Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

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gounion
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Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by gounion »

Why are we not surprised?

I need to start the Church of the Great Spaghetti Monster to get my hands on some of that sweet government cash.
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Libertas
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Libertas »

Yeah, America bye bye.

If only people could go back 6 years and not say a SINGLE fucking bad thing about Hillary. :twisted:

Every bit of this was predictable.
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Bludogdem
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

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“ The dispute before the court in Carson v. Makin began as a challenge to the system that Maine uses to provide a free public education to school-aged children. In some of the state’s rural and sparsely populated areas, school districts opt not to run their own secondary schools. Instead, they choose one of two options: sending students to other public or private schools that the district designates, or paying tuition at the public or private school that each student selects. But in the latter case, state law allows government funds to be used only at schools that are nonsectarian – that is, schools that do not provide religious instruction.

Two Maine families went to court, arguing that the exclusion of schools that provide religious instruction violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. On Tuesday, the justices agreed. Roberts suggested that the court’s decision was an “unremarkable” application of prior decisions in two other recent cases (both of which Roberts wrote): Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, in which the justices ruled that Missouri could not exclude a church from a program to provide grants to non-profits to install playgrounds made from recycled tires, and Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, holding that if states opt to subsidize private education, they cannot exclude private schools from receiving those funds simply because they are religious.

In this case, Roberts explained, Maine pays tuition for some students to attend private schools, as “long as the schools are not religious.” “That,” Roberts stressed, “is discrimination against religion.” It does not matter, Roberts continued, that the Maine program was intended to provide students with the equivalent of a free public education, which is secular. The focus of the program, Roberts reasoned, is providing a benefit – tuition to attend a public or private school – rather than providing the equivalent of the education that students would receive in public schools. Indeed, Roberts observed, private schools that are eligible for the tuition benefit are not required to use the same curriculum as public schools, or even to use certified teachers. He suggested that the state’s argument was circular: “Saying that Maine offers a benefit limited to private secular education is just another way of saying that Maine does not extend tuition assistance payments to parents who choose to educate their children at religious schools.”

Roberts similarly rejected the state’s argument that the tuition-assistance program does not violate the Constitution because it only bars benefits from going to schools that provide religious instruction. Although Trinity Lutheran and Espinoza focused on organizations’ religious status (rather than on whether the organizations would be using government funds for religious purposes), those rulings did not hold that states could make funding for private schools hinge on whether the schools provide religious instruction, Roberts explained. To the contrary, Roberts indicated, there is no real distinction between a school’s religious status and its use of funds for religious purposes.

Roberts also dismissed any suggestion that Tuesday’s ruling would require the state to fund religious education. Maine has other options to eliminate its need to fund private schools, Roberts noted: It could, for example, create more public schools or improve transportation to public schools. But having chosen to provide public funding for private schools, Roberts concluded, “it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/cour ... s-schools/

Doesn’t violate the “Establishment Clause”, no state religion is created. And it only applies to school systems without secondary education. Doesn’t require the state to fund tuition to religious schools where a public school is available. Works for me.
gounion
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by gounion »

Bludogdem wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 5:51 pm “ The dispute before the court in Carson v. Makin began as a challenge to the system that Maine uses to provide a free public education to school-aged children. In some of the state’s rural and sparsely populated areas, school districts opt not to run their own secondary schools. Instead, they choose one of two options: sending students to other public or private schools that the district designates, or paying tuition at the public or private school that each student selects. But in the latter case, state law allows government funds to be used only at schools that are nonsectarian – that is, schools that do not provide religious instruction.

Two Maine families went to court, arguing that the exclusion of schools that provide religious instruction violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. On Tuesday, the justices agreed. Roberts suggested that the court’s decision was an “unremarkable” application of prior decisions in two other recent cases (both of which Roberts wrote): Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, in which the justices ruled that Missouri could not exclude a church from a program to provide grants to non-profits to install playgrounds made from recycled tires, and Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, holding that if states opt to subsidize private education, they cannot exclude private schools from receiving those funds simply because they are religious.

