The Cleveland school voucher issue before the U.S. Supreme Court could be devastating to religious liberty in America. Send your views to the court and your congress members now, before it’s too late.
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It is time to review the history of why our forefathers took tax funds away from religious affiliated schools by 1860 and adopted. the common school movement. Peel off the veneer, and the idea of funding private schools, 85% of which are religiously affiliated, is simply a reversal of our 150 year public policy, which has denied public funds to non-public schools. If our forefathers had. continued providing tax funds for church schools, what would America look like today? … Northern Ireland or Bosnia? Or, has the elimination of animosity between Catholics and Protestants in America been an accident?
America, as we know it, would not be America without public schools and separation of church and state. The “melting pot” for all cultures and ethnic groups has been the public schools where we have learned to live together in this great bastion of freedom. Prove this point to yourself by simply looking at those countries where children grow up in segregated schools…compare the level of domestic peace! The home and the church have been the pillars for our religion plus freedom of speech and press.
If our schools need improvement, we have the power to change or fix whatever needs fixing. The doomsayers’ message asserting that we cannot fix what needs fixing about schools is false. We have the power to fix or improve anything including schools. Going backwards is usually not fixing.
Religion and matters of the spirit have a special place in our lives.
Religious leaders and organizations can serve as the guardian of morality in society, but when they lose their independence by taking tax monies or special favors from the state they jeopardize their trust with the people.
Church schools are subsidized by no property tax, and some do not want tax funds since controls follow government money.
Beware of the religious fundamentalists who never believed in public schools nor religious freedom for others–they want their symbols on the public square not yours. They were defeated by the common school movement by 1865, but have never stopped trying to get tax funds back for their schools. And, even though as a nation we passed from religious intolerance, to toleration and finally to equality, religious zealots are constantly trying to make America a theocracy or at least a “Generic Theocracy” by stamping God on government property. Religious freedom progressed to equality where the believer and the nonbeliever have equal rights in America, but yet, lobbying Congress by some clergymen has brought “under God” in the pledge to the flag (1954), and caused the national motto of E Pluribus Unum to be changed to “In God We Trust.” (1956).
Religious freedom with equality means that each citizen has the inalienable right to his own religion or no religion. Promoting religion via government is not freedom of religion. Government coercion for religion had its roots in U.S. history prior to the realization that a citizen’s religion is none of the government’s business. Six state churches still existed when the Constitution was adopted in 1787.
Ben Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780, said: “When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself, and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
George W. Parker, former MO state legislator, PO Box 105 1, Columbia MO 65205; 573-449-3040.