Oklahoma AG sues to stop publicly funded religious school: 'Waste of our tax dollars'
Oklahoma AG sues to stop publicly funded religious school: 'Waste of our tax dollars'
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond — a Republican — is bucking his own party in a new lawsuit aimed at preventing what would be the first publicly funded religious school in America from opening.On Friday, Drummond filed the suit in Oklahoma Supreme Court, challenging the Oklahoma Statewide ...
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond — a Republican — is bucking his own party in a new lawsuit aimed at preventing what would be the first publicly funded religious school in America from opening.
On Friday, Drummond filed the suit in Oklahoma Supreme Court, challenging the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board's 3-2 decision in June to grant a contract to open St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School. According to PBS, Drummond warned that the establishment of St. Isidore, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would lead to the floodgates opening for religious groups of all stripes to make bids for public funding for schools of their own.
"Make no mistake, if the Catholic Church were permitted to have a public virtual charter school, a reckoning will follow in which this state will be faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests to directly fund all petitioning sectarian groups," the lawsuit read.
Oh wow! There's a unicorn in the Republican party! It appears that a modern Republican actually had the inclination to think of "what would happen next?", BEFORE implementing said thing. Whew.
The Church of Satan must be opening a school using the same method.
CoS keeps to themselves. The Satanic Temple are the activists. They're the ones that do the After School Satan Clubs.
Or a Muslim one
I hope so. Me and my wife are members. Thank goodness they are around.
Unfortunately they weren't concerned about public money used for religion.
They were concerned that those other religions expect equal treatment.
Apparently we are a smart AG. To bad our governor and the guy in charge of education both fought to open this school. Glad the AG is trying to stop it. But wonder how the courts will rule.
Religion aside, opening the floodgates in this way just doesn't make sense. Our public schools are already underfunded. Why would they want to use the same pool of money to fund even more schools?
Because the point isn't to fund schools. It's to create a Christian Theocracy.
That's the top priority and long term goal. Until they can get that, they'll settle for an undereducated public since ignorance is the best friend of the preacher..
Alberta, Canada, has a separate publicly funded catholic school system. They bus kids to our main government building every year for the big anti-abortion rally.
To make them worse. How else is the Republican party going to grow in the future?
It is a way to segregate the "worthy" from the rest (or vice versa I guess depending on if your "worthy" or not).
Conservatives have been trying to kill public schools since integration was forced on them. Notice that this was a "virtual" school?
Interesting tidbit: in the Netherlands all schools are publicly funded, including religious ones.
Well yeah. No one wants to get on Thor's bad side.
Drummond warned that the establishment of St. Isidore, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would lead to the floodgates opening for religious groups of all stripes to make bids for public funding for schools of their own.
Emphasis mine.
It isn't that he doesn't want a Catholic school to be publicly funded. He is worried that other religious groups (subtext: Muslims) will try to get the same funding.
Lol, he didn't just imply it, he outright went there in a press conference:
"Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism. Because of the legal precedent created by the Board’s actions, tomorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Sharia law. In fact, Governor Stitt has already indicated that he would welcome a Muslim charter school funded by our tax dollars. That is a gross violation of our religious liberty. As the defender of Oklahoma’s religious freedoms, I am prepared to litigate this issue to the United States Supreme Court if that’s what is required to protect our Constitutional rights.” - Press release
The broken analog clock is still right twice a day?
Or more likely, a satanic temple school 👹
Me thinks someone is preparing to run for governor.
How tf is a muslim school a blatant violation of christian religious freedom? It's a violation of their ability to be bigots
Ah, so it's the old Catholics vs Protestants again.
It'll probably end up being the Catholics vs. the Satanic Temple
I was about to ask when the Satanists were showing up. I love those guys.
More like he knows Lucian Grieves of the Satanic Temple has already prefilled a letter with his lawyer friend to have St. Lucifer's Preparatory Academy financed by Oklahoma state funds. Just waiting for the Catholic funding to be upheld and the letter gets mailed. Along with affidavit from a local Oklahoma Satanist who is absolutely enthusiastic about having their child schooled at St. Lucifers.
Like protestant vs Catholic is least of their problems. They have to finance a Wiccan Coven school, Muslim masrada, scientologist school, a norse Viking academy and so on.
Since as the rule goes: can't start making rulings on which religions are in and which are out.
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt — himself a Republican who endorsed then-incumbent Attorney General John O'Connor in Oklahoma's 2022 Republican primary — reportedly dismissed Drummond's lawsuit as a "political stunt." "AG Drummond seems to lack any firm grasp on the constitutional principle of religious freedom and masks his disdain for the Catholics’ pursuit by obsessing over non-existent schools that don’t neatly align with his religious preference," Stitt said.Project much?
The "constitutional principle of religious freedom" says there shall be no official state religion. So...when the state funds something religious, what does that sound like to them
They probably think that it’s freedom of choice.
faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests
"It's way too much work and too expensive" is a pretty standard Republican argument against everything, and not exactly what looks like the core of the problem here. But, I guess he is trying to appeal to other Republicans here, and it's pretty clear there are some powerful ones who want a lot more church in their state.
The whole "Oklahoma voted 60% against removing the state constitution prohibition on funding churches in 2016" thing seems a lot more compelling to me.
Too bad we don’t have a political party with a platform that includes being true to the foundations of our government, such as adhering to the Constitution.
this fella is going to be fired. may even consider driving instead of flying for awhile
Open it so we can burn it down.
Tell them to go ahead and have their school, but that it means the Catholic Church loses its tax exempt status.
Muslim school next.
r/atheism leaking 😮💨
Not leaking, atheism is the default belief everyone is born with.
Fuck you
about the level of maturity expected from someone who signed up to lemmy for porn