Once again, what part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." don't these dips get? Oh, I suspect that they DO get it. They just want to drink from the public trough anyway.
And the courts should tell them 𝗡𝗢 ... in no uncertain terms.
They are so desperate for SCOTUS to declare that the Establishment Clause only demands that Congress can't declare one particular denomination to be the official Church of the United States. They know what it actuallu means, they just want to force their preferred meaning.
It occurs to me that I would love and I mean dearly LOVE to see Andrew Seidel argue this before SCOTUS. Based on his writings, he would present solid arguments and bring it HARD, hard enough not to be ignored.
Again, probably never happen, but the man is qualified, no doubt.
Pish posh. Fines & court costs are pennies to these preacher$. They'll just shake their churchlings for more change. One single Sunday's collection plate will pay-off the court fines & costs. They'll even turn a profit, saying the court costs & fines are proof of church persecution, so they'll SQUEEZE more money off their dumb churchlings.
I dunno. That phrase always struck me as being pretty straightforward. The problem from where I sit are the "interpretations" by people who want to twist the words to their purposes.
Yeah, I know, the wording is intentionally vague. Considering those 200+ years past, it shouldn't have been.
I feel like I should mention here that these are the very same people who often have five or six interpretations on what their own religious work says at any given point.
Uh-huh ... and if you believe THAT one, I got this real swell theme park in Florida I'd like to sell you. Only problem is: it's a real Mickey Mouse operation!
In order to preserve what we have built over the last 150 years, SCROTUS must be expanded and lifetime tenure ended, indeed for all federal judges. Because we all know SCROTUS is just looking for a vehicle to allow this. Too many people think that idea is a non-starter but it really is the only way to end this nightmare of minority rule.
It was on my list of around 20 or so constitutional reforms that must happen. And end to lifetime appointments. And a formal declaration of separation of church and state: no purely theological concerns may invest the civil of the governs all of us, no role of the church in government whatsoever, no public money supporting religion. The only interaction must be that the government ensures freedom of religion, defined as freedom to believe whatever you wish, but not to include other people who don’t share your religious beliefs.
I wonder if, when this (not if, because they will fight this forever) case gets to SCROTUS will Roberts recuse himself like Coney-Barrett did, since the law firm all worked for him. I doubt he has the integrity. I doubt the integrity of all the conservative justices, as they’ve all shown themselves to be thoroughly corrupt.
I really think that we need to stop with the charter schools altogether. They seem like little more than backdoor attempts to defund public schools. They have a terrible track record, the closure rates are astronomical and their policies tend to leave children behind. While I see some of the benefits they might offer, the profit driven approach undermines any good they might do. Instead of throwing money at the charter schools, we should use that money to develop plans for the public schools to incorporate what makes the charters so desirable. Because I know that not every kid learns the way the public schools teach, but the public schools are teaching the way they do because they have too little funding in the first place. They are trying to be innovative, and they’re doing what they can, but if they had the money that we spend on charter schools they could focus more on student needs for learning, rather than just the bare minimum to keep the schools operating.
This school knows it’s not eligible to be a charter school. They know they will be rejected. They ought to just open a private school if it means that much to them, but what they really want is the taxpayer money. If your mission is to teach children through godly instruction, then do it, but do it on god’s dime, not everyone else’s.
And I take serious issue with the implication that a secular education is inferior when the fucking religious education is simple rote memorization and regurgitation of basic concepts without critical thought. The religious schools and curriculum that they keep pushing is extremely simple and unchallenging. It is pretty much preschool level type thinking even at the higher grades. They can’t have bright students posing questions they can’t answer without undermining their faith based thinking. There’s nothing superior about it.
"Without judicial confirmation of its rights, no religious charter school can safely apply, open, or operate without an inevitable lawsuit by outside groups or a cutoff of funding by the State."
Without judicial confirmation of its rights no man can safely rape a woman without an inevitable lawsuit… (okay, it’s not inevitable that a rapist will see the inside of a courtroom, and they’ve gotten away with this shit for centuries)
Without judicial confirmation no corporation can safely operate a factory that pours its pollutants directly in the rivers without an inevitable lawsuit from outside groups…
Or a murderer can’t kill
Or a thief steal
You don’t have a right to operate a charter school. Full stop. Especially if the charter school in question doesn’t line up with the laws governing charter schools. Get over yourselves.
As an oldster, these relentless attempts to secure taxpayer-funding for religious schools continue to amaze me.
