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GOP welcomes state sponsored religion

As lawmakers shape and debate Florida’s new pre-K plan, some disturbing trends have emerged. One of the most troublesome points in the legislation is the reliance on religious schools to take up the slack and provide classroom space to many of the 100,000 or more 4 year olds who are expected to be enrolled in the program.

In a fit of circular logic, lawmakers innocently say that without religious schools there will not be enough space for all those kids, conveniently ignoring the fact that Florida’s schools are notoriously underfunded and that the Legislature could have easily provided money to public school systems to help construct new classrooms. First the legislature makes it impossible for public schools to handle the influx, then they wring their hands and say that since there’s no room, we must turn to organized religion.

One problem with all this is the Florida constitution, which explicitly prohibits the state from funding religious institutions. In fact, some legislators have been very open in their knowledge that the pre-K bill is unconstitutional but have forged ahead anyway, even including language in the bill which explicitly allows for discrimination based on religious beliefs.

So, why would the GOP craft legislation that is sure to face a losing court challenge, setting the state up for an expensive legal battle that the vast majority of observers agree will result in a judge declaring that, yes, a law that sends money directly to churches does indeed violate Florida’s crystal clear constitutional language against such stipends?

Well, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the real agenda is nothing less than the wholesale destruction of Florida’s public school system, with state-subsidized religious instruction to fill the breach.

Yesterday, Sen. Daniel Webster, a former House speaker and now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced his intention to put an amendment on the ballot in 2006 that would overturn the constitutional ban against state sponsored religion. This would open the door for more legislation like the discredited voucher program, which also funds religious schools, and the pre-K program now under consideration.

Critics immediately pounced on Webster for supporting unconstitutional voucher laws - the state now has three voucher programs on the books and is in the process of instituting a pre-kindergarten plan that will also send state money to religious schools - and then trying to undo the very constitution he took an oath to defend as a legislator.

"So if the constitution stands in the way of their radical agenda, don't change the radical agenda - change the constitution," said Howard Simon, head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

Webster should include in his ballot initiative language to abolish the public school system, Simon said, "because that's what its real effect would be. Maybe a little bit of honesty is what's needed."

Of course, for Republicans, an oath only counts when its convenient, so I’m sure that Webster has no problem with breaking the vow that he made to all citizens of Florida. The Miami Herald has more.

For nearly 120 years, one sentence in Florida's Constitution has forbidden the state to use public money to ''directly or indirectly'' help religious institutions -- a provision that is bedeviling the state's school voucher law and a $350 million prekindergarten program lawmakers are crafting this week.

Rather than leave the matter in the hands of judges, an influential state senator said Wednesday that he's ''seriously considering'' an effort to pluck the offending sentence from the Constitution itself and allow money to flow to religious schools.

Sen. Daniel Webster, one of the Legislature's most respected conservatives and head of the Senate's judiciary committee, said he may try as early as this spring to get the Legislature to put the amendment change on the ballot in 2006 -- when the governor's office will be up for grabs and Republicans typically head to the polls in larger numbers than Democrats.

If approved by voters, the repeal would free lawmakers from the constraints that prevent them from using taxpayer money on religious schools -- an issue that legal scholars say could derail the statewide prekindergarten program that lawmakers are expected to pass today. The program relies on private and religious schools to offer the pre-K program by next fall because the state doesn't have enough teachers and classrooms to meet the need.

In the House and the Senate, Republicans have the three-fifths of the vote needed to get the repeal measure before voters. Such numbers allow them to routinely steam roll Democrats, as happened Wednesday when House Republicans kept a provision in the pre-K bill allowing for religious discrimination.

The voucher law was recently declared unconstitutional, and appeals are pending, but most observers say that it is blatantly unconstitutional, so the ruling should stand. In response, GOP types are using scare tactics, claiming that a strict ban against religious subsidies will result in chaos. (Back to the Herald article)

Webster, a recent Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Winter Garden who was once House Speaker, isn't sure he's ready to wait for a court ruling. He said he started talking about an amendment campaign with religious organizations and even hospitals days after the appeal court ruling on vouchers.

''It's pretty strong language. It's not ambiguous, other than [defining] what's indirect,'' Webster said of the Constitution. He added that he believes the appeal court ruling on vouchers jeopardizes ``a vast number of programs . . . everything from Baptist hospitals that receive Medicaid and religiously founded colleges that receive [state-funded] Bright Futures scholarships.''

VOUCHER OPPOSITION

Ron Meyer, the lawyer leading the lawsuit against the voucher program on behalf of Democratic-leaning groups, said Webster and Bush are issuing a misleading ''parade of horribles'' that misrepresent the extent of the court's ruling.

''This doesn't mean that a fire department can't put out a fire at a church because that constitutes indirect aid to a religious organization. This is designed to prevent using public tax money for the inculcation of religious values in a school,'' Meyer said. ''There's a huge difference from a hospital performing life-saving surgery for the public good, and teaching the values of Christ and the Bible to young minds,'' Meyer said.

He added there's a ''great parallel'' between the proposed pre-K program and the 1999 voucher law, which gives children in failing public schools tax money for private education.

Meyer is also quoted in the Palm Beach Post article excerpted above, and we’ll give him the last word.

Ron Meyer, the lawyer who has so far successfully pushed the voucher lawsuit through trial and appellate courts, said he was not surprised by the effort and that he always assumed that religious conservatives would eventually try to change the constitution.

"It's disappointing," he said. "Florida has long abided by the separation of church and state. I really question whether the people of Florida will want to remove their constitutional protection from using their money, involuntarily, to support religious institutions."

Meyer cautioned potential supporters, though, that opening state money to religion meant opening it to all religions, including fringe groups.

"The religious right needs to be careful what they wish for," he said.