Editorial
STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Business Manager: Gregory...
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...That is how the American experience of religious freedom has always worked at its best...
...p. 11, Matt, Rothco...
...Dionne, Jr., Sidney Callahan, William Pfaff Intern: Grant Gallicho Staff: Harriette Balsky, Carmen P. Alava, Sandra Smith Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, [1SSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly except Christmas/New Year's...
...Federal Appeals Judge John Noonan reminds us of this political reality in The Lustre of Our Country (reviewed on page 20...
...Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has articulated the p r i n c i p l e of government n e u t r a l i t y elsewhere: "not one cent flows from the state to a sectarian private school...except Commonweal 5 July 17, 1998 as a result of the necessary and intervening choices of individual parents...
...It railed against the tax-funding of "religious indoctrination," predicted a financial windfall for "religious lobbies," and even foresaw the decimation of the public school system...
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...Both prospects are welcome...
...In other words, taxpayers, not government, are doing the choosing among religions or between religious and nonreligious schools...
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...First, it judged that the state's interest in educating all of its citizens was the primary and secular purpose of the state's voucher plan...
...htt p://www.commonwealmagazine.org Good exercise t was a decision that "strikes at the very heart of the constitutionally I mandated separation of church and state" warned the lead editorial in the New York Times (June 12...
...Accommodating parental choice in schools would demonstrate a proper regard for the consciences of parents who desire a religious education for their children as well as a realistic assessment of the strengths religious pluralism has long brought to American society...
...Also crucial in securing the Wisconsin court's approval was the voucher law's provision allowing parents to determine whether or not their children will participate in any religious activity...
...The associational life represented by schools and churches is a laboratory of self-government, not a threat to democracy or national unity...
...Milwaukee's voucher plan was carefully designed by parents, lawyers, and legislators to satisfy the U.S...
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...It merely extends to religious schools a program already in place for nonsectarian private schools...
...3, 19, Liam Daniel...
...columnist portraits, Elaine Mills...
...The cause of this hyperbole was last month's Wisconsin Supreme Court decision upholding the use of vouchers funded by public monies for children attending church-affiliated schools...
...Tax-exemption for churches and military chaplaincies, and government aid to religious preschools, colleges, and universities are all examples of how religious expression is accommodated under the First Amendment without resulting in the "establishment" of any one religion...
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...Supreme C o u r t ' s recent, somewhat more flexible rulings concerning government aid to religious i n s t i t u t i o n s . These First Amendment r u l i n g s suggest that government benefits p e r m i t t e d to secular private enterprises should not be denied to similar religious enterprises...
...Rather, as in Wisconsin, they enfranchise the poor and constitute a spur to excellence for a public system that has notoriously failed the nation's neediest...
...and it could not result in excessive entanglement between government and religion...
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...In applying those criteria, the Wisconsin court found the law constitutional...
...That is not what the First Amendment's establishment clause rightly understood means...
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...Consequently, the law d i d not advance or inhibit religion...
...More important, the "American proposition," as Murray phrased The Paraclete Book Center 146 East 74th Street, New York, New York 10021 Over 45 years of service to our customers throughout the world...
...Clearly, such stipulations will no longer be permitted under the Wisconsin law...
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...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M148106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Wooster, OH 44691...
...212-535-4052 Email: para@cybernex.net www: http://www2.cybernex.net/-para/public/ it, does not isolate but rather links religious expression and the practice of self-government...
...Specifically, Wisconsin's voucher program had to meet the Supreme Court's three-part Lemon test: it had to serve a secular purpose...
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...For example, Catholic schools now require all students, regardless of their religious affiliation, to take religion classes and, in some cases, to attend Mass...
...See www.wisbar.org/Wis2/97-O270.htm for the text of the ruling...
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...Historically, for Americans, "no watertight mental compartments exist by which their religious ideas are isolated from their civic responsibilities...
...It seems unlikely that many parents will remove their children from such classes or activities, but that fact cannot hide the transfer of authority from school officials to the state or the relegation of religious duty involved...
...Optimally, the Wisconsin decision will mean wider choice and b e t t e r schooling for about 14,000 of Milwaukee's poorest children (only poor kids are eligible) and, for the nation as a whole, a less narrowly separationist understanding of the First Amendment's establishment clause...
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...Similarly, voucher programs are not a threat to the far better-funded public schools, which still properly enjoy the allegiance of the majority of Americans...
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...Important here is that voucher money goes to parents r a t h e r than directly to schools...
...Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest, and Book Review Index...
...Finally, it is crucial to keep in mind that the Milwaukee voucher program is designed first and foremost to help poor children...
...In reality, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, as the voucher plan is called, is no threat either to government neutrality toward religion or to the health of the public schools...
...24, 31, Chariot...
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...As John Courtney Murray wrote, "The whole intent of the First Amendment was to protect, not to injure, the interests of religion in American society...
...As the Times editorial exemplifies, the rightly cherished constitutional principle of government neutrality toward religious groups is too often understood to require a kind of absolute quarantine between religious bodies and the state...
...The editorial went on to conjure up a hoary vision of "taxpayer dollars [flowing] into sectarian institutions in contravention of the First Amendment prohibition against the establishment of religion...
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...Finally, because the law does not entail any special state supervision of religious schools, no excessive entanglement results...
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...Other, similar conflicts will undoubtedly emerge as Catholic schools accept tuition vouchers...
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...However, as the Framers of the Constitution knew and many religious educators acknowledge, the acceptance of public monies can threaten the integrity of religious institutions...
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...If upheld by the United States Supreme Court, the Wisconsin decision may well bring a b o u t a sea change in p u b l i c education and in how many think about the alleged "wall of separation" between church and state...
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...If Americans are to exercise freely their right to religious expression, breaches in the so-called "wall of separation" between church and state are inevitable...
...But the risks involved should not be lightly dismissed...
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...Commonweal articles also are available at many libraries and research facilities on CDROM and in electronic data bases...
...Maintaining state n e u t r a l i t y toward religion does not mean d i s c r i m i n a t i n g in favor of nonreligion...
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...7, 28, Ross, Rothco...
...its primary effect could not advance or inhibit religion...
...Second, the voucher program is strictly n e u t r a l in dispensing money to either sectarian or nonsectarian institutions...
...Intelligent compromise, as many Catholic colleges have shown, can preserve the unique character of Catholic schools...
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...STAFF Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Business Manager: Gregory Wilpert Poetry: Rosemary Deen Design: Emil Antonucci Screen: Richard Alleva Media: Frank McConnell Stage: Celia Wren Columnists: John Garvey, Abigail McCarthy, E.J...
...Vigilance will be needed, and, in some cases, conscience may demand the rejection of tax money...
...Copyright _9 1998 Commonweal Foundation...
...Commonweal 6 July 17, 1998...
...Wisconsin's highest court has recognized that vouchers accommodate religious expression in a way that also serves the interests of the community as a whole...
...It is in that light that the injustice of the long-standing prohibition against public funding for religious-affiliated elementary and secondary schools should be understood...
...3, 9, Schwadron, Rothco...
...p. 22, Valerry...
...Any absolute separation of church and state, Noonan writes, "obscure[s] the overlap that exists...
...In short, to fend off the scandalous prospect of mixing religion, education, and government funding, the Times summoned the specter of apocalypse...
Vol. 125 • July 1998 • No. 13