I attended a Catholic school K-8 and there was never the slightest question that the tuition would be paid by parents. In fact, our small town referred to the school as often as not as "private" (not Catholic), as indeed it was.
There were no vouchers for us nor were there taxpayer-funded buses. My parents were poor, but they scrimped and went without to send four us to Catholic school.
Even with the majority of the Court comprising theists, it's shocking (and infuriating) to see the deliberate perversion of the Constitution engendered by recent decisions (e.g., Maine).
Another random thought:
If religious education is so important to these parents, why aren't they willing to pay for it?
The real agenda, as is so often called out here, is christian nationalism.
One does wonder just how awful a religion has to be for its primary recruitment tactic to be lying to children.
Honestly, these articles on how religious people are trying to insert themselves into education have become disturbing. Christians attempt to get into education so often most media outlets don't even consider it newsworthy most of the time. The worst part is this has been going on for many years now and we now have proof that these people will always come back again. One presumes this means this tactic has been successful in the past and will therefore stands a good chance of succeeding again. Religion does not exist for the purpose of educating the public and we would all do well to remember that.
That tactic has been successful but I think another reason is that no other tactic has worked at any scale. Sure there are always a few adult converts. But if religion was somehow prevented from indoctrinating children for one generation, can you imagine how the numbers fall?
I loathe charter schools on general principle. Firstly they take money away from public education, and secondly they pick and choose their students, often refusing to take any one who might be the least bit problematic. And I don't know about the US but here they have pretty much no oversight from the bureaucracy that make sure that schools are fit for purpose they don't have to keep proper records, so they can pretty much claim success without actually achieving it. And they have a reputation overseas for folding and leaving hundreds of kids in the lurch.
I don’t loathe them. The industrial scale of public education leads to a lot of rigidity in instruction. “One size fits all” is an exaggeration — there are a goodly number of ways to be more responsive — but (you knew that was coming) charter schools* can provide more flexibility and options.
Both of my kids had issues that the big suburban schools were not especially adept at addressing. We have a couple of charter schools here but, for entirely different reasons, they would not have been any better.
*The charter schools in Maryland are public schools and there is oversight by the local Board of Education. The charters have their own boards but they do have to answer for performance and some other metrics to the board that granted the charters. One of the local charters was on probation one year for something or other. They got their act together.
The other thing I like about how Maryland treats them is financial. The charters do not get money that can be allocated to central office expenses. Example: Let’s say the average money spent per child per year in our local district is $15,000. And let’s say that central office expenses account for 33% of the money spent by the local school district (a sadly realistic fraction). The charter school would get $10,000 per enrolled kid.
They whine and whine about how unfair that is but it isn’t. They say, “we don’t use those services” and it is pointed out to them that that doesn’t mean those services cost less.
How many lawsuits are these bullshit artists going to file before one of them sneaks in to SCROTUS? If it’s this one, will Coke Can Clarence have to recuse himself because of his ties to many of the attorneys? Hahaha, of course not. They’ll all high five each other afterwards. SMDH
I was told today that it is my choice to send myself to hell. I responded with “then I choose not to go to hell”. And the response was “that’s not your choice”.
They just want to escalate this until it reaches the SC where Alito will try to find in some obscure ancient vaguely related legalese writings, sufficient arguments to justify his ruling that the free exercise clause overrules the establishment clause.
SCOTUS, to date, has never overridden the EC. What they HAVE done is "reinterpret" it to allow for more religious expression in public spaces (Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022).
More relevant to Wilberforce is Carson v. Makin (2022) requiring states to fund religious schools.
After Scalia was allowed to declare the militia part of the second amendment to be non existant, I will no longer be surprised with any other far fetched rulings of the current injustices.
"When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itseld, and God does not care to support, so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for the help of the Civil Power, 'tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
-- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price (a Christian) dated October 9th 1780
Franklin's words to Price never stop ringing true.
Ever the victims, the religious right excels at playing the 'poor me' game. They do this in spite of the fact the law doesn't even come close to being on their side. They are also the people whose heads would explode at the mere suggestion any non-Christian religious school get public money. If there was any evidence to support their claims, they wouldn't need to brain-wash children to keep their religion alive.
I've watched Lesley for a LONG time. Granted, I've never seen her be anything other than polite and utterly professional. I have ALSO seen her ask tough questions and push for substantial answers.
She may not be as aggressive as Mike Wallace was, but she's no snowflake.
