Florida's challenge to separation of church and state

(Florida's) Senate moves to end Separation of Church and State

The separation of church and state has been in Florida’s constitution for more than a century.

But that might this fall under a proposal approved by a Senate committee this morning that could go before voters on the November ballot.

The “Religious Freedom” amendment would delete the 125-year-old provision in the constitution prohibiting state money from being spent directly or indirectly to aid any church, sect or religious denomination. And it would open the door to former Gov. Jeb Bush’s school voucher program allowing public school students to use state money to pay for religious school tuition that the Florida Supreme Court struck down.

Also known as the “Blaine Amendment,” the separation of church and state restriction was an anti-Catholic, anti-immigration measure aimed at keeping Catholics from obtaining government funding for their schools.

The proposal not only strikes the Blaine amendment from the constitution, it adds a single sentence that could radically change public education funding in Florida: “An individual may not be barred from participating in any public program because that individual has freely chosen to use his or her program benefits at a religious provider.”

I just wanted to offer a little bias adjustment on that highlighted bit for a sec--here's the actual Blaine Amendment:

AMENDMENT LANGUAGE

State Constitutional Provision

Fla. Const. art. 1, § 3: "There shall be no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting or penalizing the free exercise thereof. Religious freedom shall not justify practices inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety. No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."

Huh--funny how a supposedly "anti-Catholic" Amendment fails to even mention Catholicism at all, huh? And weirder still, it seems like it would also not allow the state to benefit "any church, sect or religious denomination"! As if Catholicism had nothing whatsoever to do with the amendment, and it was really just a mirror-image of what's in the federal Constitution!

Anyway--I see school voucher programs as being a way of siphoning-off education dollars away from public schools, to private schools (regardless of their religious-affiliation or lack thereof) and creating a kind of vacuum-effect: without strong budgets, public schools get weaker, private schools look better, but poorer kids are still stuck with the increasingly suckier public school-option while other kids are learning about my favorite trope--Jesus riding on a dinosaur. Because once money starts going from taxpayers to religious-run outfits instead of to public employees--good luck trying to rein in the standards. Yeah--private schools can be good. But crap, the semi-private charter b.s. siphons off money but doesn't always pay off in better-educated students. I don't think it's a stretch to suppose vouchers are just as bad as public policy, but with more subsidizing religion--which would be a benefit to denominations that already have schools--well, like Catholic schools--but that's not singling them out, you know!

In other words--I think it's bad public policy because it doesn't make education as a whole better at all, it just makes what's public worse and strengthens private orgs without respect to accountability. They *could* have better standards, but without providing oversight you only know through testing (but damn, these corprocrats will then start in on how the state shouldn't be regulatin' private business.) I don't see it as a "Win" strategery.