SCOTUS forces Maine’s taxpayers to fund religious indoctrination & discriminatory schools in precedent-smashing decision

 Fr. Slate 6/21/22

The Supreme Court Just Forced Maine to Fund Religious Education. It Won’t Stop There.

Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion has the potential to dismantle secular public education in the United States.

By Mark Joseph Stern

June 21, 20222:04 PM

 

The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority effectively declared on Tuesday that the separation of church and state—a principle enshrined in the Constitution—is, itself, unconstitutional. Its 6–3 decision in Carson v. Makin requires Maine to give public money to private religious schools, steamrolling decades of precedent in a race to compel state funding of religion. Carson is radical enough on its own, but the implications of the ruling are even more frightening: As Justice Stephen Breyer noted in dissent, it has the potential to dismantle secular public education in the United States.

Carson challenges Maine’s effort to provide quality civic education to every child in the state. The government created a tuition assistance program to help families who live in remote, sparsely populated regions without any public schools. Under the program, parents can send their kids to certain private schools, and the state covers the cost of tuition. To qualify, these schools must give students a secular education. They may be affiliated with, or even run by, a religious organization. But their actual curricula must align with secular state standards.

Two families challenged this limitation, arguing that it violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. Just two decades ago, this claim would’ve been laughed out of court: SCOTUS only permitted states to subsidize religious schools in 2002; at the time, it would’ve been absurd to say that states have a constitutional obligation to subsidize them. Beginning in 2017, the court began to assert that states may not exclude religious schools from public benefits that are available to their secular counterparts. And in 2020, the conservative justices forced states to subsidize religious schools once they began subsidizing secular private education.

Tuesday’s decision in Carson takes this radical theory to a new extreme, ordering Maine to extend public education funds to religious indoctrination.

The upshot of Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for the court is that states have no compelling interest in providing public, secular education to children. Indeed, Roberts suggests that the very concept of secular schooling is a smokescreen for “discrimination against religion”—a pretext for unconstitutional animus toward pious Americans. His opinion reaches far beyond Maine. About 37 states have amendments to their constitutions that bar government funding of religious institutions, including schools. Carson essentially invalidates those laws while undermining the broader constitutional basis for the nation’s public school system.

Roberts reached this astonishing result by overruling broad swaths of precedent respecting states’ authority to separate church and state more strictly than the U.S. Constitution requires. The court previously upheld states’ interest in avoiding the “establishment” of religion by refusing to underwrite the indoctrination of students into a particular faith. No longer. Roberts condemned Maine’s efforts to guard against religious establishment as nothing more than “discrimination against religion”—an effort to “exclude some members of the community” from public benefits “because of their religious exercise.” He also overruled a line of cases that let the government withhold funding on the basis of religious use (like indoctrination) but not religious status (like affiliation with a church). That distinction, he wrote, “lacks a meaningful application not only in theory, but in practice as well,” tossing it in the precedential dumpster.

It’s worth pausing to reflect on the victims of Tuesday’s decision.

The chief justice maintained that Carson’s rule only kicks in once a state starts sending taxpayer dollars to private schools through vouchers, tax credits, or scholarships. So, in theory, a state can send all its money to public schools and avoid constitutional concerns. Even if that’s true, the consequences are sweeping: Most states offer at least one of these programs, so Carson gives millions of families an opportunity to bail out of the public school system and demand public money for parochial education.

 

But can this distinction hold? Roberts’ bright line dims under scrutiny: Maine, after all, wanted private schools to replace public education for some students, not supplement it. And yet the court found no good reason for the state to insist that these substitute schools adhere to secular standards. Indeed, the chief justice’s rhetoric depicts education not as a state-sponsored benefit for all, but rather as a personal matter best left up to parents. There is, he claimed, no “historic and substantial state interest” in preserving secular education. If that’s true, how can any state refuse to fund religious schooling?

