I have been liberal to varying degrees all my life. So I usually support most of the so-called liberal “causes”. And I usually agree with the rationale of the other people who support these causes. But there is one position I don’t completely understand.
Notice the words “respecting an establishment of religion”. Historically that means no taxes may be imposed that are used to build or support a church. More recently the U.S. Supreme Court has taken it to mean government cannot endorse any religion or religious belief.
So what would be wrong with vouchers that can be used in private, sometimes religious, schools? I hate to agree a little bit with the right on some issue. But it does seem to me to a certain degree that vouchers would just offer poor families more choice in the matter.
So why are they unconstitutional? What exactly is (or was) the U.S. Supreme Court’s rationale in declaring them unconstitutional?
My take on why it would be respecting an establishment of religion is that it would be government funding of a religious-based enterprise, that of the religious school. AFAIC, our Constitution prohibits the government from spending a single penny of tax money on advancing the teachings of any one, or any group of, religions. Now, if you could show me how the school vouchers could be done without tax money, more power to them.
Who told you they’re unconstitutional? They’re not; many states have vouchers, or at least pilot programs. They’re an incredibly bad idea, in my opinion, but they’re not unconstitutional. Normally, a voucher program diverts money from public schools to private schools of the parents’ choice, so there’s no first amendment issue.
This quote was posted by MEBuckner in another thread:
The emphasis is mine.
Unfortunately, you are incorrect in stating that the Supreme Court ruled school vouchers unconstitutional. By a 5-4 decision on June 27, the Supreme Court ruled that they are indeed constitutional. Here’s an MSNBC article.
But why was this one vote away from being declared unconstitutional? And why do I believe that it should be?
If the emphasised part of the quote above does not seem clear enough to anyone, it was noted in the dissenting opinions of the current 5-4 decision that something like 97% of the private schools that vouchers would be used for are religious schools. So even though the Supreme Court majority said that since there are choices for voucher users as to which schools their children would be sent to (thus there is no government sponsorship of religion), it seems to me that our tax dollars (which is what pays for the vouchers, after all) would be used to pay a large number of religious schools, which would seem to directly violate the court’s previous interpretation of the first ammendment. Unless of course, as a condition for using voucher funds, the school would have to agree not to teach or sponsor any kind of religion. Yeah, right!
I thought the Supreme Court ruling said that vouchers were not unconstitutional where a nonreligious private school existed. Doesn’t that split the difference, saying in effect that you can send your kid to a Catholic School with a voucher only if there is a nonreligious private school as an alternative? Does this (existence of a secular private school) apply on a local level or a national level?
IANA(Constitutional)L, but from my quick reading of a few articles about this decision, I think the 5 justices in the majority opinion are saying that since some private schools may be religious and some may not be religious, that means it is the parents decision as to which private school they choose to use the vouchers for, and since they have a choice between religious and non-religious schools, the government use of tax funds does not sponsor religious schools directly, any more than public power lines or municipal garbage pick-up “sponsors” religion by offering the same services to religious institutions as to non-religious businesses.
As I stated in my previous post, however, I do not agree (and 4 Supreme Court justices dissented).
Although I sort of “made up” the above example as I try my best to explain what I think their position is in the best possible light, I am reminded of some of the reasoning in that Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township Supreme Court ruling from 1947 that I quoted above. After posting this little quote a few times in a few different threads, I finally decided to go there and read it for myself. It is long, has several different opinions (including some dissenting opinions), and I did not read the entire thing, but they did use the example of public services to make a point. And their point was that withholding public services from Churches, even though they are paid for with tax dollars, would be actively harming those churches.
But with school vouchers, tax dollars will be used to pay for schools, including religious schools. And it is not just a few here and there, the fact is that 93% of all private schools are religious in nature. I don’t have a site right now, but I read in news articles at the time that this is what was used as part of the reasoning in the dissenting opinion.
Remember, the whole purpose of the Constitution is to protect the MINORITY from the MAJORITY. There is no need to protect the majority, they elect the government, and the government does what they want. That is democracy. The Constitution says that even though the majority may not want you to say certain things, you still have the freedom of speech. Even if the majority are Christian, they may not force you to also be a Christian or punish you for not believing as they do.
This is not a repudiation of the entire concept of Separation of Church and State, but it does move the line back a little bit to allow government tax dollars to subsidize schools that are clearly religious in nature. Some will be worse (or better) than others, and I see many potential disadvantages that can and probably will arise, but I’ll leave those for a different discussion.
