Florida's Religious Right Wants Taxpayer Money

The constitution of the State of Florida contains this provision:

"No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."

Sounds good to me.

Jeb Bush, who like his brother George, flaunts the law when it serves his purpose, was successful in getting a school voucher plan passed a few years back when he was governor of Florida. It allowed students in failing schools the option of transferring to private (religious) schools on the taxpayer's dime.

The Florida Supreme Court rightly shot down that voucher plan, which on its face was unconstitutional. Jeb knew that, of course, but thought he could pull one over on the Florida yokels. I mean, his brother finagled the presidency twice, which obviously proves you can fool the people big time, over and over again!

Some years ago, the Religious Right, as it took the shape of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority announced explicitly that they intended to take over the government of the United States, change that damn constitutional provision about separation of church and state and establish a Christian government.

They said they would do it this way: They were going to elect their people to positions of power at every level of government - city councils, school boards, county commissions, state legislatures and state commissions, governorships, national representatives and senators, and eventually the White House itself.

Unfortunately, they've achieved a certain amount of success. George W. was their biggest prize, not because he was particularly religious, but because he was dumb enough to be molded by right-wing pressure and could easily be directed to do the will of the Christian nationalists, and/or dominionists.


Some pundits claim that the Religious Right is in retreat, humbled in defeat and is no longer a threat. So-called Christian "evangelicals" are looking for a new and different approach to dealing with the problems of the nation and the world.

Don't believe that for a minute.

There are two attributes most descriptive of the Religious Right - tenacity and deceitfulness.

[Please understand that I'm trying not to use the term Christian Right - for a couple of reasons. One is that the Religious Right includes a lot of people on the fringe of religion, not necessarily Christian. Karl Rove, for example, is not noted for his religious faith or practice, but he is still a prominent player in the Religious Right.

Secondly, many people in the Religious Right who claim to be Christians or even "super" Christian, do not fit my definition of Christianity. You can call them pious, prayerful, pitiful, fraudulent, freaky fundamentalists, but, in my opinion, you can't call them "Christian."]

The Religious Right in Florida is both tenacious and deceitful - they have a tendency, like a bad penny, to turn up again and again. Defeated in one area on one issue, they regroup, metastasize, and slither unnoticed into an issue to work their nastiness.

We wrote a few days ago about the current session of Florida's Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, a group that meets every 20 years. At that time it appeared they had the votes to put the school voucher business on the November ballot, but that didn't happen; the motion failed by one vote.

Here's where the tenaciousness comes in: [Note that for a Commission motion to pass, it must get 17 votes.] The voucher thing failed. The Religious Right came right back with another motion. The Commission voted 17-7 (!) to replace the Constitution's "no-aid" provision (mentioned above) with this:

"Individuals or entities may not be barred from participating in public programs because of religion."

That's the deceit part. How many Florida voters are going to understand that convoluted, innocuous sentence? It sounds like the state will set up programs and you can't be turned away because of your religion.

But that's not what it's all about. It means that the state will be allowed to fund, with taxpayer money, religious groups doing their thing in the state of Florida!

The Commissioner raising the most hell and the one who sponsored the above motion is Patricia Levesque, a religious rightist who formerly served as Jeb Bush's education advisor. She cries that unless this is passed, all kinds of good programs will be wiped out! "...millions of dollars of public programs are at risk," she warns.

In other words, let's use Florida tax money to establish and propagate "faith-based" providers of services.


Where does this notion come from? Since when does any state in the United States of America have the right to fund "faith-based" providers?

It is said that the Constitutional provision that forbids using tax money for religious institutions was the result of anti-Catholic bias. That may well be the case, because I would guess the provision was put into the Constitution to protect public money from the greedy hands of the priests. The Roman Catholic Church has historically believed that it should be supported by whatever state it finds itself in and invariably lobbies for public funding.

So, that's a non-issue. Today, we have not only the Catholic Church, but Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod institutions, all kinds of independent, fundamentalist, sectarian groups trying to dip their hands in the till.

None of them - not one - deserves a single penny of taxpayer money for any purpose!

The idea that so-called "faith-based" institutions can do a better job than the government in terms of providing services is nonsense and based upon not one iota of evidence, but upon a theology that believes the church should be part of the government and should receive support from the government.


Let's throw a log on the fire. This assumption is always, in a right-wing "Christian" state like Florida, that we're talking primarily about "Christian" institutions when we talk about providing monies to "faith-based" groups. There's a good reason for that - the huge majority of these "faith-based" groups have some connection to the name, Christian.

For example. with regard to the vouchers that let students in failing schools transfer to private schools - 80% of the private schools to which students transferred were Christian institutions.

I have a feeling, however, that if you asked Ms. Levesque, whether or not she thought other religious groups, such as Jews or Hindus or Wiccans, or Muslims would be considered "faith-based" and eligible for state money, she would turn pale in horror.

From what I have read about other countries--Sweden, France, and England, specifically-- Muslim communities, as they grow in size and strength, demand they receive special treatment from the government. They demand they be able to teach their version of creation, their version of law; they demand they be able to wear their religious garb; they demand the state provide special schools for their children so they won't be tainted by non-Muslims.

That would be no problem under the constitutional revision proposed by the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission! "Individuals or entities may not be barred from participating in public programs because of their religion."

What a mess!

Hopefully, the good voters of the State of Florida will be wise enough to send this provision to the dumpster where it belongs!

The title of Christopher Hitchens book comes to mind, though I'd revise it like this: "Too often religion poisons everything."