In this case, Roberts explained, Maine pays tuition for some students to attend private schools, as “long as the schools are not religious.” “That,” Roberts stressed, “is discrimination against religion.” It does not matter, Roberts continued, that the Maine program was intended to provide students with the equivalent of a free public education, which is secular. The focus of the program, Roberts reasoned, is providing a benefit – tuition to attend a public or private school – rather than providing the equivalent of the education that students would receive in public schools. Indeed, Roberts observed, private schools that are eligible for the tuition benefit are not required to use the same curriculum as public schools, or even to use certified teachers. He suggested that the state’s argument was circular: “Saying that Maine offers a benefit limited to private secular education is just another way of saying that Maine does not extend tuition assistance payments to parents who choose to educate their children at religious schools.”

Roberts similarly rejected the state’s argument that the tuition-assistance program does not violate the Constitution because it only bars benefits from going to schools that provide religious instruction. Although Trinity Lutheran and Espinoza focused on organizations’ religious status (rather than on whether the organizations would be using government funds for religious purposes), those rulings did not hold that states could make funding for private schools hinge on whether the schools provide religious instruction, Roberts explained. To the contrary, Roberts indicated, there is no real distinction between a school’s religious status and its use of funds for religious purposes.

Roberts also dismissed any suggestion that Tuesday’s ruling would require the state to fund religious education. Maine has other options to eliminate its need to fund private schools, Roberts noted: It could, for example, create more public schools or improve transportation to public schools. But having chosen to provide public funding for private schools, Roberts concluded, “it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/cour ... s-schools/

Doesn’t violate the “Establishment Clause”, no state religion is created. And it only applies to school systems without secondary education. Doesn’t require the state to fund tuition to religious schools where a public school is available. Works for me.
They'll use this as the nose under the tent. And the separation between church and state goes further than the establishment clause. It's about NOT using tax dollars for religion or religious education. Or are you good with the US taxpayer funding Muslim Madrassas? Or devil worship? Or Wicca?

Here's the reality: The right WANTS to establish state-funded religion. And obviously so do you.
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Libertas
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Libertas »

Yes, cons want forced conservative Christianity and they want to remove or imprison or kill anyone not so.
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ProfX
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by ProfX »

The Supreme Court Just Forced Maine to Fund Religious Education. It Won’t Stop There.
Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion has the potential to dismantle secular public education in the United States.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... ation.html

The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority effectively declared on Tuesday that the separation of church and state—a principle enshrined in the Constitution—is, itself, unconstitutional. Its 6–3 decision in Carson v. Makin requires Maine to give public money to private religious schools, steamrolling decades of precedent in a race to compel state funding of religion. Carson is radical enough on its own, but the implications of the ruling are even more frightening: As Justice Stephen Breyer noted in dissent, it has the potential to dismantle secular public education in the United States.

Carson challenges Maine’s effort to provide quality civic education to every child in the state. The government created a tuition assistance program to help families who live in remote, sparsely populated regions without any public schools. Under the program, parents can send their kids to certain private schools, and the state covers the cost of tuition. To qualify, these schools must give students a secular education. They may be affiliated with, or even run by, a religious organization. But their actual curricula must align with secular state standards.

Two families challenged this limitation, arguing that it violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Just two decades ago, this claim would’ve been laughed out of court: SCOTUS only permitted states to subsidize religious schools in 2002; at the time, it would’ve been absurd to say that states have a constitutional obligation to subsidize them. Beginning in 2017, the court began to assert that states may not exclude religious schools from public benefits that are available to their secular counterparts. And in 2020, the conservative justices forced states to subsidize religious schools once they began subsidizing secular private education.

Tuesday’s decision in Carson takes this radical theory to a new extreme, ordering Maine to extend public education funds to religious indoctrination.

The upshot of Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for the court is that states have no compelling interest in providing public, secular education to children. Indeed, Roberts suggests that the very concept of secular schooling is a smokescreen for “discrimination against religion”—a pretext for unconstitutional animus toward pious Americans. His opinion reaches far beyond Maine. About 37 states have amendments to their constitutions that bar government funding of religious institutions, including schools. Carson essentially invalidates those laws while undermining the broader constitutional basis for the nation’s public school system.

