Families from three Maine towns went to court Friday to challenge a state law that prohibits public money from being spent on religious school tuition.

The families, who live in Durham, Raymond and Minot, claim they are being discriminated against by a law that allows towns to pay public and private school tuition for their neighbors' children, but will not pay the families' tuition bills because their children go to schools with religious affiliations.

"It's all about fairness," said Jerilyn Ward of Raymond, who is not Catholic but sends two of her three sons to St. Dominic Regional High School in Lewiston, a Roman Catholic school.

"I felt it was the best school for them. It should be about what is the best education for the child," she said.

Superior Court Justice Robert Crowley heard arguments from lawyers representing the families and the state Attorney General's Office, which is defending the tuition ban. The Maine Civil Liberties Union also supported the ban, arguing on behalf of town residents who say they do not want any of their tax money going to support a religious institution.

Crowley said he would consider the matter before issuing an opinion. Lawyers from both sides agreed that an appeal was likely no matter how the case is decided.

The lawsuit is the third in the last seven years to challenge the state's rural school choice program, which allows towns without high schools to pay a resident's tuition at secular schools only. Since 1981, the state has maintained that spending public money at religious schools violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the establishment of a state religion.

So far, judges in both state and federal courts have upheld the law, and the Maine Legislature rejected a bill that would have removed the ban in 2003.

But a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision upheld a voucher program in Cleveland, Ohio, that allowed public money to go to religious schools. That decision opens the door to another challenge of the Maine law, said Richard Komer, senior litigation attorney for the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based public interest law firm that advocates school choice.

Komer said the high court's opinion in the Cleveland case proves that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court was wrong when it ruled that a tuition voucher for a religious school would violate the Constitution. That makes Maine's prohibition religious discrimination, Komer said.

But Assistant Attorney General Paul Stern said just because the U.S. Supreme Court said states could pay for religious schools, it didn't say they have to. Under the current law, families can receive free education in secular schools, he said, and provide religious education on their own without using public money.

Portland lawyer Jeffrey Thaler, who argued on behalf of the MCLU, said refusing to pay tax dollars to religious institutions is not discrimination.

"These families make a choice," he said. "They are not compelled to send their child to a religious school. If they choose to send a child to St. Dom's, then (they should know) the government is not going to pay for it."

Thaler said religious schools reserve the right to discriminate, and the state should not support discrimination. He said the government needs to oversee how its money is spent, and cannot do that at a religious school without getting involved in religious doctrine.

Thaler quoted from St. Dominic's mission statement, which pledged to "work with the local church in bringing the good news of the crucified and risen Jesus to these young men and women who seek to embrace the Lord more fully through membership in the high school community."

"These schools have missions that are totally religious," Thaler said.

But Komer said the vouchers really support families, not schools.

"Who is paying the tuition? Not the schools," Komer said. "It is the families who would benefit if these schools were put back on the list, as they were in 1980."

Staff Writer Gregory D. Kesich can be contacted at 791-6336 or at: [email protected]