In unprecedented move, Ohio is funding construction of private religious schools | Hacker News Reader

In unprecedented move, Ohio is funding construction of private religious schools

propublica.org

36 pointskeiran_cull19 comments

"courts have long given voucher programs a pass, ruling that they don’t violate the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state because a publicly funded voucher technically passes through the conduit of a parent on the way to a religious school."

Oh wow, I didn't realize all it took to break the law was a middleman. This is why intent of law matters, not just the letter of it.

As long as both secular and non-secular schools are eligble for vouchers in both law and practice then that is fine. You could imagine a situation where they have vouchers 'available for all' but in practice there is some kind of bureaucracy that only allows vouchers to be eligible for religious schools. If the state prevented religious schools from taking vouchers then arguably that is violation of the separation of church and state because they are punishing religious people.

> I didn't realize all it took to break the law was a middleman

You might have meant this sarcastically, but using a middleman is exactly how many laws are routinely side-stepped (broken). It turns out that this is a crazily effective technique.

“What do you do?”

“PLEASE”

My understanding is the "separation of church and state" is at the federal level; states may be free to establish their own religious institutions if their state constitutions permit it. Perhaps the relevant part of the Ohio constitution is Article 1, Section 7.

https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-constitution/section-1.7

Not since the 14th amendment, no?

See also, government and data collection. It's technically okay if they pay for it.

Technically correct is not the best kind, fight me

For those who are more knowledgeable: is this bait for a conservative SCOTUS decision a few years down the road and/or do these legislators think state government should directly fund religious (educational) organizations?

If the latter, I doubt the legislators would support funding non-Christian schools, so it’s bald-faced hypocrisy at best? I’m having difficulty understanding how someone rationalizes appropriating government funds for religious institutions.

Goes to show that America's reticence towards social programs is not ideological, but rather simply partisan. They are happy to socialize the regressive religious bullshit that they approve of.

A list of examples should be easy to provide.

they're a bunch of pro-child abuse bigots, so of course its hypocrisy.

  You wrote, and I quote exactly:

"""they're a bunch of pro-child abuse bigots, so of course its hypocrisy."""

  I am sorry but your swipe there is so unwarranted and low effort, that it looks more like it's coming from a provocation plant trying to give liberals a bad name.

Also for the record, I am pro-child!

There is a huge overlap between the "I want tax dollars to fund my religious ideology" and the people who say "lgbt kids should be punished", "sex education must be banned", "teenagers [girls] who have sex should be shamed", "child marriage is acceptable", etc.

All of those policies are inherently pro-child abuse.

Those are the same groups that also say "my religious freedom requires that I be allowed to require other people to follow my religion.

The only reason conservatives want publicly funded private schools is because they want to claim that the schools are (1) not public so don't have to obey the first amendment and (2) then reduce funding to actual public schools because they "can't afford it".

Anyone who claims otherwise is at best stupid.

This is the explicit intent of these policies.

Certainly funding Catholic schools should come with a bit of trouble since leaders in that religious organization that has a history of raping minors.

So, court case probably gets to be brought by Ohio Education Association union as plaintiff as they are losing out on the funding to invalidate the budget as unlawful according to the Ohio constitution?

I love tax dollars funding religious indoctrination, by an untaxed organization that has billions, if not trillions, of dollars of wealth even though the first amendment explicitly prohibits it.

I also love that these bigoted assholes claim to care about children while bankrolling an organization that actively promotes child abuse, suppresses evidence of said abuse, blames the child victims, uses bankruptcy (despite aforementioned wealth) to avoid any liability, and then claims that not reporting child abuse is a requirement of their religion so is protected by the same first amendment that prohibits this funding.

Don't forget that they are also tax-exempt.

My feeling is that tax payer funded subsidies for businesses should come with a 100% tax rate. Any “profit” gained while receiving subsidies is literally just a redistribution of wealth from average tax payers to the wealthy. Ie another case of socialism for the rich capitalism for the poor.

I just see this as a move to a new way to invalidate LBJ's Civil Rights Law(s).

Many white people do not want little Suzie to be exposed to "the other kind of people". I know many people who struggle financially to send their kids to religious schools because they say Public Schools are bad. None of them even goes to any kind of Church. Plus these schools are no better that the Public Schools in their town.

So to me, this is all about discrimination.

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