[snip]

But can this distinction hold? Roberts’ bright line dims under scrutiny: Maine, after all, wanted private schools to replace public education for some students, not supplement it. And yet the court found no good reason for the state to insist that these substitute schools adhere to secular standards. Indeed, the chief justice’s rhetoric depicts education not as a state-sponsored benefit for all, but rather as a personal matter best left up to parents. There is, he claimed, no “historic and substantial state interest” in preserving secular education. If that’s true, how can any state refuse to fund religious schooling?

Breyer raised these questions in dissent. Does Carson, he asked, “mean that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools?” In other words, must every state begin cutting checks to parents who want to give their kids a Christian education? Does Carson mean “school districts that give vouchers for use at charter schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to give their children a religious education?” Can states even mandate secular curricula at charter schools any more? Who knows? In the end, the only limit on Carson is whatever five justices want it to be.

It’s worth pausing, as both Breyer and Justice Sonia Sotomayor did in dissent, to reflect on the victims of Tuesday’s decision. The two Maine schools that may now receive public funding are openly discriminatory, expelling students and teachers who do not adhere to evangelical Christianity. LGBTQ students, as well as straight children of same-sex couples, are not welcome, nor are LGBTQ teachers. Even custodians must be born-again Christians. One school teaches students to “refute the teachings of the Islamic religion” and believe that men serve as the head of the household. Another requires students to sign a “covenant” promising to glorify Jesus Christ and attend weekly religious services. (*)

“Legislators,” Breyer wrote, “did not want Maine taxpayers to pay for these religiously based practices,” as doing so might violate their own faith or conscience. The majority tells these Mainers their own views don’t matter, because the First Amendment forces them to foot the bill for other people’s religious indoctrination. Doing so creates a “serious risk of religion-based social divisions,” Breyer explained, exacerbating the “religious strife” that the religion clauses “were designed to prevent.” Sotomayor put the point more sharply: “While purporting to protect against discrimination of one kind,” she wrote, “the court requires Maine to fund what many of its citizens believe to be discrimination of other kinds.”

[snip][end]

What Justices Breyer and Sotomayor said.

(*) Yes, these schools should be free to teach this nonsense. No, not with taxpayer support.
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gounion
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by gounion »

...and greengrass, just like Joe and Glenn, will tell you how he supports LGBTQ+ rights... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Truth is, none of them do.
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Number6
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Number6 »

How fast will conservatives deny public funds to a Madrasa?
When you vote left, you vote right.
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Libertas
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Libertas »

Number6 wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:31 pm How fast will conservatives deny public funds to a Madrasa?
Wont be an issue, they will just let it be known you will be killed if you try.
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JoeMemphis

Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by JoeMemphis »

Is anyone being forced to attend a religious school under this law?
gounion
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by gounion »

JoeMemphis wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:47 pm Is anyone being forced to attend a religious school under this law?
Dumbass, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the government funding the church. Try to keep up.

It’s funny how, with your big college degree, you can’t understand a simple news story, and seem to think it’s about something else altogether.
JoeMemphis

Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by JoeMemphis »

gounion wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:19 pm Dumbass, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the government funding the church. Try to keep up.

It’s funny how, with your big college degree, you can’t understand a simple news story, and seem to think it’s about something else altogether.
It’s appears the law allows the parent to choose where to educate their kids. Once you pay your taxes to the government, it’s no longer your money. It’s the governments. In this case it court has ruled that the choice of where the student gets educated is the parents and the students. They are the ones who are deciding where the money goes. The government isn’t funding religion. It’s paying for education and where those services are purchased is left to individual parents and students to decide.

I don’t see the problem other than some folks might not like the parents choice for education.
Bludogdem
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Bludogdem »

gounion wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:19 pm Dumbass, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the government funding the church. Try to keep up.

It’s funny how, with your big college degree, you can’t understand a simple news story, and seem to think it’s about something else altogether.
It’s not funding the church. It’s funding students in a system that do not have a secondary public school. At that point it’s the choice of the family to pick the school and the family pays the money. If they choose a hate filled pustule then that’s their choice.

The free exercise clause means the state can’t limit the hate filled pustule. Free exercise and choice is a bitch to authoritarians like you.

