The Jan. 20 New York Times reports something that is absolutely unbelievable, even in the American South. School tax credit “scholarships”, which are basically taxpayer subsidized ways to pay for private schooling, are being used in Georgia to send students which have strict and explicit anti-gay policies. (These vouchers come from donations of private organizations, which then receive tax credits.)
The schools are, of course, religious:
At issue is an increasingly popular tax credit program that transforms state money into private school scholarships, some of them used at religious-based schools that prohibit gay, lesbian or bisexual students from attending.
The policies at more than 100 such schools are explicit.
The 400 students at a private school in Woodstock, for example, must adhere to a policy that states, “Homosexual behavior, whether an ‘immoral act’ or ‘identifying statement,’ is incompatible with enrollment at Cherokee Christian Schools and is a basis for dismissal.”
A male student at the Shiloh Hills Christian School in Kennesaw, who utters “I like boys” or “I am a homosexual” will be expelled.
And at the 800-student Providence Christian Academy 20 miles north of Atlanta, a student who is gay, lesbian or bisexual or supports people who are could be kicked out.
At least 115 religious-based schools in Georgia have severe antigay policies, according to a report issued this month by the Southern Education Foundation. Public information about the scholarship program is limited by law, so the number is probably much higher, according to the foundation, which was founded in 1867 to improve education for poor children in the South.
Now this is clearly publicly-subsidized education, because those organizations providing such scholarship pay less taxes. And it’s publicly-subsidized discrimination against gays. Even some Georgia legislators recognize that:
“We are circumventing our own public policy with public money,” said State Representative Stacey Abrams, the leader of the Democratic minority in the House. “In our public schools, we do not disallow a child from attending on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
“If this were to be happening at any public school,” she said, “the lawsuit would be great and the settlement extraordinary.”
We need a lawsuit, but according to the Times article nobody has yet come forward (though one person got a settlement): you need “standing” to bring such a suit, which means that you need to show your rights have been abrogated by this policy. Ideally, you’d want a gay kid who was either denied a scholarship or kicked out of school because he said “I like boys” (OMG).
And the excuse of the politicians and school administrators who favor this project is pathetic:
School administrators, legislators and parents who prefer an education based on a specific biblical moral code say the program helps the state save money. Children whose families might not otherwise be able to afford private school tuition get an accredited education at less cost to the state than if the student stayed in public school.
And, they argue, the scholarship program is not discriminatory because it is open to all kinds of schools that might have different philosophical foundations than state-run public schools. It is a matter of choice and religious freedom, they say.
“You can be a Jewish school. You can be a Muslim school. It’s the same as a Catholic school or if I wanted to go to an all-girls school or a homosexual school,” said Claudia Hunt, who runs admissions for the Providence Christian Academy, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school in Lilburn.
“That is why we are independent schools,” she said. “We all have different missions.”
First of all, these scholarships are overwhelmingly for Christian schools; I doubt that any of the scholarships have been given for Muslim schools, and probably few, if any, for Jewish schools. And for crying out loud, “homosexual schools”? Where are they? But the point is that government money should not be used to subsidize any form of discrimination (I am conflicted about all-girl or all-boy schools because, in the end, those involve discrimination too). Yes, the scholarship program is not discriminatory against schools, except that most religious schools in the South are Christian, and you don’t have a choice if you go to school near home. These scholarships should not only be prohibited for schools that discriminate against gays, but also for schools that provide religious education for kids (aka child abuse). After all, that involves taxpayers subsidizing faith.
h/t: Miss May
You are asking Georgians to go against a long historic tradition. In the 1950s and 1960s, when courts were ordering school desegregation, the racist establishments in many southern states set up whites-only private schools, and large numbers of white parents pulled their kids out of public schools and sent them to these “segregation academies”. As part of their strategy of “massive resistance”, legislators also suddenly got enthusiastic about voucher plans to use public money to pay for this attendance. And of course, that was money that was subtracted from the budget of public schools.
