As the nation has focused on the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, news from the state of Indiana could prove far more important regarding the nation’s future.
The Indiana Supreme Court has just ruled unanimously, 5-0, that Indiana’s school voucher program, signed into law in 2011, the most expansive school voucher program in the nation, does not violate the state’s constitution.
Those who challenged the law argued that the voucher program is unconstitutional because it allows public funds to be used for religious education.
Not so, said the court. The voucher goes to the families, not the schools. It is the parents who decide how to spend it.
Why do I draw connection between the US Supreme Court’s review of same-sex marriage and this voucher decision in Indiana? And why do I suggest that the Indiana decision may be more important to the nation’s future than whatever the Supreme Court decides on same sex marriage?
Same-sex marriage sits before the Supreme Court today because of the dramatic change in public opinion over recent years regarding the legitimacy and morality of same-sex marriage and homosexual relations. General public opinion is far more accepting today of both than it has been in the past.
What has driven this change?
One obvious place to look is the direct generational correlation regarding acceptance of same-sex marriage. Younger Americans are far more accepting of these values than older Americans.
According to the latest survey from the Pew Research Center, approval of same sex marriage among those born between 1928-1945 is 31 percent; 1946-1964, 38 percent; 1965-1980, 49 percent; and after 1980, 70 percent.
So it seems quite reasonable to conclude that the systematic purge over the last half-century of religion and traditional values from our public schools has produced a new generation of Americans with values different from those of their parents and grandparents.
In 1962 the Supreme Court found state-sponsored school prayer unconstitutional. Subsequently, the Supreme Court found unconstitutional posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools (1980), public schools setting aside time for private or voluntary prayer (1985), and “performance of religious activity” at school promotional and graduation ceremonies (1992).
The rationale behind all these decisions was supposedly to preserve and protect religious liberty in our public schools.
But this has not at all what has been happening. The result has not been value free public schools that just teach reading, writing and arithmetic. The result has been to purge traditional religious values from our public schools and replace them with different values – secular humanism.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “all states are somehow involved in sex education for public school children.”
The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, thought it relevant to their mission to issue a press statement about the same-sex marriage cases currently before the Supreme Court. According to their statement:
“Proposition 8 and DOMA (both of which support traditional marriage) aren’t just unconstitutional, they contradict American values of fairness, inclusion, and freedom for all.”
So somehow it is fair and constitutional, in the view of the NEA, that our schools not be permitted to teach right and wrong, as Christians have understood them from the Bible for a few thousand years, while it is fair and free to teach secular humanism in their place.
Thanks to former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who signed into law the Indiana voucher program, and a sane and sober court in Indiana, Indiana helps pave the way for a new birth of education freedom in America in which parents can choose where to send their child to school.
No longer will kids be captive to left-wing brainwashing in Indiana public schools. Hopefully soon this will be the case nationwide.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday (3/15/2013).
Cantor struck a somber tone and used anecdotal stories of inner-city children in a narrow speech arguing for school choice. "School choice is the answer," Cantor said.
His speech was not particularly partisan, although at one point he urged President Barack Obama and Democrats "to see the light."
Cantor went on to invoke an adage from former President Ronald Reagan: "If we can't make them see the light, we'll make them feel the heat," Cantor said. The House Republican leader closed his remarks with a plea for Republican solidarity.
One area that awareness of the need for freedom from government control has penetrated black attitudes is in education.
The chronic failure of public schools to notably improve dismal test scores and high dropout rates of black children has made it clear to many black citizens of good will that there has got to be a better way.
Polls show black support for school choice. For example, in a poll done last year in New Jersey by the Rutgers-Eagleton Center at Rutgers University, 54 percent of blacks expressed support for school vouchers compared to 36 percent of whites.
Growing grass roots support among blacks for education alternatives surely influenced the Obama administration’s agreement, this past week, to ongoing support for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The administration opposes the program and would have been perfectly happy to see its funding spigot turned off.
This is a modest program, with federal funds available now for 1,615 scholarships for kids in DC’s public schools to attend private schools. Its existence and potential for growth was at stake, with House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Joseph Lieberman carried the ball for it. The new agreement will allow it to continue, with a small provision for 85 new scholarships.
But this makes even more perplexing recent incidents where Republican state legislators have turned their backs on the education hopes of blacks.
Republicans in Pennsylvania can change the political landscape of their state by helping black aspirations for education freedom. But in a state that some analysts see as conceivably swinging into the Republican column, Republicans are blowing it.
The Pennsylvania state Senate passed a bill last year that would make vouchers available to kids in the worst 5% of public schools.
The public schools serving blacks kids in cities like Philadelphia are disasters. I know from my own survey of pastors in local churches there that hopes for this voucher initiative have been high.
Yet, by all indication it’s not going to happen.
The state House, controlled by Republicans, has been sitting on the bill. With no action before the end of the session on June 30 it will be dead.
There is talk of an alternative scholarship bill financed through tax credits. But the most optimistic estimate I have heard is that the scholarship would be worth less than half what the voucher would pay and therefore insufficient on its own to pay full tuition in a private church school.
Courageous leadership by Republicans could have captured black hearts and minds in Pennsylvania’s cities that might have paved a path to a new black relationship with Republicans.
But sadly, fear of union power rather than leadership and courage seems to be motivating these legislators.
In 2010, a similar disappointment occurred in Illinois.
In a genuine breakthrough, a black Democrat in the Illinois state Senate, Rev. James Meeks, who happens to also be the pastor of Chicago’s largest Baptist congregation, introduced a school voucher bill.
The bill passed the Illinois senate and then died in the state House, with only 25 of 48 Republicans supporting it. It fell 12 votes short of the 60 it needed to pass.
This is not an across the board indictment of Republicans. Two Republican governors – Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana – have spearheaded passage of school voucher programs in their states.
In a new Gallup poll, only 29 percent, an all time low, express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in our public schools.
The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of freedom and limited government. No where are these principles more needed than in education, and no community needs it more than blacks.
At a time when our country and our poor communities are hurting so badly, any failure of leadership by those in the party of Lincoln is inexcusable.
As the nation has focused on the Supreme Court hearings on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, news from the state of Indiana could prove far more important regarding the nation’s future.