Breyer raised these questions in dissent. Does Carson, he asked, “mean that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools?” In other words, must every state begin cutting checks to parents who want to give their kids a Christian education? Does Carson mean “school districts that give vouchers for use at charter schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to give their children a religious education?” Can states even mandate secular curricula at charter schools any more? Who knows? In the end, the only limit on Carson is whatever five justices want it to be.

It’s worth pausing, as both Breyer and Justice Sonia Sotomayor did in dissent, to reflect on the victims of Tuesday’s decision. The two Maine schools that may now receive public funding are openly discriminatory, expelling students and teachers who do not adhere to evangelical Christianity. LGBTQ students, as well as straight children of same-sex couples, are not welcome, nor are LGBTQ teachers. Even custodians must be born-again Christians. One school teaches students to “refute the teachings of the Islamic religion” and believe that men serve as the head of the household. Another requires students to sign a “covenant” promising to glorify Jesus Christ and attend weekly religious services.

“Legislators,” Breyer wrote, “did not want Maine taxpayers to pay for these religiously based practices,” as doing so might violate their own faith or conscience. The majority tells these Mainers their own views don’t matter, because the First Amendment forces them to foot the bill for other people’s religious indoctrination. Doing so creates a “serious risk of religion-based social divisions,” Breyer explained, exacerbating the “religious strife” that the religion clauses “were designed to prevent.” Sotomayor put the point more sharply: “While purporting to protect against discrimination of one kind,” she wrote, “the court requires Maine to fund what many of its citizens believe to be discrimination of other kinds.”

 The conservative majority, however, has perfected the art of ignoring genuine discrimination while perceiving anti-Christian persecution where none exists. In the process, they are elevating the rights of one sect over all others. Carson will not benefit any religious minorities; there are not enough Muslims or Jews to create a school in the far-flung corners of Maine. Every time Roberts uses the word “religion,” he might as well be saying “Christian.” The right will praise Carson as a triumph of religious liberty. But if you practice a religion that does not stand to gain from the ruling, your liberty does not matter to this Supreme Court.

 

 

Blasphemy!!!

In the United States, a few state legal codes still contain 

anti-blasphemy laws, but they generally are not enforced

Generally not enforced

There is a problem with looking for truth. The search sometimes or often reveals inconvenient truth. That  applies to people who accept inconvenient truth as truth. People who reject it as lies are comfortable and self-assured. 

As we all know, Blasphemy!!! once was a crime punishable by death as shown in this historically accurate documentary of early America as fully documented in accord with Christian Young Earth theory: 

Clearly, it is best to not have fresh halibut for dinner. But that is a digression.

Despite my false belief, it has come to my attention that Blasphemy!!! is still illegal in parts of America. The Centre for Inquiry Canada (CFIC) writes:

To understand secularism, is to understand the interaction between law and religion. While there are a variety of ways that religion indirectly influences law (such as laws which have the same effect as enforcing a religious perspective on all people in the country), the most direct influence is through blasphemy laws. CFIC encourages an understanding of all blasphemy laws and how they impact their local societies and people around the world. In this article, CFIC examines blasphemy laws in the USA. In 2011 Pew Research Center published a study indicating that 59 countries (30%) still have some form of legislation against blasphemy, apostasy or religious defamation. While nationally the United States has deemed blasphemy laws unconstitutional, some states still have them on the books. In the 1952 case of Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, the U.S. Supreme Court found that

“the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them. . . . It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine . . . .”

Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Wyoming, have laws which reference blasphemy.

For example, Massachusetts, General Laws, Chapter 272, Section 36:

Whoever willfully blasphemes the holy name of God by denying, cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, his creation, government or final judging of the world, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching or exposing to contempt and ridicule, the holy word of God contained in the holy scriptures shall be punished by imprisonment in jail for not more than one year or by a fine of not more than three hundred dollars, and may also be bound to good behavior.

