that

conclusion based on decent and honorable religious

or philosophical premises and neither they nor their

beliefs are disparaged here.” Id. at 672. But the

Court said that the state could not place its

imprimatur on personal views opposing same-sex

“marriage” as it would result in an “exclusion that

soon demeans or stigmatizes [homosexual couples] .

. . and it would disparage their choices and diminish

their personhood to deny them that right.” Those

views have led to “a long history of disapproval of

their relationships” . . . that “works a grave and

continuing harm. . . . and serves to disrespect and

subordinate them.” Id.18

18 Actually, it is the Christian belief that all people are created

in the image of God that is the only basis for full personhood.

The Court has insisted that only a view of life that supports a

diminished view of personhood may be taught in public schools.

Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987).

30

The Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop, may have

been surprised that the Colorado Human Rights

Commission called Jack Phillips’ refusal to decorate

wedding cakes with a pro-homosexual marriage

message out of religious conviction, as akin to

“defenses of slavery and the Holocaust.” 584 U.S. at

635. A Commissioner described Phillips’ defense as

“one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that

people can use to—to use their religion to hurt

others.” Id. 635. The Commission’s hostility toward

Phillips at his hearing violated his free exercise

rights. The Court faulted the Colorado court, stating

that it is “not . . . the role of the State or its officials

to prescribe what shall be offensive.” Id. 638. The

Colorado court erred in its attempt to justify

disparate treatment of Phillips, as compared to prosame sex marriage bakers, because it elevated “one

view of what is offensive over another” and sent “a

signal of official disapproval of Phillips’ religious

beliefs.” Id. at 638.

The Board of Education failed to wage its war

with a benign facade. Some opponents of the LGBTQ

agenda may be motivated by animus and a bare

desire to harm, but they should not be called

despicable or compared to proponents of slavery and

the Holocaust. Nevertheless, some Board members,

in a display of animus, accused opponents of Pride

Puppy and other books as exhibiting hatred

comparable

to

“white

supremacists”

and

“xenophobes.” Pet.2. The Board of Education

hostility toward parents in this case, and the

disparate treatment it gave them, constitutes a

substantial burden on their free exercise rights.

31

B. The Montgomery County Schools have

taken sides in the culture war.

Usually in war, children suffer as unintended

collateral

damage.

Those

opposing

the

normalization of homosexual conduct and same sex

marriage frequently warned that families and

children would be the collateral damage of its

normalization. The Board of Education has made

children the intentional target of attack, not just

collateral damage in the culture war. It has

conscripted children into service without their

parents’ consent and refused to exempt them as

conscientious objectors. In this case the school has

demanded unconditional surrender from the

parents.

As Justice Scalia saw it, the Lawrence Court had

taken sides in the culture war. It is often stated that

the first casualty of war is truth. The Court claimed

that it was able to see “certain truths” that prior

generations were blinded to, but it didn’t identify the

source of the truth that it had recently discovered.

The Court’s first foray into the First Amendment

freedom of speech arose out of censorship efforts

during World War I. Schenck v. United States, 249

U.S. 47 (1919). Justice Holmes authored the Schenck

opinion approving of censorship, but he eventually

changed his mind and dissented in Abrams v. United

States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919). He famously wrote,

“that the best test of the truth is the power of the

thought to get itself accepted in the competition of

the market.” Id. at 630.

A more effective method of ensuring a conformity

of thought during wartime than censorship may be

32

a government-fueled propaganda mechanism. That

can be effected through utilization of a compliant

press or other existing institutions. The government

has a ready-made extensive propaganda mechanism

in place—the public school system—through which

it prescribes an orthodoxy of opinion on all manner

of opinion. By no stretch of imagination can

compulsory attendance at tax-funded schools be

described as a free marketplace of ideas.

CONCLUSION

Because all education is a matter of conscience—

in fact, it is the critical endeavor of molding and

developing the conscience itself—it is by nature a

matter of belief, and as such, a matter of religion.

This is especially clear when looking at how the

Founders understood and defined “religion” vis a vis

“secular.” This leads to the unavoidable (and albeit

perhaps for some uncomfortable) truth that all taxpayer

funded

education

constitutes

an

establishment of religion. Understanding this

forgotten element of education’s fundamental

nature is what has allowed public schools to become

active battlegrounds in the culture war as competing

ideologies battle for the minds and souls of America’s

children.

To truly put an end to tax-payer funding of the

culture war in schools, the Court should state that

the tax-funded Montgomery County Schools

constitute an establishment of religion that places a

substantial burden on parental and free exercise

rights. Because establishment of religion is

unconstitutional per se, it cannot be saved through

33

the application of any form of heightened scrutiny

standard of review.

Barring such a decision based on first principles,

the Court should at minimum: 1) order the Board of

Education to allow parents to opt their children out

of objectionable instruction whether objections are

denominated religious or non-religious since all

education falls within the definition of religion as

used in the First Amendment, and 2) rule that the

Board of Education’s hostility toward parents and

their beliefs constitute a substantial burden on

religion and unconstitutional discrimination in its

treatment of religion and nonreligion.

For either decision, the Court should base the

recommended rulings above on an adoption of the

Virginia definition set out in this brief, ensuring

equal treatment of all belief systems, whether they

be denominated religious or secular, and

abandoning the false bifurcation of reality between

the secular and religious.

Respectfully submitted,

March 10, 2025

Roy S. Moore*

*Counsel of Record

Jeffrey Tuomala

Talmadge Butts

FOUNDATION FOR MORAL LAW

P.O. Box 148

Gallant, AL 35972

(334) 262-1245

kayla@morallaw.com

jtuomala.home@outlook.com

talmadge@morallaw.org