First amendment on religion is rather simple and straightforward. Ya can’t make a state religion and ya can’t stop the free exercise. Over the years the courts have muddled the simple concept. Now it being restored to its simplicity.
Bludogdem
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Bludogdem »

ProfX wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:25 pm The Supreme Court Just Forced Maine to Fund Religious Education. It Won’t Stop There.
Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion has the potential to dismantle secular public education in the United States.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... ation.html

The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority effectively declared on Tuesday that the separation of church and state—a principle enshrined in the Constitution—is, itself, unconstitutional. Its 6–3 decision in Carson v. Makin requires Maine to give public money to private religious schools, steamrolling decades of precedent in a race to compel state funding of religion. Carson is radical enough on its own, but the implications of the ruling are even more frightening: As Justice Stephen Breyer noted in dissent, it has the potential to dismantle secular public education in the United States.

Carson challenges Maine’s effort to provide quality civic education to every child in the state. The government created a tuition assistance program to help families who live in remote, sparsely populated regions without any public schools. Under the program, parents can send their kids to certain private schools, and the state covers the cost of tuition. To qualify, these schools must give students a secular education. They may be affiliated with, or even run by, a religious organization. But their actual curricula must align with secular state standards.

Two families challenged this limitation, arguing that it violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Just two decades ago, this claim would’ve been laughed out of court: SCOTUS only permitted states to subsidize religious schools in 2002; at the time, it would’ve been absurd to say that states have a constitutional obligation to subsidize them. Beginning in 2017, the court began to assert that states may not exclude religious schools from public benefits that are available to their secular counterparts. And in 2020, the conservative justices forced states to subsidize religious schools once they began subsidizing secular private education.

Tuesday’s decision in Carson takes this radical theory to a new extreme, ordering Maine to extend public education funds to religious indoctrination.

The upshot of Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for the court is that states have no compelling interest in providing public, secular education to children. Indeed, Roberts suggests that the very concept of secular schooling is a smokescreen for “discrimination against religion”—a pretext for unconstitutional animus toward pious Americans. His opinion reaches far beyond Maine. About 37 states have amendments to their constitutions that bar government funding of religious institutions, including schools. Carson essentially invalidates those laws while undermining the broader constitutional basis for the nation’s public school system.

[snip]

But can this distinction hold? Roberts’ bright line dims under scrutiny: Maine, after all, wanted private schools to replace public education for some students, not supplement it. And yet the court found no good reason for the state to insist that these substitute schools adhere to secular standards. Indeed, the chief justice’s rhetoric depicts education not as a state-sponsored benefit for all, but rather as a personal matter best left up to parents. There is, he claimed, no “historic and substantial state interest” in preserving secular education. If that’s true, how can any state refuse to fund religious schooling?

Breyer raised these questions in dissent. Does Carson, he asked, “mean that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools?” In other words, must every state begin cutting checks to parents who want to give their kids a Christian education? Does Carson mean “school districts that give vouchers for use at charter schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to give their children a religious education?” Can states even mandate secular curricula at charter schools any more? Who knows? In the end, the only limit on Carson is whatever five justices want it to be.

It’s worth pausing, as both Breyer and Justice Sonia Sotomayor did in dissent, to reflect on the victims of Tuesday’s decision. The two Maine schools that may now receive public funding are openly discriminatory, expelling students and teachers who do not adhere to evangelical Christianity. LGBTQ students, as well as straight children of same-sex couples, are not welcome, nor are LGBTQ teachers. Even custodians must be born-again Christians. One school teaches students to “refute the teachings of the Islamic religion” and believe that men serve as the head of the household. Another requires students to sign a “covenant” promising to glorify Jesus Christ and attend weekly religious services. (*)

“Legislators,” Breyer wrote, “did not want Maine taxpayers to pay for these religiously based practices,” as doing so might violate their own faith or conscience. The majority tells these Mainers their own views don’t matter, because the First Amendment forces them to foot the bill for other people’s religious indoctrination. Doing so creates a “serious risk of religion-based social divisions,” Breyer explained, exacerbating the “religious strife” that the religion clauses “were designed to prevent.” Sotomayor put the point more sharply: “While purporting to protect against discrimination of one kind,” she wrote, “the court requires Maine to fund what many of its citizens believe to be discrimination of other kinds.”

[snip][end]

What Justices Breyer and Sotomayor said.