It makes one wonder, if these laws are never enforced, why does it matter that they exist? They may rarely be enforced but their existence allows for some cases to be brought forward. A Pennsylvanian filmmaker was turned down in 2007 for a corporate name “I Choose Hell Productions”, based on Pennsylvania’s blasphemy law. States have symbolic power to enforce these laws. It’s a form of moral condemnation as stated by Sarah Barringer Gordon, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Blasphemy laws:

• Restrict freedom of speech
• Infringe on the right to freedom of religion
• Often lead to human rights violations during enforcement
• Can incite mass violence
• Fail to promote religious harmony which is supposedly the intention

From that, one can see that Blasphemy!!! could be an issue in the 2022 and/or 2024 elections. Possibly also fresh halibut.

Q: Since congress is busy endlessly bickering, deceiving the public and thumb twiddling, should outlawing American Blasphemy!!! laws be ignored because US citizens can defend themselves because they are armed with AR-15 assault rifles and billions of rounds of bone-shattering, flesh-ripping ammo?

Crisis pregnancy centers: Places of immoral deceit, lies, disrespect and psychological pressure

This pregnancy crisis center is not what it appears to be

They help by deceiving, lying and disrespecting

vulnerable women

With abortion soon to become illegal in about half the states, I noticed a gap in my blog content. I haven’t focused on places called pregnancy crisis centers (CPCs). These places are usually located in low income neighborhoods. They are advertised as offering free abortion services. But for the most part, the industry is a morally rotted Christian fraud. What services they do provide is intense psychological and emotional pressure and fear-inducing lies to con a woman out of having an abortion. Their “services” are exclusively anti-abortion and almost always incomplete and/or wrong. The pressure and lies are usually provided by people skilled in manipulating people and exploiting human vulnerability at times of actual personal crisis and confusion.

An article published by the AMA Journal of Ethics, Why Crisis Pregnancy Centers Are Legal but Unethical, discusses CPCs and their legality. The article comments:

Crisis pregnancy centers are organizations that seek to intercept women with unintended pregnancies who might be considering abortion. Their mission is to prevent abortions by persuading women that adoption or parenting is a better option. They strive to give the impression that they are clinical centers, offering legitimate medical services and advice, yet they are exempt from regulatory, licensure, and credentialing oversight that apply to health care facilities. Because the religious ideology of these centers’ owners and employees takes priority over the health and well-being of the women seeking care at these centers, women do not receive comprehensive, accurate, evidence-based clinical information about all available options. Although crisis pregnancy centers enjoy First Amendment rights protections, their propagation of misinformation should be regarded as an ethical violation that undermines women’s health.

Drive down any highway in America, and you might see a sign: “Pregnant? Scared? Call 1-800-555-5555.” Most often, these signs are advertisements for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). CPCs, sometimes known as “pregnancy resource centers,” “pregnancy care centers,” “pregnancy support centers,” or simply “pregnancy centers,” are organizations that seek to intercept women with unintended or “crisis” pregnancies who might be considering abortion. Their mission is typically to prevent abortions by persuading women that adoption or parenting is a better option [1, 2]. One of the first CPCs opened in 1967 in Hawaii [3].

Most CPCs are religiously affiliated [4], and a majority are affiliated with a network or umbrella organization such as Birthright International, Care Net, Heartbeat International, or the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates [1, 3]. These umbrella organizations offer legal support, ultrasound training, and other services to CPCs. With an estimated 1,969 network-affiliated CPCs in the US in 2010 [1], CPCs outnumber abortion clinics, which were estimated at 327 as of 2011 [5]. Many state governments fund CPCs through mechanisms such as “Choose Life” specialty license plates and grants, and many also receive federal funding [3, 6].  

In this article, we will argue that both the lack of patient-centered care and deceptive practices make CPCs unethical. We will first highlight the discrepancy between the lack of standards for quality of care provided by CPCs and the innumerable restrictions on abortion clinics. We then show that CPCs violate principles of medical ethics, despite purporting to dispense medical advice.

