It is not, and never was, the job of our secular government to backstop anyone’s religion. The first Amendment makes it pretty clear that government cannot endorse one religion over another. If they want a Jewish school, then they can pay for it themselves. It is not the tax payers responsibility. Religious schools should not get one cent of public money for any reason.
The christianist right and other reichwing religionists bought and paid for those 6 SCOTUS JUSTICES AND by golly, they are determined to get one of these cases before them.
"Deutsch was a Democratic congressman from Florida from 1993-2005. But in 2024, he endorsed Donald Trump because of Trump’s supposed commitment to immigration policy, school choice, and—I kid you not—”world peace.”"
🤮 Florida is so far gone. Last time I visited (it was a funeral to get me there) I was surprised at how brainwashed/hateful even some young people were.
Because he's white. A majority of white American men -- as well as a majority of white American women -- have been giving their vote to Republican administrations nonstop for two generations. It's called:
"... because of Trump’s supposed commitment to immigration policy," ⬅️Yeah, they';; hide behind religious garb. They'll hide behind "immigration policy." They'll hide anywhere it's more comfortable for them, as long as they aren't accused of being racist, particularly anti-Black racist, the Republican wedge issue since Democrats passed the groundbreaking civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. There's a name for it:
Wow, did somebody spike the water supply in Oklahoma with something that suddenly made people come to their senses? First undoing the educational damage Ryan Childkiller Walters did and now this.
What we need to do now is to get the word out HERE in Ohio, where such schools have been approved and are tapping public school funds to operate. That crap needs to stop, but I can pretty well guarantee you that it won't while Mike DeWine is governor.
No real sense of that, but I can't escape the feeling that he wouldn't know a Cavalier from a cattail. I have exactly ZERO desire to see him as our next governor, and I'm hoping that Trump has sufficiently poisoned the pot that MAYBE Acton can get in. 🤞
I’ve been watching analyses of the potential economic fallout for the industrial Midwest if Trump doesn’t allow the Gordie Howe Bridge to open. Not to mention PM Carney’s masterstroke on electricity rates for New England and NY. Trump really could induce a painful recession this year.
Doesn't matter whether it's Hogwarts, Castelobruxo, Ilvermorny, St. Isidore, or Ben Gamla. We should not be funding these cults and their so-called "schools".
The wealthy right wingers may have their lawyers, but the bulk of Republican voters are nowhere near rich -- they're mostly poor, working- and middle-class white Americans. Who haven't been able to manage to give even one Democratic president -- not one! -- their majority vote since 1964.
A charter school is a public school. A religious charter school is an impermissible establishment of religion by the government, for the same reason that a regular public school cannot be a religious school. The specific religion with which the school wishes to indoctrinate its students is irrelevant. Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Satanist, Pastafarian, whatever. None are allowed to be public schools.
In case they don't understand why, what if their child's school was going to be an Islamic school? They would raise hell to stop it. Why should this be any different? Just because they don't want to completely drop the mask from their antisemitism yet should not be a factor. This is mandatory religious indoctrination in a public school that is supposed to serve every student and not just the members of the religion.
Sauce for the goose is indeed sauce for the gander. Oklahoma has wisely ruled that neither Catholic nor Jewish charter schools may be operated in their state with public funds. Considering the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, this SHOULD be intuitively obvious. Unfortunately, when St. Isadore was briefly approved, it was clear that others thought that the door had been opened for other, similar schools. This judgment clearly puts the kibosh on that thinking.
Perhaps now, the Sooner State can put more focus on getting themselves out of the basement of public school quality at at least into mid-band ranking.
The Handmaid recused on the last try. This one not being Catholic means they will likely try for a 5-4 in their favor. The fact that it isn't Christian is the only thing that may stop them.
You make a point and an unfortunate one. I can't escape the feeling that SCOTUS is looking for that ONE OPPORTUNITY to vitiate the Establishment Clause and relabel the US as a Christian Nation, even as the numbers of declared Christians here continues to drop.