Ahem. Nobody told me they’re unconstitutional. I clearly stated in my post “my take.” That’s known as in introduction, a clear indication if you will, that the following words are the opinion of the author, me.
Now to the public services comment above: Those services are not only offered to all the people in the area, they’re charged for. At least here they’re charged for. The religious-based and non-religious based organizations pay for the services you list. One you didn’t list was police services. Now those aren’t offered in the same way that power supply and garbage collection are; they’re a service to the society at large.
Besides what I view as the unconstitutional funding, even in part, of a religious-based education, there’s another argument against school vouchers: that of the concept of “opting out” of taxes you don’t want to pay. The taxes are to support the public schools. It’s up to you to send your child there. If someone doesn’t have a child, does that mean they don’t have to pay the tax which supports the public schools? Of course not! Now if someone with a child withdraws that child from the public school, they should be no less liable for supporting that school than the individual who can’t “opt out” because of being childless.
Historically, one reason behind this debate is fairly far removed from the church and state division. After the Supreme Court mandated public school integration, quite a few bigots took their children out of public schools and put them into private segregated schools. Of course it was only reasonably prosperous bigots who could afford to do this, so they joined with their less prosperous brethren to lobby for government subsidies.
If that representation seems politically biased, it is. I spent my adolescence in rural Virginia. Things change more slowly there than I would have believed until I saw for myself.
To look at the matter from a different perspective - surely outside of certain backwaters there are better reasons for offering parents school choice - this parochial school voucher matter isn’t very far from an initiative the federal government tried about a year ago to give more local control to certain social programs: they’d subsidize certain programs for the poor run by churches. Sounds great, right? The programs get tailored to individual community needs and cash-strapped religious organizations get more money to do good works.
Religious institutions didn’t look at it that way. In a rare coalition of liberal and conservative clerical leaders, most of that federal money went unspent. It’s about the power of the purse: once an organization accepts this sort of money, eventually it’s going to come with some strings attached.
To segue back to the school voucher question, suppose the scientific community lobbied for the teaching of evolution in all federally funded secondary schools. From a purely academic standpoint they’d have good reason to do so. Orthodox Jews and Fundamentalist Christians who try to provide their children with a faith based education wouldn’t like that idea so much. All sorts of curriculum issues come into play if the federal government subsidizes private schools. For many faith based organizations, the unfettered ability to transmit their particular beliefs to the next generation is integral to their long term survival as distinct institutions.
Suppose the opposite happens. In the unlikely event that congress imposes no curriculum restrictions on parochial schools, taxpayers who do not belong to religious organizations with extensive educational programs will effectively subsidize the theologies of those that do. Vouchers drain money from already distressed public schools. Some parents may find little practical alternative to letting their children be inculcated in another faith as the byproduct of a basic education. Maybe that doesn’t bother you but I don’t like it one bit.
The first amendment interpretation here makes sense even from the strict constructionist standpoint set forth in this thread’s opening post. Families of modest means have many other ways of providing private school educations without creating this conflict. They can win scholarships or take on extra work to earn tuition fees. Some find their children or grandchildren a place by volunteering at the school.
This thread is veering into GD territory, but I’d like to point out that the quotes from Everson were from the majority opinion which held that New Jersey could reimburse families for the cost of public transportation used to get to school even if their children went to religious schools. I think Everson shows that the Court has drawn a fairly strict line on what constitutes establishment. As long as the money does not flow directly from government to a religion, it’s not establishment.
The government-to-citizen-to-religious institution flow of money is not a new concept. There are the GI Bill and Pell Grants which allow individuals to choose where to spend the money. The Supreme Court has also held that the Establishment Clause is not violated by a person using vocational education funds for the blind to study to be a minister.
I think it’s a sensible distinction. The Constitution does not allow the government to support a religion. But when the government acts neutrally towards religion then it is not a violation of the First Amendment. It might not always be a wise policy, but that’s a different issue.
Suppose the government were contracting a construction project out, and one of the bids comes from a company wholly owned by a religious institution. Must the bid be rejected because otherwise money would be going to a religious institution?
So what’s your point?
[quote]
Besides what I view as the unconstitutional funding, even in part, of a religious-based education, there’s another argument against school vouchers: that of the concept of “opting out” of taxes you don’t want to pay.[/quyote]
What are you talking about? Everyone pays property taxes, whether they get vouchers or not.
What I meant was that vouchers don’t change whether someone pays property taxes. But yes, most people do pay property taxes, directly or indirectly. If you rent, taxes are built into your rent.