Sycophants as incompetent as himself. If he hired any yes-man who had even a smidgen of actual knowlwdge/experience, this country would be far worse off.
Once again, what part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." don't these dips get? Oh, I suspect that they DO get it. They just want to drink from the public trough anyway.
And the courts should tell them 𝗡𝗢 ... in no uncertain terms.
They are so desperate for SCOTUS to declare that the Establishment Clause only demands that Congress can't declare one particular denomination to be the official Church of the United States. They know what it actuallu means, they just want to force their preferred meaning.
It occurs to me that I would love and I mean dearly LOVE to see Andrew Seidel argue this before SCOTUS. Based on his writings, he would present solid arguments and bring it HARD, hard enough not to be ignored.
Again, probably never happen, but the man is qualified, no doubt.
Yep, they are emboldened by SCOTUS which is corrupt so…
I mean the fact that it they may actually rule in favor is concerning imo.
How dare the Supreme Court deny omniscient, omnipotent God his right to teach children to believe he exists.
If the bastard can't be bothered to show up in court, why should we listen to it at all?
They DON'T wanna get it because The POWER of AVARICE & GREED compels them.
I wonder what they would think of the fines and court costs associated with such foolishness.
Pish posh. Fines & court costs are pennies to these preacher$. They'll just shake their churchlings for more change. One single Sunday's collection plate will pay-off the court fines & costs. They'll even turn a profit, saying the court costs & fines are proof of church persecution, so they'll SQUEEZE more money off their dumb churchlings.
The problem is in the phrase that you wrote: “ CONGRESS shall make no law….”
That is the real problem. There isn’t an actual strict separation of church and state, there was only the interpretations of the last 200 years.
I dunno. That phrase always struck me as being pretty straightforward. The problem from where I sit are the "interpretations" by people who want to twist the words to their purposes.
Yeah, I know, the wording is intentionally vague. Considering those 200+ years past, it shouldn't have been.
I feel like I should mention here that these are the very same people who often have five or six interpretations on what their own religious work says at any given point.
The 14th Amendment extends that to all levels of government.
But that’s the problem. They are trying for religious privilege and exceptionalism overriding any 14th amendment concerns.
christinsanity is bot a religion, it's a relationship.
Uh-huh ... and if you believe THAT one, I got this real swell theme park in Florida I'd like to sell you. Only problem is: it's a real Mickey Mouse operation!
I boycott mouses.
Fine. I still have the bridge in Brooklyn ... CHEAP! 👌
Sorry, I am looking for a first floor apartment in Florence with view on the Adriatic sea.
Sorry, fresh out of those. You might ask NOGODZ. I think he was hoarding a few spots! 😁
Even if they are vegan?
In order to preserve what we have built over the last 150 years, SCROTUS must be expanded and lifetime tenure ended, indeed for all federal judges. Because we all know SCROTUS is just looking for a vehicle to allow this. Too many people think that idea is a non-starter but it really is the only way to end this nightmare of minority rule.
I prefer impeachment for treason and bribery
As long as that corrupt asshat Thomas goes first!
Absolutely. Time to buckle TF up. Never bring a knife to a gunfight.
It was on my list of around 20 or so constitutional reforms that must happen. And end to lifetime appointments. And a formal declaration of separation of church and state: no purely theological concerns may invest the civil of the governs all of us, no role of the church in government whatsoever, no public money supporting religion. The only interaction must be that the government ensures freedom of religion, defined as freedom to believe whatever you wish, but not to include other people who don’t share your religious beliefs.
Agreed
And just as importantly, freedom from religion. The Second Amendment must also be fixed.
Believe me, that is also on my list.
I wonder if, when this (not if, because they will fight this forever) case gets to SCROTUS will Roberts recuse himself like Coney-Barrett did, since the law firm all worked for him. I doubt he has the integrity. I doubt the integrity of all the conservative justices, as they’ve all shown themselves to be thoroughly corrupt.
I really think that we need to stop with the charter schools altogether. They seem like little more than backdoor attempts to defund public schools. They have a terrible track record, the closure rates are astronomical and their policies tend to leave children behind. While I see some of the benefits they might offer, the profit driven approach undermines any good they might do. Instead of throwing money at the charter schools, we should use that money to develop plans for the public schools to incorporate what makes the charters so desirable. Because I know that not every kid learns the way the public schools teach, but the public schools are teaching the way they do because they have too little funding in the first place. They are trying to be innovative, and they’re doing what they can, but if they had the money that we spend on charter schools they could focus more on student needs for learning, rather than just the bare minimum to keep the schools operating.