Now we are seeing the same strategy replayed. Of course they are probably defending it by quoting Martin Luther King.
This is absolutely true. Race and public schooling and desegregation is a very sticky issue down here. My hometown in Alabama skirts desegregation laws by frequent rezoning into “neighborhood schools” — the argument being something like, “Your side of town is all black, and you chose to live there, so you can’t complain that all the schools on that side of town are also all black and have no money.” I got a great education from the public school system there, but the system has been rapidly deteriorating over the last 10 years, academically and politically. I’m glad I’m gone, sad to say. I’m waiting for the day (probably soon) when vouchers take over Alabama like they have here in Louisiana.
Life in Tea Party America. Grim.
“Homosexual school”??? I grew up in lovely Alabama, and that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that one.
Georgia is making the news right now for this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Christian schools in Louisiana that are funded by government-sponsored vouchers have similar policies. I would not be surprised at all. You could’ve attributed Claudia Hunt’s words to Bobby Jindal and I wouldn’t have blinked.
Come up to Milwaukee, home of the Charter School movement. This isn’t just a southern problem. (although I’m not aware of this kind of explicitly homophobic money transfers here)
You’re certainly right. I focus on news from the South because I live here. But while the stupid is concentrated in this region, its tendrils do reach far and wide.
Yesterday, the Ontario, Canada, Liberal Party just selected a female, out lesbian — Kathleen Wynne, to be their leader to replace Dalton McGuinty who earlier resigned . Since the Liberals are already in power and she already is in the government – Ontario now has their first female and first openly lesbian, or gay for that matter Premier (like a U.S. Governor).
Come to Ontario where, at least for now – there is an election coming soon the winds of change are fresh.
That sounds delightful. I was in Ottawa last summer for a meeting, and the change from the U.S. South was refreshing.
The fellow who said “homosexual school” may have in mind New York City’s Harvey Milk High School which is not limited to but encourages enrollment of gays, lesbians, and transgendered kids, and it’s a public school.
A rational article about it may by found at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk_High_School
A less rational article (which falsely states the school is limited to gay students) may be found at World Nut (oops, I meant Net) Daily here
http://www.wnd.com/2003/07/20005/
“We all have different missions.”
No, you all have the same missiion – balkanizing the goddam country.
+1
I presume it would be illegal to deny a child enrollment if they were black, regardless of whether or not the school is taxpayer subsidized. I don’t see how this is any different, but I’m not an American 🙂
In any case, the majority of American States have no anti-discrimination statutes covering gays, and there is no federal law on this, either, unlike most of the developed world.
I presume these voucher schemes have so far evaded an Establishment Clause challenge because parents can “choose” what kind of school to spend them on, which then makes a challenge to religious instruction difficult. I think I read last week about a brouhaha going on in Louisiana where vouchers were being used to support schools teaching creationism, which seems like the same issue.
There was even a public outcry last summer by a Republican state congresswoman in Louisiana when she realized that the voucher money can be used at ANY private school in Louisiana, including the “thousands of Muslim schools in the state” (or something like that). It was pretty amazing. Up until that point, it was only an unspoken understanding that the motive behind the vouchers was Christian education.
Guess again.
White xian academy is synonymous with private school set up to avoid racial integration.
Chances are they are all white and that is and was their original reason for existing.
So I’m learning 🙁
I was interested to note that Georgia with the exception of Atlanta, has no laws prohibiting workplace discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation.
We get levied a kind of poll tax to support Christian schools that we are not allowed to attend. Don’t we have courts to protect the citizenry against these religious Jim Crow Laws. Alas the the days when courts had the moxy to make decisions like Brown vs. Board of Education have passed.
Undoubtedly, these private religious schools are also creationist and have minimal sex ed.
Fundie death cult xianity is a package of delusions, lies, and hatred.
Since they are in the south, they are also probably de facto racist and all white. They were mostly set up to avoid integration.