We SO need to get Trump and his band of flying monkeys OUT OF HERE.
Maybe the Lord Almighty might be able to help there? He's enacted regime change before such as with that bit of flooding. Maybe we could beseech upon him to do a bit of smiting?
These days, the best Yahweh can do seems to be showing up on selected pieces of toast. I don't draw to inside straights, nor do I put faith in undetectable and insubstantial gods. 😝
It's not religion so much at all, but white supremacism dressed in religious garb.
Republicans don't like to be called racist, so they can hide behind all sorts of issues to hige the fact that at the taproot ... they're howling racists, supporting white supremacist policies.
“Ben Gamla envisions Oklahoma students gaining a rigorous, values-based education that integrates general academic excellence with Jewish religious learning and ethical development,”
That's what the temple or synagogue is for. Use your own money to fund your school, not the taxpayers.
I picked up on the school's proposing to employ unqualified staff. Maybe your orange felon will intervene, he loves the uneducated. In the 1980s, in the UK, the country was short of funds for education and suggested a "mums' army" could be formed, mums volunteering to teach early maths/literacy etc. Teaching unions opposed this and it didn't happen. We members had trained for 4 years, had to be graduates to enter the profession. What next? Anyone in OK being allowed to set up a hospital and staff it with fans of General Hospital or Greys Anatomy?
Pure greed. Public schools have been systematically underfunded for years, and more so after 2008. Now these fascists want to carve out a little more for themselves. Disgusting.
Greed isn't the principal wedge issue for the GOP, while racism, particularly anti-Black racism -- is. Many public school funding disparities revealed racist intent stemming from deliberate historical design, or are openly justified to harm racial groups.
U.S. segregation under Plessy v. Ferguson systematically underfunded Black schools. After Brown v. Board of Education, some states closed public schools rather than integrate them. Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. established that discriminatory intent can be proven through historical patterns and policy choices, not just explicit statements.
This is exactly what the folks who came up with charter schools were trying to do. Sneak in unconstitutional programs, curriculum, exclusion standards and even religion into public schools. People are cottoning on to the voucher programs and fighting them, so now they’re shifting to other tactics, making charter schools religious.
They keep thinking that the beneficiaries of the money going toward charter schools is the schools, it is not. The beneficiaries of all the money for education are the students and the taxpayers. Charter schools are funded the same way public schools are funded and there should be zero profit for the school. This school is using the crap argument that a religious school should be allowed any money the government offers to other organizations. But that doesn’t cover money that only goes toward government programs. They’re trying to break into that bubble. Religious organizations cannot receive funding for motor vehicle licensing, because the government is the only organization operating motor vehicle licensing. Religious organizations don’t get funding for military operations, because the government is the only organization performing military operations with government funding. Because the right and corrupt (I know, no difference) are trying to privatize all of our governmental institutions, prisons, military, education, roads, and what have you, they think it’s going to be easy to do this. We need to end this. Stand your ground Oklahoma. This is a fight worth fighting.
I know they wanted a school to support traditional Judeo-Christian values, maybe next time if they wanted to succeed in Oklahoma, there should be less Judeo.
We are moving today, and I am not awake, the movers will be here in two hours. And I am not awake. So you only get me for a minute, because I’m not awake.
There could be something entirely nefarious going on here. But this is Oklahoma, and they would Sooner not be known for that.
The first school that they rejected was Saint Isidore. They don’t sound like Baptists or assemblies of God. the second school to be rejected was saint, excuse me, Ben Gamla. Nice name, but it sounds very sort of, I don’t know, Joosh. It is probably just a coincidence that neither name rhymes with Craptist.
We moved about three years ago, and couldn't find movers because apparently everyone wants to move around Christmas time. Apparently we should have booked in October. Given that our settlement date wasn't even close to October we had to do it ourselves by hiring a truck and some university students. It didn't go quite as badly as I expected.