(*) Yes, these schools should be free to teach this nonsense. No, not with taxpayer support.
Once you open the funding door for education choice you don’t get to stop the hate filled pustule. The amendment is clear, you can’t discriminate. It’s their choice not the state. The state failed to provide the public option. It doesn’t get to discriminate on the choice made by the family.

No different than people objecting that their taxes pay for war, the military, free lunches, etc. TFB
JoeMemphis

Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by JoeMemphis »

Bludogdem wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:42 pm Once you open the funding door for education choice you don’t get to stop the hate filled pustule. The amendment is clear, you can’t discriminate. It’s their choice not the state. The state failed to provide the public option. It doesn’t get to discriminate on the choice made by the family.

No different than people objecting that their taxes pay for war, the military, free lunches, etc. TFB
Think of all the Medicare and Medicaid dollars that flow to religious institutions for health care. The patient decides where to go for care and the government funds it. It doesn’t seem to bother folks as far as I can tell. If we get M4A can we expect that the government will cease to allow beneficiaries to go to those institutions because some might feel it was the government funding religion? I think somebody mentioned the camels nose under the tent.
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Bludogdem »

JoeMemphis wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:51 pm Think of all the Medicare and Medicaid dollars that flow to religious institutions for health care. The patient decides where to go for care and the government funds it. It doesn’t seem to bother folks as far as I can tell. If we get M4A can we expect that the government will cease to allow beneficiaries to go to those institutions because some might feel it was the government funding religion? I think somebody mentioned the camels nose under the tent.
The federal government has been doing business with religious institutions since the founding. At the beginning of the republic they understood the simplicity of the amendment. Moonbats on the other not so much.
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Toonces »

JoeMemphis wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:28 pm It’s appears the law allows the parent to choose where to educate their kids. Once you pay your taxes to the government, it’s no longer your money. It’s the governments.
That never seems to work when it's funding Planned Parenthood.

We fund Catholic schools here. The trade-off, of course, is that they have to accept all students regardless of religion. Before the funding change, they did not.

My son goes to a Catholic school even though we do not follow any religion. It offered him the courses he was looking for and, unfortunately, the alternative is a public school that has many problems. He is getting a better education where he is.
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Libertas
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Libertas »

Board with liars who are full of shit, they make it dirty to be here.

I feel the violence in their words, also.

These vile cons feeling their oats because of one person, the dumbest person alive and the biggest failure in the history of business. :twisted:
I sigh in your general direction.
JoeMemphis

Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by JoeMemphis »

Toonces wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:01 pm That never seems to work when it's funding Planned Parenthood.

We fund Catholic schools here. The trade-off, of course, is that they have to accept all students regardless of religion. Before the funding change, they did not.

My son goes to a Catholic school even though we do not follow any religion. It offered him the courses he was looking for and, unfortunately, the alternative is a public school that has many problems. He is getting a better education where he is.
It may not be everything you wanted but if at graduation he has been given a good education then that’s the most important thing.
IMO.
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ProfX
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by ProfX »

What are the rules on funding religious activity with Federal money?
https://www.hhs.gov/answers/grants-and- ... index.html

The United States Supreme Court has said that faith-based organizations may not use direct government support to support "inherently religious" activities. Basically, it means you cannot use any part of a direct Federal grant to fund religious worship, instruction, or proselytization. Instead, organizations may use government money only to support the non-religious social services that they provide. Therefore, faith-based organizations that receive direct governmental funds should take steps to separate, in time or location, their inherently religious activities from the government-funded services that they offer.

Such organizations should also carefully account for their use of all government money. This does not mean your organization can't have religious activities. It simply means you can't use taxpayer dollars to fund them. Some faith-based organizations set up separate charitable organizations (so-called "501(c)(3) corporations") to keep programs that receive government money separate from those that engage in inherently religious activities.

[snip][end]

Seems clear to me.

The issue is not that government aid goes to religiously operated hospitals. That's fine. The point is, a Catholic hospital cannot use the government aid it receives to promote their faith, proselytize, or discriminate against providing health services to non-Catholics.

Obviously, with a school, this question goes to another one we've discussed many times in this board: the difference between instruction and indoctrination.
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gounion
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by gounion »

JoeMemphis wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 7:28 pm It’s appears the law allows the parent to choose where to educate their kids. Once you pay your taxes to the government, it’s no longer your money. It’s the governments. In this case it court has ruled that the choice of where the student gets educated is the parents and the students. They are the ones who are deciding where the money goes. The government isn’t funding religion. It’s paying for education and where those services are purchased is left to individual parents and students to decide.

