Amendment 8: Redirecting potential public education dollars to private schools

The November 2012 General election ballot will be the longest in history. do your research before you go to the polls or vote by absentee ballot. Read and think critically. Here is information on Amendment 8.

Amendment 8: "Religious Freedom" or Private School Vouchers

Amendment 8's title is right up there with apple pie and baseball. Who would vote against "Religious Freedom"? But the title and summary voters will see on the ballot are misleading at best.

Since our republic's earliest days, it has been a fundamental American principle that the best way to protect religious freedom was for the government to stay entirely out of religion and avoid favoring or funding any church or sect. Amendment 8 turns that longstanding tenet on its head.

Opponents of the amendment worry that the amendment's true goal is to circumvent court rulings against school voucher programs and allow billions of public school dollars to be funneled to religious schools. Sponsors and supporters of the amendment say they are trying to protect faith-based charities who receive government funds to provide social services like soup kitchens, health care, homeless shelters, and the like.

While the current constitutional language Amendment 8 would remove has been used by an appellate court to overturn universal private school vouchers, it has not been used to limit social services provided by faith-based organization. The language just requires faith-based groups who receive government funds to follow the same rules as everyone else receiving those funds -- they can't discriminate on the basis of religion, nor can they use state dollars to promote their beliefs.

Learn more about Amendment 8.

 

Source: Civic Concern