"… the application evinces an overall lack of planning and attention to detail. Several portions appear to be recycled from other charter applications or sources without consideration of their applicability to Ben Gamla."
Nah. AI's do a better job than that. At least both Gemini and Copilot do. Gemini does have a tendency to turn everything into a business presentation, but that would be appropriate for this.
It is not, and never was, the job of our secular government to backstop anyone’s religion. The first Amendment makes it pretty clear that government cannot endorse one religion over another. If they want a Jewish school, then they can pay for it themselves. It is not the tax payers responsibility. Religious schools should not get one cent of public money for any reason.
The christianist right and other reichwing religionists bought and paid for those 6 SCOTUS JUSTICES AND by golly, they are determined to get one of these cases before them.
They have to get their ROI.
"Deutsch was a Democratic congressman from Florida from 1993-2005. But in 2024, he endorsed Donald Trump because of Trump’s supposed commitment to immigration policy, school choice, and—I kid you not—”world peace.”"
Oy vey! That guy's meshuga!
Trump is a putz, a total schmendrick!
A schmuck, a schmo and a nar. A chazar and a paskudnik.
🤮 Florida is so far gone. Last time I visited (it was a funeral to get me there) I was surprised at how brainwashed/hateful even some young people were.
Florida man is a stereotype for a reason.
Because he's white. A majority of white American men -- as well as a majority of white American women -- have been giving their vote to Republican administrations nonstop for two generations. It's called:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_backlash
White supremacism has no age limit.
Ganza meshugana.
"... because of Trump’s supposed commitment to immigration policy," ⬅️Yeah, they';; hide behind religious garb. They'll hide behind "immigration policy." They'll hide anywhere it's more comfortable for them, as long as they aren't accused of being racist, particularly anti-Black racist, the Republican wedge issue since Democrats passed the groundbreaking civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s. There's a name for it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_backlash
Wow, did somebody spike the water supply in Oklahoma with something that suddenly made people come to their senses? First undoing the educational damage Ryan Childkiller Walters did and now this.
What we need to do now is to get the word out HERE in Ohio, where such schools have been approved and are tapping public school funds to operate. That crap needs to stop, but I can pretty well guarantee you that it won't while Mike DeWine is governor.
When do you get to vote his ass out?
That would be this year, 2026. The Dems have Amy Acton, up against Vivek Ramaswamy, who is about as much an Ohioan as I am Armenian!
I am REALLY hoping for a sea change in the Buckeye this year. [sigh]
Fingers crossed, Trouble.
Ditto ... and I VOTE!
Do you have any guesses about Vivek’s brownness being a turnoff for the Ohio MAGAts?
No real sense of that, but I can't escape the feeling that he wouldn't know a Cavalier from a cattail. I have exactly ZERO desire to see him as our next governor, and I'm hoping that Trump has sufficiently poisoned the pot that MAYBE Acton can get in. 🤞
I’ve been watching analyses of the potential economic fallout for the industrial Midwest if Trump doesn’t allow the Gordie Howe Bridge to open. Not to mention PM Carney’s masterstroke on electricity rates for New England and NY. Trump really could induce a painful recession this year.
Doesn't matter whether it's Hogwarts, Castelobruxo, Ilvermorny, St. Isidore, or Ben Gamla. We should not be funding these cults and their so-called "schools".
Magic isn't real, kids.
That's what MACUSA wants you to think. Liberal use of the Oblivate spell.
Magic is a full employment enterprise for the law firms representing the delusional but nonetheless wealthy plaintiffs.
The wealthy right wingers may have their lawyers, but the bulk of Republican voters are nowhere near rich -- they're mostly poor, working- and middle-class white Americans. Who haven't been able to manage to give even one Democratic president -- not one! -- their majority vote since 1964.
YES IT IS!!!!!!
so there!
Levi-O-sa, not levio-SA.
