Today’s letter-to-the-editor appears in the Kennebec Journal of Augusta, Maine, the state capital. The title is Religious schools face discrimination, and the newspaper has a comments section.
Because the writer isn’t a politician, preacher, or other public figure, we won’t embarrass or promote him by using his full name. His first name is Albert. Excerpts from his letter will be enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary, some bold font for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]. Here we go!
The state pays for private or public high schools but not religious schools, even though they get an equivalent education. This is a blatant discrimination against religion; these students take the same SAT tests to qualify for college as the public school students do.
Verily, it’s an outrage! Then Albert says:
The state seems willing to take tax money for public schools from parents that send their children to religious schools. This is unfair. These parents pay for their own transportation and supplies. This is all analogous to Revolutionary War times of taxing without representation. [Wow!] Christian school students should at very least get vouchers for their tuition and expenses.
Albert is very angry. He tells us:
The Constitution clearly states freedom of religion, not from religion. [Yeah, “of” not “from”!] The First Amendment to the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” I don’t see any “constitutionally protected freedom from religion” in our Constitution.
Albert doesn’t like it, but the courts have consistently interpreted that to mean that Congress can’t tax us to support religion. See the Wikipedia article on the Establishment Clause. Albert continues:
However, a religion is embedded in all public school teaching. [Really?] It is Darwinism.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Let’s read on:
A good book for Waddell [a columnist Albert is responding to] or anyone is “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Strobel.
That old clunker? Lee Strobel is praised at creationist websites. Wikipedia says that his book, The Case for a Creator (Amazon listing), “consists of interviews with intelligent design advocates and Christian apologists who argue for the existence of a creator.” In your Curmudgeon’s opinion, interviews with believers, whether they believe in deities, UFO abductions, or the Tooth Fairy, isn’t evidence of anything — other than the existence of believers.
The final paragraph is praise for Strobel’s book:
He was an atheist investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune. His wife became a Christian and he saw such a change in her that he decided to take time off and investigate through science as to what the truth was. He claims that higher science has largely refuted Darwin. Public schools still teach it.
That was a powerful letter. Albert not only knows his science, he also knows the Constitution. Why doesn’t anyone pay attention to him?
Copyright © 2019. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Here’s Albert
https://lcnme.com/currentnews/whitefield-presents-boston-post-cane-to-local-legend-albert-boynton/
Here’s Tom:
https://ffrf.org/outreach/awards/nothing-fails-like-prayer-award/item/30652-tom-waddell
I don’t have any children of school age. Yet the state takes my money to pay for schools.
BTW, I wasn’t aware that in the USA tax money goes to private schools.
@TomS
Republicans have been changing all the rules regarding the funding of fundie and other Christian schools. Also, our dear Sec of Ed, Betsy Devos, has been hard at work to gut rules on this subject.
Do they get an equivalent education? And then there’s that pesky First Amendment.
Nonsense. These people are represented (too well, in my opinion) in our governments, from the municipal level on up. But being represented doesn’t necessarily mean getting your way.
So if Congress were to pass a law demanding that every American join a church, and just didn’t pick any particular church to favor, that would be constitutional? Pull the other one.
But that’s what such people want. And if they got their way, they’d find excuses for forcing particular religious beliefs down people’s throats.
The title of this blog post deserves a place along the Ingsoc Mottos gracing Oceania’s Minitrue:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
DARWINISM IS TYRANNY
defective closing tag! Mea culpa, apologies
[*Voice from above*] After a lifetime of atrocities, that bothers you?
Off-topic: how excited are you, dear Mega, about the prospect of Donald the Clown’s naughty little nephew becoming your PM? Today is the day, isn’t it?
@ FrankB I, for one, do not welcome our new unconscionable overlord.
A nation mourns–and the rest of the planet laughs…
Mon Dieu, ayez pitié de lui et de son pauvre peuple.
Poor Megalonyx…
Growing up in Oz, as a child, we worshipped Darwin by dressing up in ape costumes, gibbering and jabbering away as we cavorted around a giant plywood monolith, with the Great Man’s visage crudely scrawled over it in crayon, until finally one among us — driven batty by the celestial microtonal choral music accompanying our simian antics — reached out a clumsy digit and made contact with the sacred object.
From there, we gravitated to throwing bones in the air. Gimme that old time religion!
For those not entirely up to date with Dutch history: EddieJ quotes our Father of the Fatherland, Willem van Oranje Nassau, great-grandfather of William III who ruled England and Scotland in that time after the Glorious Revolution that those countries were more or less Dutch colonies (the Brits were proud enough not to repeat this experiment after William and Mary had died).
Maybe the Brits should repeat this idea and invite Dutch PM Mark Rutte? He’s not that good and personally I’d be glad to be rid of him, but he’s certainly not as bad as whoever will enter Downing Street 10 today. And one Cambridge taxi driver once told me that of all the Europeans we Dutchies are closest and most sympathetic to the Brits. Given the popularity of Dad’s Army, Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Absolutely Fabulous, Keeping up Appearances, the Young Ones and Yes, Minister he had a point.
chris schilling: It’s good you grew up in Oz as a child. So many have to do it as an adult; and then there are those, like Albert, who haven’t managed it yet, despite ninety-plus years of practice.
“… then there are those, like Albert, who haven’t managed it yet, despite ninety-plus years of practice.”
“Practice”? He hasn’t even been trying!
WAR IS HOLY
FREEDOM IS HERESY
IGNORANCE IS MANDATORY
DARWINISM IS TO BLAME