that may shed some light on the issue (full text is available here):
The plaintiffs in the case are two sets of parents who live in districts that do not operate their own secondary schools. As a result, their children were eligible to receive tuition assistance to attend private schools approved by the state. One family sent their daughter to Bangor Christian, in the city of Bangor, “because the school’s Christian worldview aligns with their sincerely held religious beliefs.” The other would like to send their son to Temple Academy, a Christian school in Waterville, but can’t afford it without tuition-assistance payments.
After the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, holding that the Constitution’s free exercise clause barred the government from denying the church a benefit that is otherwise available to the public just because of the church’s religious status, the families went to federal court.
While the parents’ case was pending, the Supreme Court issued its decision in another school-funding case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. By a vote of 5-4, the justices ruled in June 2020 that although states are not required to subsidize private education, they cannot exclude families or schools from participating in programs to provide public funding for private schools because of a school’s religious status.
(T)he U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit (with a panel that included retired Justice David Souter) rejected the parents’ challenge to the Maine program. It held that unlike the religious exclusions in Trinity Lutheran and Espinoza, the Maine law “does not bar schools from receiving funding simply based on their religious identity.”
The Petitioner's question before the Court is
Does a state violate the Religion Clauses or Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution by prohibiting students participating in an otherwise generally available student-aid program from choosing to use their aid to attend schools that provide religious, or “sectarian,” instruction?
The petitioner's brief is available here
The Respondent's question before the Court is
Do either the First or Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution require Maine to include sectarian schools in a program designed to provide a free public education to students who live in SAUs which neither operate public schools nor contract for schooling privileges?
The Respondent's brief is available here
Both sides have equal and valid questions and arguments and this is what the Court has to adjudicate.
= new reply since forum marked as read