Is that why I turned into Ronald McDonald and my makeup won't come off
🤡
A charter school is a public school. A religious charter school is an impermissible establishment of religion by the government, for the same reason that a regular public school cannot be a religious school. The specific religion with which the school wishes to indoctrinate its students is irrelevant. Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Satanist, Pastafarian, whatever. None are allowed to be public schools.
In case they don't understand why, what if their child's school was going to be an Islamic school? They would raise hell to stop it. Why should this be any different? Just because they don't want to completely drop the mask from their antisemitism yet should not be a factor. This is mandatory religious indoctrination in a public school that is supposed to serve every student and not just the members of the religion.
A religion that has its hand out to the federal government for help in funding.
Insert Ben Franklin quote about bad religions here.
Sauce for the goose is indeed sauce for the gander. Oklahoma has wisely ruled that neither Catholic nor Jewish charter schools may be operated in their state with public funds. Considering the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, this SHOULD be intuitively obvious. Unfortunately, when St. Isadore was briefly approved, it was clear that others thought that the door had been opened for other, similar schools. This judgment clearly puts the kibosh on that thinking.
Perhaps now, the Sooner State can put more focus on getting themselves out of the basement of public school quality at at least into mid-band ranking.
The Handmaid recused on the last try. This one not being Catholic means they will likely try for a 5-4 in their favor. The fact that it isn't Christian is the only thing that may stop them.
You make a point and an unfortunate one. I can't escape the feeling that SCOTUS is looking for that ONE OPPORTUNITY to vitiate the Establishment Clause and relabel the US as a Christian Nation, even as the numbers of declared Christians here continues to drop.
We SO need to get Trump and his band of flying monkeys OUT OF HERE.
Maybe the Lord Almighty might be able to help there? He's enacted regime change before such as with that bit of flooding. Maybe we could beseech upon him to do a bit of smiting?
These days, the best Yahweh can do seems to be showing up on selected pieces of toast. I don't draw to inside straights, nor do I put faith in undetectable and insubstantial gods. 😝
Amy Con-me Barrett recused herself because Jesus.
Sad.
The great expression is….
what is sauce for the religious goose is sauce for religious propaganda.
It's not religion so much at all, but white supremacism dressed in religious garb.
Republicans don't like to be called racist, so they can hide behind all sorts of issues to hige the fact that at the taproot ... they're howling racists, supporting white supremacist policies.
I thought gander sauce was a more herb-forward style. 🤔
Hey, do I look like Michael Symon to you? To misquote "Bones" McCoy, I'm an engineer, not a chef! 🤪
Herb Forward. Nice guy!
His main squeeze, Spicy Bottom, is quite a hoot, too!
Only if it’s proper gander.
“Ben Gamla envisions Oklahoma students gaining a rigorous, values-based education that integrates general academic excellence with Jewish religious learning and ethical development,”
That's what the temple or synagogue is for. Use your own money to fund your school, not the taxpayers.
"... a rigorour, values-based education..." which teaches creationism and WON'T allow sex education. Swell. 😝
I picked up on the school's proposing to employ unqualified staff. Maybe your orange felon will intervene, he loves the uneducated. In the 1980s, in the UK, the country was short of funds for education and suggested a "mums' army" could be formed, mums volunteering to teach early maths/literacy etc. Teaching unions opposed this and it didn't happen. We members had trained for 4 years, had to be graduates to enter the profession. What next? Anyone in OK being allowed to set up a hospital and staff it with fans of General Hospital or Greys Anatomy?
I'm sorta fond of E.R., myself (we're binging it at the moment), but if I have a medical issue, I want a doctor and not an actor! 😁
Pure greed. Public schools have been systematically underfunded for years, and more so after 2008. Now these fascists want to carve out a little more for themselves. Disgusting.
Greed isn't the principal wedge issue for the GOP, while racism, particularly anti-Black racism -- is. Many public school funding disparities revealed racist intent stemming from deliberate historical design, or are openly justified to harm racial groups.
