Agnostic.com

3 10

LINK Maine's religious schools are choosing bigotry over taxpayer dollars

One of the Supreme Court’s biggest blows to church/state separation in the past term has effectively achieved nothing. The bang became a whimper because the conservative Christians in Maine who wanted taxpayer money to fund religious schools have now realized they’re better off on their own.

Carson v. Makin involved a voucher program that allowed students in rural parts of Maine to have access to free education, even if that meant attending a private school. The state already said it would cover private school tuition, even at church-run schools, as long as the education students received was secular in nature. But a lawsuit was filed by parents who wanted to send their kids to Christian schools that, among other things, promoted Creationism and discriminating against LGBTQ people in hiring.

The Supreme Court said in its ruling that the state was forbidden from discriminating against those schools on the basis of religion… which meant taxpayers would theoretically have to pay for religious indoctrination. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent, “Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.” ...

snytiger6 9 Sep 1
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

3 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

5

They would rather discriminate than take state funding. Fine. It's a small win for those of us who support the establishment clause over the infringement clause. Basically this skirmish brings us to stalemate. Meanwhile, the culture war rages on.

5

I live in a red state, and the private religious schools started recently getting state money, with no strings attached...

2

Matthew, SCOTUS’s Carson v. Makin ruling requires close reading and careful thinking. The news media tell us the sensational stuff but they omit important legal details.

First, this is not one of those omitted legal details but important to know. My father sent his kids to Catholic schools. Thus, he paid for two school systems but used only one of them. It wasn’t fair, but his business made enough money that he was able to choose the unfairness.

What’s important here is that if the religious schools were to close, Maine would have to build and staff new public schools. These new schools WOULD NOT TEACH RELIGION AND ITS BIASES, but they would have to teach what other public schools teach.

There’s more than this to the case, but I’ve opened the doorto some necessary thinking.

You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:684451
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.