This school knows it’s not eligible to be a charter school. They know they will be rejected. They ought to just open a private school if it means that much to them, but what they really want is the taxpayer money. If your mission is to teach children through godly instruction, then do it, but do it on god’s dime, not everyone else’s.
And I take serious issue with the implication that a secular education is inferior when the fucking religious education is simple rote memorization and regurgitation of basic concepts without critical thought. The religious schools and curriculum that they keep pushing is extremely simple and unchallenging. It is pretty much preschool level type thinking even at the higher grades. They can’t have bright students posing questions they can’t answer without undermining their faith based thinking. There’s nothing superior about it.
It was Clarence Thomas that they worked for. You know damn well he won’t recuse himself.
Oops. Yup, he will be even less likely to do the right thing, he’s the most corrupt shit on the stain.
Word!
It’s hard to decide who I most want to see die, him or Trump.
Why not both ?
Der kinderführer would replace him with someone just as corrupt.
"Without judicial confirmation of its rights, no religious charter school can safely apply, open, or operate without an inevitable lawsuit by outside groups or a cutoff of funding by the State."
Without judicial confirmation of its rights no man can safely rape a woman without an inevitable lawsuit… (okay, it’s not inevitable that a rapist will see the inside of a courtroom, and they’ve gotten away with this shit for centuries)
Without judicial confirmation no corporation can safely operate a factory that pours its pollutants directly in the rivers without an inevitable lawsuit from outside groups…
Or a murderer can’t kill
Or a thief steal
You don’t have a right to operate a charter school. Full stop. Especially if the charter school in question doesn’t line up with the laws governing charter schools. Get over yourselves.
As an oldster, these relentless attempts to secure taxpayer-funding for religious schools continue to amaze me.
I attended a Catholic school K-8 and there was never the slightest question that the tuition would be paid by parents. In fact, our small town referred to the school as often as not as "private" (not Catholic), as indeed it was.
There were no vouchers for us nor were there taxpayer-funded buses. My parents were poor, but they scrimped and went without to send four us to Catholic school.
Even with the majority of the Court comprising theists, it's shocking (and infuriating) to see the deliberate perversion of the Constitution engendered by recent decisions (e.g., Maine).
Another random thought:
If religious education is so important to these parents, why aren't they willing to pay for it?
The real agenda, as is so often called out here, is christian nationalism.
This well be a great school. Just look at their entrance exam.
Name three causes for the Second Punic War?
1. Jesus
2. Jesus.
3. Trans people are demonic.
Find the value of x, 13-x=x(x+1)
Answer: Gay people are going to hell.
Finish this sentence. Jesus ______
Jesus jesusing in the Jesus Jesus.
Name two things that Jesus promoted?
1. Capitalism
2. Free markets
The cause of the Second Punic War was state's rights.
Spoiler alert: Rome wins.
Damnit, I haven't seen the movie yet.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pg6ic9PHhW0
haha hahaha hahahaha
Woohoo! I passed.
By the authority vested in me by the church of holey jeezybitch, I now ordain thee a minister in my church.
CONGRATULATIONS!
And that is the intent: grooming unquestioning, uninterested zombies to join the zombie death cult.
https://ibb.co/7xrBffvd
One does wonder just how awful a religion has to be for its primary recruitment tactic to be lying to children.
Honestly, these articles on how religious people are trying to insert themselves into education have become disturbing. Christians attempt to get into education so often most media outlets don't even consider it newsworthy most of the time. The worst part is this has been going on for many years now and we now have proof that these people will always come back again. One presumes this means this tactic has been successful in the past and will therefore stands a good chance of succeeding again. Religion does not exist for the purpose of educating the public and we would all do well to remember that.
They pretend to be moral. Lying to children about supernatural phantasms and realms is wholly amoral.
That tactic has been successful but I think another reason is that no other tactic has worked at any scale. Sure there are always a few adult converts. But if religion was somehow prevented from indoctrinating children for one generation, can you imagine how the numbers fall?
Btw, love your first sentence!
I loathe charter schools on general principle. Firstly they take money away from public education, and secondly they pick and choose their students, often refusing to take any one who might be the least bit problematic. And I don't know about the US but here they have pretty much no oversight from the bureaucracy that make sure that schools are fit for purpose they don't have to keep proper records, so they can pretty much claim success without actually achieving it. And they have a reputation overseas for folding and leaving hundreds of kids in the lurch.