An investigation about CPCs in California discussed the lies. That report commented:

These centers fraudulently present themselves as medical offices while their true intent is to lie to and shame women about their reproductive health options. CPCs use a wide array of deceptive tactics to push women to continue their pregnancies no matter what. 

Our investigation documents the lies told to our investigators and the shaming tactics used to discourage women from considering all of their options. A recently released national report by NARAL Pro-Choice America, Crisis Pregnancy Centers Lie: The Insidious Threat to Reproductive Health, confirms that CPCs are a threat to women’s reproductive health not only in California, but across the country.

CPCs Lie. 

CPC workers are well-trained to lie to women about physical and mental health issues they claim are associated with abortion. At every visit, our investigator reported that CPC workers repeated a similar set of lies and myths, noting, “it was scary how they all said the same things, it was like it didn’t matter who I was, they only had one script.” 

In 91 percent of the centers visited, this script included telling our investigator that having an abortion was linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility, miscarriage, and/or the made-up “post-abortion depression” that results in suicide. These are blatant lies that have been disproved and rejected by the medical community.   

“They had these booklets where it showed different methods of birth control; IUD, the ring, the depo shot, and all that. So I started reading them, and none of them said what the benefits were – all of them said the risks, the bad side effects, and how all of them cause ‘medical abortions.’” 

CPCs only offer abstinence as the sole option to prevent pregnancy.  

More than 67% of the locations intentionally referred to the fetus as “baby” and told our investigator she was already a mother because she was already pregnant. During a majority of visits, CPC workers used gruesome and graphic words to describe an abortion in the hopes of frightening and humiliating women. One CPC told our investigator that if an abortion is not done correctly chances are “they might puncture your uterus and vacuum your fallopian tubes shut.” This psychological warfare has no place in a real counseling session.

Once again, radical right Christianity in America shows that it has no moral qualm or feels any shame in engaging in deceit and emotional manipulation. Tactics like that are routine whenever the Christian elites say something is God’s will. The sacred ends justify the morally rotted means. They do not hesitate to deceive and put intense pressure on women in crisis. That is Christian moral rot on display for all to see.

Apparently, Christian Sharia law reads out of the Bible the commandment, Thou shalt not lie.[1] It is fine to shamelessly deceive and lie as long as the elites tell the flock God says so, and even if the Christian con game ruins someone’s life. 

This is the vision of America that the Republican Party and Christian nationalism staunchly supports and wants to enforce on the entire country, not just red states.

Q: Where the hell is public education in all of this mess? Most of the pregnant women who wind up at CPCs seem to be shockingly ignorant. Or, is subverting public education just another another Republican Party and Christian nationalist goal focused on keeping people ignorant and easier to deceive?

Q: Did Germaine do an adequate job of discussing what CPCs are?

Footnote: 

1. One source comments on what the Bible says about lies and deceit:

God says Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor (Exodus 20:16). In other words, Thou shall not lie to one another.

These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. (Proverbs 6:16-19) 

A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish. (Proverbs 19:9) 

Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him (Colossians 3:19) 

Etc. 

I'm no Bible expert, but stuff like that seems to at least hint that God does not condone deceit and fibbing. Or, with the radical right and CPCs are we merely witnessing routine, garden variety, moral rot?

Forced birth stories start to trickle out

Brooke Alexander cradles one of her twin daughters 

as she watches dad Billy High practice skateboarding tricks 

at the Portland Skate Park in Portland, TX

We all knew this day was coming. Now it is here. The Washington Post writes:

This Texas teen wanted an abortion. She now has twins.

Brooke Alexander found out she was pregnant 48 hours before the Texas abortion ban took effect

Running on four hours of sleep, the 18-year-old tried to feed both babies at once, holding Kendall in her arms while she tried to get Olivia to feed herself, her bottle propped up by a pillow. But the bottle kept slipping and the baby kept wailing. And Brooke’s boyfriend, Billy High, wouldn’t be home for another five hours.

“Please, fussy girl,” Brooke whispered.