A lot of them also yield a substandard education. They are private and one way to pay the owners is to not pay the teachers much.
In one school I’m aware of, all the teachers are part time to get around a lot of state and federal laws about pay. They have no retirement plan, no health insurance, no benefits whatsoever and the pay isn’t so great either.
Tribalism at its finest. That is where we are heading back to. What a shame. Hasn’t history taught us anything????
A lot of folks don’t seem to understand that just because you can cite religious reasons for your bigotry doesn’t make your views no longer bigoted. ALL bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, and general fuckwittery can claim to have some sort of “philosophical foundation.” So what? Respect for diversity and choice doesn’t entail that a secular government no longer has any way of judging what is and is not acceptable for public monies. “Ohhh, they have a reason which makes sense only to themselves. Well, there’s no way to criticize any more, is there?”
For too long “faith” has been treated like a sacred citadel, a sanctuary from the need to make sense to other people. Not when you intrude it into the public square, folks.
QFT.
So, on top of discrimination based on sexual orientation, there is violation of freedom of speech added for good measure.
That means the Premier of Ontario, Canada (Harvard educated by the way) would not be allowed admission to this school or would be kicked out if already admitted. Clearly this kind of discrimination will make the quality of schools with this sort of charter deteriorate.
(See my response to number 3 above)
As a Georgian, I’m disgusted. I immediately fired off an email to Governor Nathan Deal, but I’m not expecting a response. I’ll follow up if I hear anything back.
Thanks for doing that!
Its been my experience that they are or at least feel obliged to respond to communications that are reasonably written. However, their responses aren’t necessarily worth receiving. Persistence often is somewhat rewarding, keep knocking at the door and different doors that might be connected in different ways.
Best wishes for your success.
So it’s OK for the state to subsidize bigotry, but the Federal gub’mint ain’t allowed to give munny to anyone associated with Family Planning. Just love those Republican hypocrites. I wonder if the voucher system itself would pass an examination by the courts; you don’t have to be a victim to challenge a law.
I don’t find any kind of segregation acceptable, and that includes boys’ or girls’ schools. It is important for people to socialize across religions, classes, ethnicities and genders during their formative years, so that everybody learns to tolerate and realizes that the others are decent people too, no matter what your parents or priests tell you.
(And in the case of the class issue, it is important that the rich and powerful have a stake in the public school system. If they are allowed to pull their kids and send them to private schools, they have no interest in adequate funding of the public schools.)
There simply must be different solutions to whatever problems some people see with coeducation than pulling the girls out.
When the Progressive Revolution takes place, one of the earliest of its edicts will be a flat requirement that all children attend public schools. No private or parochial schools allowed, no home schooling. If you want to abuse your kids by indoctrinating them, you’ll have to do it on your own nickel and your own time.
Yes, there will be collateral damage to the good private schools, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
What are these schools afraid off. Give me a break! I guess all the students will become gay. I think time will enlighten many.
At a City Council Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee on Tuesday, former city councilman Gary Okino told members querying him on his nomination that “I have no tolerance for homosexuality” and that gay people “are in danger not only spiritually but physically.”
“Just as people are not tolerant of murder or drug abuse, I have no tolerance for homosexuals.” Okino said he is Catholic.
Despite the comments and objections raised by several gay rights activists at the meeting, the committee voted 7-0 to send Okino’s nomination to a final vote before the full Council on Wednesday.
Then somebody turned on the fan.
Mid-Friday afternoon, Honolulu Mayor Caldwell sent a letter to the council chair withdrawing Okino’s nomination.
“There is no place for discrimination of any kind in city government…. I find his position on the gay community to be a problem,” Caldwell said.
Forgive me. I (Ray) can’t help bragging about Hawaii. We’re lined up for more improvements this legislative session.
If these schools do not allow anyone to attend than they should not be getting state or federal money. They should be private in every way including monetary. This is appauling!