U.S. segregation under Plessy v. Ferguson systematically underfunded Black schools. After Brown v. Board of Education, some states closed public schools rather than integrate them. Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. established that discriminatory intent can be proven through historical patterns and policy choices, not just explicit statements.
This is exactly what the folks who came up with charter schools were trying to do. Sneak in unconstitutional programs, curriculum, exclusion standards and even religion into public schools. People are cottoning on to the voucher programs and fighting them, so now they’re shifting to other tactics, making charter schools religious.
They keep thinking that the beneficiaries of the money going toward charter schools is the schools, it is not. The beneficiaries of all the money for education are the students and the taxpayers. Charter schools are funded the same way public schools are funded and there should be zero profit for the school. This school is using the crap argument that a religious school should be allowed any money the government offers to other organizations. But that doesn’t cover money that only goes toward government programs. They’re trying to break into that bubble. Religious organizations cannot receive funding for motor vehicle licensing, because the government is the only organization operating motor vehicle licensing. Religious organizations don’t get funding for military operations, because the government is the only organization performing military operations with government funding. Because the right and corrupt (I know, no difference) are trying to privatize all of our governmental institutions, prisons, military, education, roads, and what have you, they think it’s going to be easy to do this. We need to end this. Stand your ground Oklahoma. This is a fight worth fighting.
I know they wanted a school to support traditional Judeo-Christian values, maybe next time if they wanted to succeed in Oklahoma, there should be less Judeo.
And while they're at it, less Christian, too! 😝
And a little heavier on the Buddhism.
How about the Dudeism?
That's why the hyphen is attached with explosive bolts.
...𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑎 𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ-𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟.
Public benefit means public responsibility. Demanding tax money from a fund you don't contribute to is akin to robbery.
Tax the churches. Especially if SCOTUS decides to completely overturn over a hundred years of precedent and rule against church/state separation.
We are moving today, and I am not awake, the movers will be here in two hours. And I am not awake. So you only get me for a minute, because I’m not awake.
There could be something entirely nefarious going on here. But this is Oklahoma, and they would Sooner not be known for that.
The first school that they rejected was Saint Isidore. They don’t sound like Baptists or assemblies of God. the second school to be rejected was saint, excuse me, Ben Gamla. Nice name, but it sounds very sort of, I don’t know, Joosh. It is probably just a coincidence that neither name rhymes with Craptist.
You see, Oklahomo is OK after all.
Good luck 👍
(And wake up)
Thanks. I am quite awake and the movers are moving me.
All the best wishes for your move, Ben.
It'll be fine.
Thanks. I am awake and the movers are here. It's a very moving experience
We moved about three years ago, and couldn't find movers because apparently everyone wants to move around Christmas time. Apparently we should have booked in October. Given that our settlement date wasn't even close to October we had to do it ourselves by hiring a truck and some university students. It didn't go quite as badly as I expected.
Latest National Secular Society missive on a particular Jewish school in England - https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2026/02/school-says-religiously-restricted-curriculum-non-negotiable
Wow. Turns out that Orthodox Jewish schools are as screwed up as some Christian schools are. Charming ... NOT!
"… the application evinces an overall lack of planning and attention to detail. Several portions appear to be recycled from other charter applications or sources without consideration of their applicability to Ben Gamla."
Only finest AI slop generator for them.
One wonders why the board didn’t reject the application on the grounds that the application was substandard.
Actually, I don’t wonder.
Nah. AI's do a better job than that. At least both Gemini and Copilot do. Gemini does have a tendency to turn everything into a business presentation, but that would be appropriate for this.
I'm telling you, if these religious-based charter schools are allowed, these people will not be happy when Satanists line up for the tax dollars.
We, on the other hand, will be laughing our atheist asses off at their frantic attempts to move the goalposts or backtrack. Or both at the same time.