Monday, August 31, 2009

A parent’s right to choose : thenewdominion.com


A parent’s right to choose : thenewdominion.com:

"“And any way you slice this, the funding for any voucher program ends up in the coffers of primarily private religious schools,” said Barry Lynn, the executive director of the Washington, D.C.,-based Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “The idea that this is constitutional is that because the parents get the funds, they become kind of a stopgap, and that therefore the money somehow doesn’t benefit religion. But of course since the money goes in the form of a voucher to the parent, the parent essentially cashes in the voucher and the money ends up primarily in religious schools.”

Lynn was alluding there to a controversial 5-4 United States Supreme Court decision in a 2002 case in Ohio that provided a constitutional foot in the door for a voucher program there. The Court was divided along clear ideological lines in the decision, and it isn’t hard to figure that a change in the makeup of the Court in the future could lead to a reversal should another similar case arise down the road."