US Supreme Court takes up case involving schools, money and religion

[Polybius]

Source: Raw Story

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday took up a case that asks whether schools that make the bible an essential teaching tool and reject gay and transgender students can receive government funding.

The nine-judge court featuring six conservatives were considering a school aid program in the northeast state of Maine and will render a decision in the spring of next year.

As Maine is sparsely populated, more than half of its school districts have no publicly funded high schools. So families receive subsidies that allow them to send their kids to the school of their choice.

Parents can choose public or private schools, in Maine or another state, and even schools affiliated with religion, so long as the teaching there is not "sectarian."

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/us-supreme-court-takes-up-case-involving-schools-money-and-religion/

[The Mouth]

1. I wonder how the fundies would take it

if it were Muslim parents sending their kids to a madrasa?

[Atticus]

2. I hope a few madrassas are preparing to request tax money to teach THEIR religion. Now that

I think about it, would someone like to join me in establishing the "Pastafarian Elementary Academy" so we can be ready to request funding?

[Cobalt Violet]

6. I hope The Satanic Temple does too.

If it's okay for Christians it should be okay for all others.

[Smackdown2019]

3. Calling on all the CULTS of the world

If supreme court rules in favor of state sponsorship funding for religious schools, a nightmare will ensue!

[intheflow]

4. They can send their kids to a religious school on Maine's dime,

they just can't send them to a school that indoctrinates the kids like a cult.

Seriously, why the fuck would you even send your kid to any school? Why not just start a church-based homeschool out of your church basement? No money needed: Building, heating, and power? Check. No need for internet, textbooks or supplies since the Bible is the only text that matters? Check. Easy-peasy!

[melm00se]

5. A little background on this case

that may shed some light on the issue (full text is available here):

The plaintiffs in the case are two sets of parents who live in districts that do not operate their own secondary schools. As a result, their children were eligible to receive tuition assistance to attend private schools approved by the state. One family sent their daughter to Bangor Christian, in the city of Bangor, “because the school’s Christian worldview aligns with their sincerely held religious beliefs.” The other would like to send their son to Temple Academy, a Christian school in Waterville, but can’t afford it without tuition-assistance payments.

After the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, holding that the Constitution’s free exercise clause barred the government from denying the church a benefit that is otherwise available to the public just because of the church’s religious status, the families went to federal court.

While the parents’ case was pending, the Supreme Court issued its decision in another school-funding case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. By a vote of 5-4, the justices ruled in June 2020 that although states are not required to subsidize private education, they cannot exclude families or schools from participating in programs to provide public funding for private schools because of a school’s religious status.

(T)he U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit (with a panel that included retired Justice David Souter) rejected the parents’ challenge to the Maine program. It held that unlike the religious exclusions in Trinity Lutheran and Espinoza, the Maine law “does not bar schools from receiving funding simply based on their religious identity.”

The Petitioner's question before the Court is

Does a state violate the Religion Clauses or Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution by prohibiting students participating in an otherwise generally available student-aid program from choosing to use their aid to attend schools that provide religious, or “sectarian,” instruction?

The petitioner's brief is available here

The Respondent's question before the Court is

Do either the First or Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution require Maine to include sectarian schools in a program designed to provide a free public education to students who live in SAUs which neither operate public schools nor contract for schooling privileges?

The Respondent's brief is available here

Both sides have equal and valid questions and arguments and this is what the Court has to adjudicate.

[crickets]

8. Thanks for the info, melm00se. My question would be why there is a district

that does not operate a secondary school for the public. That seems odd.

[melm00se]

9. Having been born

there I can actually answer this.

Maine has a population of 1.34 million people, has an area of 35,385 mi² and a whopping 16 counties.

The population distribution looks like this



When you get into some of these really rural areas (which, frankly, is most of ME), there are only enough people to justify 1 high school but it can be a hundred miles away but another district can have a high school 50 miles away.

[slightlv]

7. Given that this court is not one to analyze shades of gray

nor see a religious excuse it doesn't like, I think this case will be determined in favor of spending any assistance needed to send the kid to whichever religious school he wants to attend, regardless of the expense. Too bad he couldn't have made do with the cheaper one, as did the other child.

Problem with all these religious and private schools... as well as the charter schools... and all these funding issues... as well as the homeschooling necessary during the pandemic... is that it checks one of the RWNJ's boxes of autocracy (actually, theocracy; specifically, Dominionist theocracy). At some point, free public, non-sectarian education will disappear and this religious right-wing indoctrination is all that will be available. Homeschooling may be available, but the lessons will be slanted and it will be up to the parents to fill in the blanks and not get caught.

I fear the "brave new world" we're entering if the PTB on the side of Democracy don't start fighting harder to save our institutions of Democracy, chief among them our Executive office and the Judiciary. (sigh)

[Lonestarblue]

10. The NYT had an article about this case yesterday, and part of the problem is LGBTQ discrimination.

The religious school refuses to accept LGBTQ students or kids of LGBTQ parents. SO if the SC forces Maine taxpayers to subsidize this school, they will be once again supporting discrimination against LGBTQ in violation of federal law. I suspect there is distant learning availability for kids in rural areas, but these parents simply want the state to pay for their religious indoctrination of their children.