I don’t see the problem other than some folks might not like the parents choice for education.
Are you REALLY this stupid, that you can't understand a simple news story, that you get all the facts this wrong?

I'm not telling anyone where to educate their children. That's another lie about me. It's about whether the government pays for it or not.

It's what happened in Memphis when the Supreme Court instituted busing. Lots of private and religious schools sprang up because religious whites didn't want their kids going to school with black kids. But they didn't ask the government to pay for it.

Now, Toonces mentioned the Catholic schools in Canada. Here in the US, Catholic schools provide a basically secular education, but they aren't paid for by the government. Now, if the government doesn't fund Catholic schools, why should it fund religious schools, who don't provide a secular education?

Would you be in favor of the government funding Muslim Madrassas, which teach a fundamentalist, anti-US religious education?

Because if you fund one religious school, you have to fund them all.

And as for greengrass' attempted deflection, the catholic faith-based hospitals provide actual medical care, and that's paid for on a fee-for-service basis. Nothing wrong with that, and that has nothing to do with this.

I realize both of you would be more than happy with a religious theocracy for a government, but that's something I will always be against, like the founding fathers were. They set it up this way for a reason.
JoeMemphis

Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by JoeMemphis »

ProfX wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:12 pm What are the rules on funding religious activity with Federal money?
https://www.hhs.gov/answers/grants-and- ... index.html

The United States Supreme Court has said that faith-based organizations may not use direct government support to support "inherently religious" activities. Basically, it means you cannot use any part of a direct Federal grant to fund religious worship, instruction, or proselytization. Instead, organizations may use government money only to support the non-religious social services that they provide. Therefore, faith-based organizations that receive direct governmental funds should take steps to separate, in time or location, their inherently religious activities from the government-funded services that they offer.

Such organizations should also carefully account for their use of all government money. This does not mean your organization can't have religious activities. It simply means you can't use taxpayer dollars to fund them. Some faith-based organizations set up separate charitable organizations (so-called "501(c)(3) corporations") to keep programs that receive government money separate from those that engage in inherently religious activities.

[snip][end]

Seems clear to me.

The issue is not that government aid goes to religiously operated hospitals. That's fine. The point is, a Catholic hospital cannot use the government aid it receives to promote their faith, proselytize, or discriminate against providing health services to non-Catholics.

Obviously, with a school, this question goes to another one we've discussed many times in this board: the difference between instruction and indoctrination.
I understand your point. That said, I’m for allowing parents to decide what’s in the best interest of their children. I’m okay with the government setting certain reasonable base standards. But after that it doesn’t matter to me if the school is run by a religious institution or a business or the government as long as the student gets a high quality education.
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by gounion »

JoeMemphis wrote: Tue Jun 21, 2022 8:20 pm I understand your point. That said, I’m for allowing parents to decide what’s in the best interest of their children. I’m okay with the government setting certain reasonable base standards. But after that it doesn’t matter to me if the school is run by a religious institution or a business or the government as long as the student gets a high quality education.
And you're welcome to send your children where you want. But if it's not a public school, you can pay for it out of your own pocket.

I would think, as a conservative, you know, a by-your-bootstraps, anti-government interference type, you wouldn't WANT the government funding your kid's education anyway, right?
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ProfX
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by ProfX »

Parents should be free to send their children where they wish.

Taxpayers should not pick up the cost if the schools use the taxpayer/public money to engage in religious activity. Canada can do as it likes. We are discussing U.S. policy.

My problem is I do not see the two schools In Maine in question doing this - separating religious activity and indoctrination from instruction. So yes, to me, this is an issue.
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln :D
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Toonces
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Re: Supreme Court breaks down wall between church and state

Post by Toonces »

Although understanding its actual meaning wouldn't impact opponents in any way, "Madrassa" translates to "school", or "place of education", at least within the Arabic world. It does mean something different to the west and I recognize that that is the one being used here. Yet, even simply calling it an Islamic school or Muslim school is going to meet with gnashing of teeth.
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