What Those School Vouchers Could Mean to You

By Clive Thomas After over a decade as a media figure (TV News Anchor and Radio Talk Show Host) in Orlando, Florida, Clive Thomas finally came out in front of 50,000 listeners on April 1st, 1993. He's been in graphic design and real estate investment ever since. How would you like it if the following were to be taught as the God's Honest Truth to every kid at a school in your town? Clive Thomas "If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death." How would you like it if the state ordered you to pay everything from the electric bill to the teachers' salaries at that school? Can't happen here? What is this, Iran? Afghanistan? This is the USA, and we've got laws against state-mandated support of religion, fundamentalist nutball schools included. Well, that used to be true. That was until the Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin ruled that it's Ok to take the dollars raised from citizens in the form of school taxes and hand them over to church schools. It's estimated their take may exceed $20,000,000 just in the City of Milwaukee this school year. It's all done through the miracle of the Voucher Plan. If you happen to be a big-time drug pusher, you have a name for this "miracle", and so do the cops. It's called Money Laundering. It's not legal to sell crack or heroine, so pushers can't just take the profits from that business directly to the bank. The money must be "laundered", usually through some sort of legit business front. Then they run it to the bank. Similarly, it's not legal for government to tax citizens and just hand that money over to churches. If, say, you're a Republican Lawmaker and your party owes its butt to right wing religious money and influence, and you want to help certain preachers to tap into the tax till, you need some way to get around the law (AKA: the separation clause of the First Amendment). What you can now do is issue a sort of blank check , one for each school-aged kid. THE blank checks will start out at about $4,500. Since the term "blank check" sounds a bit squirrely, you'll use the term "Voucher". You give these "Vouchers" to the kids' parents, on the understanding that when they fill in the blank line for "payee", they must designate a school. If they fill in the name of a church school, that's exactly where the tax money goes. Care to guess what percentage of private schools in the USA are church run? How about 90 plus %! Again, if a drug pusher tries this little two-step money scrub, any judge would put him (and his banker too) away for 10 to 20..... that's assuming the judge is not on the pusher's payroll. But, at least in Wisconsin, judges seem to have no problem when the state and the churches are running a Laundromat. You may have read on this site last week that lawyers are planning to challenge the Milwaukee School Voucher Money Laundering Scheme in the U.S. Supreme Court. They will allege School Vouchers are a clear violation of church-state separation. Be prepared to see these good guys lose. The other side will argue that no actual vouchers ever go to churches, but only to good tax paying parents. The fact that the parents may then funnel t-a-x-m-o-n-e-y by the millions right to the church schools is beside the point. Ya gotta trust folks to act in the best interests of their own kids, don't ya? It's better than trusting bureaucrats and teachers' unions, huh? Voucher backers will also argue that the entire voucher plan is 110% secular. It is merely a tool to be used by taxpaying moms and dads to craft a better, more responsive education system. Parents will reward good schools and effective educators with vouchers. To dismantle vouchers is to dismantle a free marketplace. Let's say, like 98% of the Republican Party, the justices just can't see any constitutional flaws in all this. Then what? I say, it's time to try a little judicial juitsu; to use the religious right's own arguments to derail their raid on the nation's public education funds. So your Voucher scheme is all secular, eh? So it's just a better , more effective way to conduct state business? Well excuse me, Pat Robertson, but I'm a taxpayer-type, and I can't seem to find my chance to join in this process. The number of kids I have isn't counted when I'm asssed for school taxes. But when it comes to the voice that vouchers will give people in shaping education, I'm silenced. Included out! I got no kids - I get no vouchers. Pat Robertson You'll still want me to pay my same old school taxes, though, won't you? It really comes down to this: if some guy down the street is using tax -funded vouchers to support a church school which preaches hate and horse manure, I want my equal right to support another school that's teaching reasonableness and reason. (Maybe the Unitarians run one somewhere.) I believe that's called the constitutional guarantee of "EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER LAW". I don't know how they're going to work this out and still have a viable Voucher Plan. Frankly, I don't think they can. While we're speaking of equality, if Robertson, Falwell et al, can throw around Bible quotes totally out of context, it wouldn't be considered a Special Privilege for a gay guy to do it? Would it? Just once? So, God. What's Your opinion of this School Voucher scheme? "IT SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH!" Amen!

© 1997-98 BEI