From: Joe.Francis@dartmouth.edu (Joe Francis)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: School vouchers
Date: 5 Nov 92 09:43:17 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
X-Posted-From: InterNews1.0a5@newshost.dartmouth.edu

For simplicity I am responding to two of Dan Yergeau's recent posts
with one reply.

In article <1992Nov2.213553.17871@leland.Stanford.EDU>
yergeau@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dan Yergeau) writes:

> My point was that within a voucher system it would not be reasonable
> to support schools selectively based upon whether or not they are tied
> to an organized religion.

Depending on what you mean by "tied to", I respectfully disagree.
 
> You still haven't convinced me that vouchers are public support of 
> religion (any more than the tax-free status of churches being public
> support of religion).  

The tax-free status of churches does constitute public support of
religion.  There was a US Supreme Court case on this very issue in
1970: Walz v. Tax Commission (US 664).  The court ruled that tax free
status for churches was not unconstitutional, 8 to 1, with the lone
dissent coming from Justice James O. Douglas.  Chief Justice Burger
wrote the majority decision for the court and asserted, as you do, that
"the grant of a tax exemption is not sponsorship".  Frankly, though, he
fails to support his position.  I think it's pretty obvious that
allowing churches to forgo their share of the tax burden to support the
many government services that provide the church benefits (fire &
ambulance services, police, libraries, etc) constitutes a degree of
sponsorship.  If I went to the nearest church and told them that I
would provide ambulance service for them, I am confident that they
would be happy to call me a sponsor.

I recommend reading Justice Douglas' dissent.  His opinions are usually
clear, thoughtful, and a joy to read, and this one is no exception. 
Some excerpts follow:

"My Brother Harlan [he means Justice Harlan here] says he "would
suppose" that the tax exemption extends to "groups whose avowed tenets
may be antitheological, atheistic, or agnostic".  If it does, then the
line between believers and non-believers has not been drawn.  But with
all respect, there is not even a suggestion in the present record that
the statute covers property used exclusively by organizations for
"antitheological purposes", "atheistic purposes", or agnostic
purposes".

Douglas goes on to dispense with Burger's "argument from history" by
demonstrating how the vast majority of U.S. legal history did not speak
directly to the issue at hand, since the incorporation of the Bill of
Rights (ie, their application to the state governments via the 14th
Amendment) had not included the Establishment Clause until 1947, and
that it was "not until 1962 that state-sponsored, sectarian prayers
were held to violate the Establishment Clause".

[...]

"A tax exemption is a subsidy.  Is my Brother Brennan correct in saying
that we would hold that state or federal grants to churches, say, to
construct the edifice itself would be unconstitutional?  What is the
difference between that kind of subsidy and the present subsidy?"

[...]

"If a church can be exempted from paying real estate taxes, why may not
it be made exempt from paying special assessments?  The benefits in the
two cases differ only in degree; and the burden on non-believers is
likewise no different in kind.

The religiously used real estate of the churches today constitute a
vast domain.  Their assets total over $141 billion and their annual
income at least $22 billion.  And the extent to which they are feeding
from the public trough in a variety of forms is alarming."

[...]


"If believers are entitled to public support, so are nonbelievers.  A
believer and nonbeliever under the present law are treated differently
because of the articles of their faith.  Believers are doubtless
comforted that the cause of religion is being fostered by this
legislation.  Yet one of the mandates of the first amendment is to
promote a viable, pluralistic society and to keep government neutral,
not only between sects, but also between believers and nonbelievers. 
The present involvement of government in religion may seem de minimus. 
But it is, I fear, a long step down the the Establishment path. 
Perhaps I have been misinformed.  But as I read the Constitution and
its philosophy, I gathered that independence was the price of liberty.

I conclude that this tax exemption is unconstitutional."



In article <1992Nov3.213601.7536@leland.Stanford.EDU>
yergeau@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dan Yergeau) writes:

>  - Do you oppose tax breaks for parents not sending their
>    children to public schools?  

Yes.

>  - [Off the topic of K-12 education, but still relevant to public
>    funding of religious education]  Do you oppose government grants to 
>    college students (formerly Pell grants, but I'm not sure what they 
>    are calling them now-a-days) being used to pay tuition at religious 
>    colleges?

I haven't made up my mind about this.  It is certainly not the same
kettle-o-fish as parochial secondary schools.  The mission of the vast
majority of parochial secondary schools (in the US, at least) is to
educate and indoctrinate.  Many universities with religious
affiliations, on the other hand, often have little to distinguish them
from public universities.  To deny loans to students wishing to attend
these institutions would, in my opinion, go beyond neutrality and
become hostile to religion.  I do not believe the First Amendment
permits this, and I would not support such measures even if they were
constitutional.  I do, though, think that some religious colleges are a
sham.  An acquaintance of mine has a sister attending an college where
(from the descriptions I've received) the tuition is high and spending
is low.  It seems that student tuition is being redirected to fund
whatever the church wishes.  I think that providing public support to
attend such institutions is questionable.

>  - [Off the topic of education, but relevant to public funding of
>    religious preferences]  Do you oppose the use of social insurance
>    tax dollars (i.e. MediCare) being spent in a non-secular hospital?

Again, I think this depends on details.  As a general guideline, I
don't object to public support of church-affiliated institutions which
would otherwise qualify for public support, and which are kept
sufficiently independent from the church.  "Sufficiently independent"
is, of course, difficult to define.  I would say that diversion of
funds to the church, or, say, the rejection of patients based on their
religious affiliation would be examples of policies that should
disqualify a hospital from public funding.

>  - Do you oppose the use of public funds to be used to purchase
>    religious books for public libraries?  If so, what criteria should
>    be used to determine if a book is "religious"?

In absence of more details, I would have to say that I don't oppose
this.  All sorts of folks want all sorts of books for all sorts of
reasons.  I am a distinctly non-secular person, yet I have benefited
from the presence, in libraries, of both "religious" books and books on
atheism.

> Where do you draw the line for government funding of "religion"?

This is a question which is very difficult to answer.  Any reasonably
objective reader of Supreme Court decisions since the Establishment
Clause was incorporated via the 14th in 1947 would have to admit that
the resulting decisions have been at least confusing, if not downright
contradictory.  Some of them, in my opinion, are very wrong (Everson
and Walz come to mind).  Other issues the Court has simply refused to
hear, knowing that they cannot make any reasonable argument for the
position they wish to take ("In God We trust" on our currency being one
example).  Frankly, I'm disappointed in the Court's lack of resolve
when it comes to upholding the Establishment Clause in the face of what
would surely be unpopular decisions.  About the only recent bright spot
was the Weisman case where O'Conner, Souter, and Kennedy bit the bullet
and supported the Establishment Clause even though O'Conner and Kennedy
had written earlier opinions suggesting they might do otherwise.

Thank you for taking the time to ask me about my positions instead of
informing me of them, Dan.  I would very much like to follow this
thread, but I will be away from net access until next Tuesday, and my
site expires alt.atheism articles after 3 days.  If responders would
either mail me a copy of their posts, or, alternatively, supply an
explicit expiration date in the article header of sometime past next
Tuesday (which my site will honor), then I would be much obliged.

---------------------------------------------------------------
"Churches should look to their members and friends only for the
financing of their undertakings, and no church should engage in any
undertaking, no matter how laudable it may be, that its members and
friends are unable or unwilling to finance."  - Senator Sam Ervin