I don’t loathe them. The industrial scale of public education leads to a lot of rigidity in instruction. “One size fits all” is an exaggeration — there are a goodly number of ways to be more responsive — but (you knew that was coming) charter schools* can provide more flexibility and options.
Both of my kids had issues that the big suburban schools were not especially adept at addressing. We have a couple of charter schools here but, for entirely different reasons, they would not have been any better.
*The charter schools in Maryland are public schools and there is oversight by the local Board of Education. The charters have their own boards but they do have to answer for performance and some other metrics to the board that granted the charters. One of the local charters was on probation one year for something or other. They got their act together.
The other thing I like about how Maryland treats them is financial. The charters do not get money that can be allocated to central office expenses. Example: Let’s say the average money spent per child per year in our local district is $15,000. And let’s say that central office expenses account for 33% of the money spent by the local school district (a sadly realistic fraction). The charter school would get $10,000 per enrolled kid.
They whine and whine about how unfair that is but it isn’t. They say, “we don’t use those services” and it is pointed out to them that that doesn’t mean those services cost less.
How many lawsuits are these bullshit artists going to file before one of them sneaks in to SCROTUS? If it’s this one, will Coke Can Clarence have to recuse himself because of his ties to many of the attorneys? Hahaha, of course not. They’ll all high five each other afterwards. SMDH
I have asked xtians on more than one occasion:
'Why does god need a middleman (shaman) if he is omnipotent?'
Responses received:
"You are going to hell."
Complete silence
Subject change
Walk away.
I was told today that it is my choice to send myself to hell. I responded with “then I choose not to go to hell”. And the response was “that’s not your choice”.
Logic is hard.
For the religious, thinking is hard! That is why the religious prefers to let someone else think for them!
https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/3/blazing-saddles-these-are-people-of-the-land-the-common-clay-of-the-new-west-you-know-design-multiverse.jpg
They are god’s chosen morons.
They just want to escalate this until it reaches the SC where Alito will try to find in some obscure ancient vaguely related legalese writings, sufficient arguments to justify his ruling that the free exercise clause overrules the establishment clause.
SCOTUS, to date, has never overridden the EC. What they HAVE done is "reinterpret" it to allow for more religious expression in public spaces (Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022).
More relevant to Wilberforce is Carson v. Makin (2022) requiring states to fund religious schools.
After Scalia was allowed to declare the militia part of the second amendment to be non existant, I will no longer be surprised with any other far fetched rulings of the current injustices.
Predjustices? Injustices works too. Morally corrupt political pawns also apt.
supreme corrupts.
"Above all, Christ serves as the cornerstone of Wilberforce Academy’s mission."
Why isn't 'christ' paying for it then? Pony up, death cult zombie.
Liches are notoriously stingy.
Once again...
"When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itseld, and God does not care to support, so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for the help of the Civil Power, 'tis a Sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
-- Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Richard Price (a Christian) dated October 9th 1780
Franklin's words to Price never stop ringing true.
Ever the victims, the religious right excels at playing the 'poor me' game. They do this in spite of the fact the law doesn't even come close to being on their side. They are also the people whose heads would explode at the mere suggestion any non-Christian religious school get public money. If there was any evidence to support their claims, they wouldn't need to brain-wash children to keep their religion alive.
Dumpy says we must be put to death...
Trump Says Criticizing His Health Is Now TREASON
Farron Balanced
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTrIuvdlpcQ
Someone needs to stand up to him, look him square in the eye and say, "NO, Mr. President, you are demonstrably WRONG."
This NEEDS to happen.
A non white woman if possible.
Hmm ... Lesley Stahl? 😁 Not new, but she knows her shit.
😝
I've watched Lesley for a LONG time. Granted, I've never seen her be anything other than polite and utterly professional. I have ALSO seen her ask tough questions and push for substantial answers.
She may not be as aggressive as Mike Wallace was, but she's no snowflake.
That is why he surrounded himself with sycophants.
Sycophants as incompetent as himself. If he hired any yes-man who had even a smidgen of actual knowlwdge/experience, this country would be far worse off.
Trump can go a shove a cactus up his fat oranges lard ass while giving oral sex to a dead armadillo. There how’s that for treason, Trumpy fuckwit!
Trump is Lieutenant Commander Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny."