Buffman

Here are two recent extracts taken from the "Orlando Sentinel." The fist is an excerpt from an article by Scott Powers, a Sentinel Staff Writer.

1. "When a judge chopped down Florida's school-voucher program earlier this month (Aug) using a 19th century provision in the state Constitution, officials suddenly grew nervous about what else those words could topple.

Florida Hospital and other religious -based medical centers depend on state Medicaod checks to cover patients' bills. College students take state financial aid to church-affiliated schools. A group called Faith Inc. gets state money to teach people about AIDS. Barry University School of Law, a Catholic-run institution, gets tax dollars to provide free legal services to the poor.

By conservative estimates, hundreds of millions of dollars from the state's $50.4 billion budget go each year to religion-affiliated groups or institutions. Examples can be found in almost every area---from education to health to prisons to business development.

If it's unconstitutional for the state to pay tuition at a church-based school for a child from a failing public school, what other state spending might be at risk if someone pushed hard enough?

"We provide money to faith-based groups at every level of government," Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan said. "Are we now saying that we're going to stop funding all of those things?"

Special Note: <a href="http://www.eog.state.fl.us/eog/overview/ltgovbio.html" target="_blank">http://www.eog.state.fl.us/eog/overview/ltgovbio.html</a>

(Extract)
The youngest and first Republican Commissioner of Education for Florida, Lt. Governor Brogan made his mark as a staunch supporter of higher academic standards. His most important legacy was bringing greater accountability to Florida schools. Key changes included: (1) the development of a process to identify and improve low performing schools; (2) the passage of the Sunshine State Standards, Florida's academic standards now required of students as they progress from grade to grade; (3) and the implementation of Florida's new statewide testing program - "the FCAT" - Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests.
(End extract)

The Florida Voucher program is dependent on the above program to determine which public schools can be declared as failing and thus allowing parents to pull their children from those schools...rather than improving them. So now, all public schools teach so that they won't fail the FCAT rather than educating the students to be productive and participatory citizens capable of critical and independent reasoning.

By the time I had read this much, I was already wondering how much this journalist had been influenced to slant the article in the manner that he had. Then I read this little tid-bit buried in the "B" section of Monday's "The Area In Brief" column.

2. "Church leaders from around the state will meet in Orlando on Tuesday and Wednesday for a summit on faith-based initiatives. The summit was called by Gov. Jeb Bush.

The summit at the Royal Pacific Resort will focus on federal and state government efforts to assist faith-based groups. Bush will give an update of White House faith-based initiatives, and Orlando Mayor Glennda Hood will speak on a panel about aligning state, volunteer, business and foundation interests to support faith-based initiatives."

My first question was, "I wonder exactly who was extended an invitation to attend this two day soirée?" That question was followed
by, "I wonder exactly how much this is costing the Florida taxpayers?" My final question was, "Why does it seem that so few people really care how the State spends their tax dollars..and keep voting for these anti-constitutional Robber Barons of the Religious Right?"

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Buffman ]

[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Buffman ]</p>

gravitybow

Because fear and slippery slope arguments work on voters. In this logic pretzel, the argument is that if we can't continually add new faith-based initiatives, the entire state/religious structure as people are comfortable with it may collapse.
Whatever "all of those things" are is not mentioned, but the implication is that all those "things" are things that voters and lawmakers have worked hard to achieve and may disappear with this one ruling, and we should be afraid of that. So we must continue to have more in order to save what we have.