She peeked outside the room, just big enough for a full-size mattress, and realized she had barely seen the sun all day. The windows were covered by blankets, pinned up with thumbtacks to keep the room cool. Brooke rarely ventured into the rest of the house. Billy’s dad had taken them in when her mom kicked them out, and she didn’t want to get in his way.

The hours without Billy were always the hardest. She knew he had to go — they relied entirely on the $9.75 an hour he made working the line at Freebirds World Burrito — but she tortured herself imagining all the girls he might be meeting. And she wished she had somewhere to go, too.

Brooke found out she was pregnant late on the night of Aug. 29, two days before the Texas Heartbeat Act banned abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, around six weeks of pregnancy. It was the most restrictive abortion law to take effect in the United States in nearly 50 years.

Nearly 10 months into the Texas law, they have started having the babies they never planned to carry to term.

Texas offers a glimpse of what much of the country would face if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as has been widely expected since a leaked draft opinion circulated last month.

Sometimes Brooke imagined her life if she hadn’t gotten pregnant, if Texas hadn’t banned abortion just days after she decided that she wanted one. She would have been in school, rushing from class to her shift at Texas Roadhouse, eyes on a real estate license that would finally get her out of Corpus Christi. She’d pictured an apartment in Austin and enough money for a trip to Hawaii, where she’d swim with dolphins in water so clear she could see her toes.

When both babies finally started eating, Brooke took out her phone and restarted the timer that had been running almost continuously since the day they were born.

She had 2½ hours until they’d have to eat again.

Leaving Billy in her bedroom with the pregnancy test, Brooke grabbed her keys and drove to her best friend’s house, where they sat on his bed and examined her options.

She could always get an abortion, she told him.

Then he reminded her of something she vaguely remembered seeing on Twitter: A new law was scheduled to take effect Sept. 1.

Brooke had 48 hours.

The abortion clinic in South Texas — two and a half hours from Corpus Christi — had no open slots in the next two days, with patients across the state racing to get into clinics before the law came down. When Brooke called, the woman on the end of the line offered the names and addresses of clinics in New Mexico, a 13-hour drive from Corpus Christi.

In the meantime, the woman said, Brooke could get an ultrasound somewhere nearby: If she was under six weeks, they could still see her.

“We’re gonna see how far along it is,” Brooke texted her dad, Jeremy Alexander, later that night. “See if abortion is an option.”

“What’s the cut off date,” he asked.

“They just passed a law today!!” she responded in the early hours of Sept. 1, referring to the ban that had just taken effect. “What are the f---ing odds I believe it’s 6 weeks.”

“Fingers crossed????” her dad said.

Brooke found a place that would perform an ultrasound on short notice — and scheduled an appointment for 9 a.m.

Whenever a new client walks into the Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend, they are asked to fill out a form. After all the usual questions — name, date of birth, marital status — comes the one that most interests the staff: “If you are pregnant, what are your intentions?”

From there, the team sorts each client into one of three groups:\

If they’re planning to have the baby: “LTC,” likely to carry.

If they’re on the fence: “AV,” abortion vulnerable.

If they’re planning to get an abortion: “AM,” abortion minded.

The Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend — which advertises itself as the region’s “#1 Source of Abortion Information” — is one of thousands of crisis pregnancy centers across the United States, antiabortion organizations that are often religiously affiliated.

When Brooke showed up with her mom for her appointment, she had no idea she’d walked into a facility designed to dissuade people from getting abortions. She also didn’t know how much significance her form held for the staff: By signaling that she wanted an abortion, she became their first “AM” of the Texas Heartbeat Act.

The advocate assigned to her case, Angie Arnholt, had been counseling abortion-minded clients at the pregnancy center for a year. While many of the center’s volunteers signed up only to talk to “LTCs” — happy conversations about babies their clients couldn’t wait to have — Arnholt, a 61-year-old who wears a gold cross around her neck, felt called to do what she could to help women "make a good decision,” she later told The Washington Post.

