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Nosathro -> RE: "Buyer's Remorse" in Louisiana (1/31/2013 3:45:04 PM)
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ORIGINAL: muhly22222
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ORIGINAL: Nosathro
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ORIGINAL: muhly22222
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ORIGINAL: Nosathro
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: Nosathro
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
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ORIGINAL: Nosathro
I thought that the 1st Amendment prevented this....Seperation of Church and State.
Jefferson wrote, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
There is no problem with it, as long as there are no religions discriminated against. If it was limited to "Catholic" schools, it would be against the first amendment. And, the vouchers are only for religious schools, but all schools. They just include religious schools, as opposed to not being able to be used for them. Allow the consumers - parents of students - to decide which school is doing a good job with their vouchers. Schools will have to compete for students.
I totally disagree the Seperation of Church and State does include this.
How so? This is about a school voucher. This is about a taxpayer being allowed to choose what school his/her kidlets attend. No one is being forced to attend any particular religious anything. No church is being pushed, and no church is being discriminated against. This is about the schools.
In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal pushed for a voucher program that would allow state funds to be used to pay for religious schools...
I don't have any children however I am taxed to pay for schools. I also would question the Governor motives. If the parents paid for the schooling themselves and received a tax break for it, then it would not violate the Seperation of Church and State.
As a lawyer, I can tell you that this is perfectly acceptable under the First Amendment. Despite the common usage of the phrase "separation of church and state," that's never been the test that the Supreme Court (and therefore other courts around the country) apply. Instead, the court apply a three-part test to determine whether there has been a violation of the Establishment Clause.
First, the law must have a secular purpose. In this case, the secular purpose would be permitting families to educate children outside of what is sometimes a dysfunctional public school system.
Second, the law can neither inhibit or advance religion. This law clearly does not inhibit religion; does it advance it? If you were to look at the provisions that are in place, I'm sure that Louisiana would also have a provision that government funds cannot go towards religious classes or religious materials, just like most of the other states with similar provisions around the country.
Finally, the law cannot result in excessive government entanglement with religion. And no, any interaction is not considered to be excessive government entanglement. This situation doesn't have it, though.
Also, based on Supreme Court precedents, I can tell you that when the financial aid is made available to people regardless of their religion, it does not violate any Constitutional provision. Under this provision, an atheist could choose to send their child to a Catholic (or Muslim) school, and use the public funds to do so. Why would an atheist do such a thing? Maybe the tradeoffs in having their child receive religious education that I'm assuming they disagree with are better than the alternative of having their child go through the local public school system.
As far as the kind of system you say you prefer...you're either paying for it upfront or on the back end (allowing them to take a tax credit for the tuition is the same thing as giving them the money upfront, really). So does it really matter which way it's done?
Really
McCollum v. Board of Education Dist. 71, 333 U.S. 203 (1948)
Court finds religious instruction in public schools a violation of the establishment clause and therefore unconstitutional.
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 91 S. Ct. 2105 (1971)
Established the three part test for determining if an action of government violates First Amendment's separation of church and state:
1) the government action must have a secular purpose;
2) its primary purpose must not be to inhibit or to advance religion;
3) there must be no excessive entanglement between government and religion.
This case is not a McCollum situation. These are not public schools. They can receive public money for secular purposes and still conduct religious education.
And thank you for the citation on the Lemon case. I'd forgotten to look it up, although I knew the test, obviously. However, whether you wrote that description or copied-and-pasted, I would take issue with the end of the description of the holding. There are two separate religion clauses in the First Amendment; the particular one at issue here, and that was at issue in Lemon, is the Establishment Clause ("Congress shall make no law establishing a religion" or something like that). That holding only extends to that clause; the Free Exercise Clause has other issues and other tests.
I am not a lawyer nor do I claim to be or knowledgable in the law, perhaps I view a different meaning...
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