BUT WAIT :

Supreme Court Approves Vouchers for Religious Schools (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 6/27/02)

The Constitution allows public money to underwrite tuition at religious schools as long as parents have a choice among a range of religious and secular schools, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The 5-4 ruling led by the court's conservative majority lowers the figurative wall separating church and state and clears a constitutional cloud from school vouchers, a divisive education idea dear to political conservatives and championed by President Bush. [...]

``We believe that the program challenged here is a program of true private choice,'' Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for himself and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

The Cleveland program goes too far toward state-sponsored religion, the dissenting justices said. It does not treat religion neutrally, as Rehnquist contended, wrote Justice David H. Souter. The majority is also wrong about the question of whether parents have a true choice among schools, Souter wrote for himself and Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

``There is, in any case, no way to interpret the 96.6 percent of current voucher money going to religious schools as reflecting a free and genuine choice by the families that apply for vouchers,'' Souter wrote.

Justice Souter here shows himself to be badly confused. That people make a choice he doesn't like is not the same thing as them not having a choice.

Conservatives need to seize on this ruling, the Pledge ruling, genetic manipulation, abortion on demand, corporate misconduct, and the war on radical Islamic terror and tie them all together as a defining struggle over what kind of culture we want to be. Does it suffice to be wealthy, even if amoral, as we were in the Clinton Era? Or do we ask something more of ourselves? Is mere "freedom" purpose enough for America or do we want to create a decent society with that freedom? Is it enough to do good (as in having a rising stock portfolio and no social responsibilities) or should we strive to be Good?

It seems that this is a nearly unique moment in our recent history and that people are begging to be challenged, to be asked to give more of themselves. Why doesn't the GOP just ask?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 27, 2002 11:26 AM