Back in a consultation room, Brooke told Arnholt all the reasons she wanted to get an abortion.

She’d just enrolled in real estate classes at community college, which would be her first time back in a classroom since she dropped out of high school three years earlier at 15.

She and Billy had been dating only three months.

Sitting across from Brooke and her mom, Arnholt opened “A Woman’s Right to Know,” an antiabortion booklet distributed by the state of Texas, flipping to a page titled “Abortion risks.”

The first risk listed was “death.”

As Brooke listened to Arnholt’s warnings — of depression, nausea, cramping, breast cancer, infertility — she tried to stay calm, reminding herself that women get abortions all the time. Still, Brooke couldn’t help fixating on some of the words Arnholt used: Vacuum suction. Heavy bleeding. Punctured uterus. (Serious complications from abortion are rare. Abortion does not increase the risk of mental illness, breast cancer or infertility, according to leading medical organizations.)

Starting to panic, Brooke looked over at her mom.

Arnholt ushered Brooke into the ultrasound room, where Brooke undressed from the waist down and lay back onto an examination table, looking up at a large flat-screen TV.

As the ultrasound technician pressed the probe into her stomach, slathered with gel, Brooke willed the screen to show a fetus without a heartbeat.

The technician gasped.

It was twins. And they were 12 weeks along.

“Are you sure?” Brooke said.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” Thomas recalled saying as she jumped up and down. “This is a miracle from the Lord. We are having these babies.”

Brooke felt like she was floating above herself, watching the scene below. Her mom was calling the twins “my babies,” promising Brooke she would take care of everything, as the ultrasound technician told her how much she loved being a twin.

If she really tried, Brooke thought she could make it to New Mexico. Her older brother would probably lend her the money to get there. But she couldn’t stop staring at the pulsing yellow line on the ultrasound screen.

She wondered: If her babies had heartbeats, as these women said they did, was aborting them murder?

Eventually, Arnholt turned to Brooke and asked whether she’d be keeping them.

Brooke heard herself saying “yes.”  

Billy was scared to lose what he described as “the freedom of being a teenager.” After he graduated, he’d planned to keep working at Freebirds — just enough hours to get by — so he could maximize his skate time and “just chill.” People respected Billy at the skate park: Whenever he geared up to film some tricks, everyone else cleared out of the bowl.

By November, Billy was paying all of Brooke’s bills. She’d stopped working at Texas Roadhouse; the smell of the meat and grease had been making her sick to her stomach. To swing Brooke’s $330 car payment, they applied for a WIC card and ate ramen or pancakes for dinner. When they overdrafted Brooke’s credit card, Billy worked double shifts until he could pay it off.

Brooke wanted to work, but she couldn’t hack a waitressing job. At seven months pregnant, she struggled to stay on her feet for too long and felt utterly exhausted by even the simplest tasks. 

She started falling asleep while doing her homework. Then she missed a class. Then another.

When she decided to drop out of real estate school, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her teacher. She convinced herself it wasn’t that big of a deal — they’d be moving away soon anyway, and the Air Force would pay Billy enough to support them both.

Brooke wedged her real estate textbook in a line of books on her dresser, between “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and the fourth Harry Potter.

Maybe she’d come back to it one day.

There you have it. Christians shamelessly lying directly out of their self-righteous mouths to con women into carrying fetuses to term that they did not want. God's sacred ends, justify filthy means. Brooke's life is probably over and those sanctimonious Christians are not going to do much or anything to help. 

This won't be the last like it. Some women will be happy they were conned or forced into carrying a fetus to birth, some won't and some will be ambivalent. Lots of lives will be derailed. Society will pay a price.

One thing that's pretty sure, those self-righteous Christians are not going to pay to support their cruel con game. And why should they? Us idiot taxpayers are forced to support Christianity with billions in tax breaks every year. And, despite Republican opposition to social safety net spending, us idiots also pay for the unwanted children the Christian con artists foist on society and the mothers who cannot afford to raise children on their own.