Reason Argues Against School Vouchers

In response to the August 8 Republican-American editorial on school vouchers, I offer the following comments.

The fact that 38 states have adopted versions of the Blaine Amendment to protect the concept of separation of church and state is to their credit and good common sense. Florida’s recent court decision to use its version of the amendment to declare unconstitutional the state’s school voucher program was a wise and constitutional decision.

To be opposed to vouchers is not bigotry, as suggested by the editorial, but to promote and enable particular religious dogmas with tax dollars is to promote and enable bigotry.

The Supreme Court decision that "vouchers don’t run afoul of the constitution" was made possible by the partisan vote of a slim majority. It should be remembered that four of the judges were very much opposed that decision.

Jefferson aimed at complete separation of church and state and made that clear in his contribution to the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1776. He also made it clear at that time that he championed public education and that teachers should be drawn from the general population.

An important advantage of public education is that students are exposed to other cultures and ideas. This helps them to dispel myths and avoid stereotypes, which inevitably arise in all people when they are isolated and given a single point of view. An analogous situation is when an isolated scientist pursues a useless theory because he lacks the input of the total community of scientists and the total knowledge they possess. Scientists of the former Soviet Union are examples.

Create pockets of isolated education laced with a particular religious/ political ideology without the benefit of contact and firsthand knowledge of others, and you create persons with stereotypes, suspicion and hatred of anyone outside the pocket. Hereby you create the basis of conflict and outright war between these pockets. The U.S. is a union of many cultures and religious beliefs. We should take steps to foster understanding and cooperation among these groups, not foster dissent.

To say that vouchers will not favor any particular religion is erroneous, and those who think so need to consider a few facts. The religious fundamentalist right in this country, under such leadership as Pat Robertson and the Christian coalition, has been attacking public education with propaganda designed to destroy it while campaigning for vouchers that would enable them to educate and proselytize with public money. They are poised and ready to take advantage of vouchers as soon as they are allowed.

What of the many other Christians who differ from that faction along with the population of Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and non-religionist people who collectively outnumber fundamentalists? Are they to be forced to support that to which they are opposed? And what of the Islamic population, most of whom may well be moderate and not fundamentalist members of their religion?

There is no sure way to stop those fundamentalist Islamic people who we know to be militaristic terrorists from cashing in on the voucher program and financing their training centers. Vouchers cannot be limited to certain religious schools. Courts have ruled consistently that the government may not play favorites among religions or classes of people. To do this with vouchers would only raise an equal protection claim of religious discrimination. Voucher subsidies would then have to be available for any private school, even those run by unconventional or extremist groups with theologies or political views that most Americans find distasteful or dangerous.

Reason, logic and the facts argue against vouchers.