Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is the program
designed to start discussion,
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give information, and
open your mental horizons
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on the topic of
religious liberty,
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both in the United States
and indeed around the world.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest on this program,
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welcome, Miss Amireh Al Haddad,
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Director of Public
Affairs and Religious Liberty
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for the Southern Union
of Seventh-day Adventists.
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Yes.
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I got it all? Yes.
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And I'm sure there's
a few other subtitles
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that you carry because
there's so many aspects
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to carrying on
the religious liberty
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and public affairs work,
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which really is
presenting our church generally.
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But mostly we're talking about
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religious
liberty on this program.
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And there's something
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that's even before I
started with Liberty Magazine,
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just as the
Seventh-day Adventist
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looking at this whole issue,
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the question of state aid,
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public monies to
support religion,
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usually to education, hot topic.
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And when I started
about 20 years ago,
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it was the hottest topic
under the rubric of vouchers.
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Yes.
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And I can remember,
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you might not,
but I sent an email.
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You talk about
social media and the risk,
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but I sent an email
once to the power people
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and I said, "You know,
we need to get over it.
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That is yesterday's issue."
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Yeah. But it's come back.
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It's come back or
coming back big time.
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Yes, it is.
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It used to be
called parochial aid.
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That became I guess
politically incorrect,
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told you too much
about what vouchers did.
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Vouchers is more generic.
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Anybody could have a voucher.
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Vouchers seem to be good things.
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You know, you get a hotel,
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and maybe they'll
give you a meal voucher,
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so all of these things are...
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And it disrupts the
apparent passage of money.
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It's not as easy.
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In some people's minds they say,
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well, the government's
not giving the money.
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You know, they're
giving it to the parent
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or an intermediary
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and then they
give it to the church,
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but the government sees
it as their funding of...
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Yeah, its indirect
aid to religious schools.
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Yeah. It's what it is.
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And in the territory
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that I work and
direct and cover,
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we have eight
states in the southeast
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and all eight of them
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have a little bit of
a different approach.
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One of the first
places in my territory
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that we had the issue
of vouchers was in Florida.
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And in Florida, I
think it was 1999,
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the Supreme Court of
Florida said that vouchers
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did something that was
very important in Florida.
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And that was that they violated
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Florida's Blaine Amendment.
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And Florida has
the Blaine Amendment
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that says, "No money will
be taken from the treasury
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either directly or indirectly
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to aid a religion
or a sect or a church."
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I forgot...
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I remember the discussions
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of the Blaine
amendment years ago.
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So long since I heard it,
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I'd really
forgotten how specific it was.
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Yeah, so named
after Senator Blaine.
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He later became, I think...
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Was he...
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I think he was
secretary of state,
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maybe I'm
thinking of someone else.
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In fact, I don't remember.
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He started the
Blaine amendments by...
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What I just
said, you know, no aid
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shall be given to
religion, sex, or churches.
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He started it on
the federal level.
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This is in the 1880s.
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And he wanted to
pass a federal bill
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that would prohibit this.
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It never quite made it
through on the federal level,
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but it did do very
well at the state level.
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And I think 27 or 28 states
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passed Blaine
amendments attach them
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to their constitution.
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Seems like he was
on pretty solid ground.
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I mean, that's
the specifically it
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answers the general requirement
of the First Amendment.
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It does.
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At least, the
way we've interpreted
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the First Amendment on
the Establishment Clause side.
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Make no law
establishing religion.
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You could argue
about what establishing is
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but to fund religions
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seems to be on the other
side of the logical divide.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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So what's going on...
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Because I have become
aware especially down south,
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the agitation for vouchers
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and for government funding
of different church programs
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and schools is increasing.
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What's behind it?
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So what's behind it is a way
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that people are
terming or couching
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what's happening
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when you can't
get money to churches.
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And so now people
have really taken up
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the call of saying,
"Hey, this is discrimination."
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Well, they're using
straw man arguments...
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Of course.
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We've had the article
on these rubberized chips
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from old used
tires is a safety thing
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on playground
equipment at schools.
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Yes.
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And I remember one
church school, of course...
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Trinity? Yeah.
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Trinity versus Comber.
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And the idea was
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how could you withhold something
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that would actually
might endanger the children
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if this church
school didn't get it?
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So yeah, we don't
fund church schools,
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but this is just a safety issue
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for the concern
of the young people.
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But to me, that's a straw
man, that's dodging the issue
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and using maybe
your emotional thinking
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rather than the logic on it
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because it doesn't mean
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that if the
government doesn't provide,
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it doesn't mean
that the kids are unsafe.
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Well, the argument here is
that they were going to use
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this as Trinity
versus Comber in Missouri.
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That they were going
to use this grant money...
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It's about three,
four years ago, wasn't it?
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Yes.
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Grant money to provide
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the rubberized
playground material base
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for the playground.
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And the argument
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was that it would
not help fund religion
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because the
playground was secular
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and anybody could come
and use their playground.
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Well, one level it's obvious
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if people think
about how money works.
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If the church-run operation
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doesn't have to
provide that themselves,
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that frees up
more of their money
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for their church operation.
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Yes.
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So it clearly is
helping religion.
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But they said, "You
give it to everybody
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except for churches,
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and we feel like
that's discriminatory."
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But let's see what
churches do and don't do.
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Churches are exempt from taxed.
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I was about to say that.
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They get a certain advantage
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that it's not
given to everybody.
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Right.
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And so churches say,
"We don't want to pay taxes,
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but we don't mind taking
money out of the tax coffers."
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Now which one do you
want it to be, either or?
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So it's an argument
that doesn't work for me.
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In fact, there's
even a good argument
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the way in the churches
don't really inherently like,
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but there is an
argument that the churches
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shouldn't even
have the tax exemption.
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There is that argument. Yeah.
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That is favoritism is
shown to the churches.
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Yes.
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And saying the Satanists
are in the medieval era
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when the church was
the privileged child
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of the state.
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Well, and I think
we've got the case
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coming through on the
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parsonage allowance.
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You know, should the government
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give parsonage
allowances to pastors?
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That's a hot issue with me.
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I'm sure most
pastors will tell you
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that's a hot issue with them.
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No, it's hot issue with me
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because I can't claim anything
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since, I don't
have a high mortgage.
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Oh, okay.
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Well, you do have to
meet that certain number
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that they've got.
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And some of these dynamics
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that we've
inherited like I said...
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I mean, you can
clearly chase all...
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Trace a lot of this back
to even pre-reformation times
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and how religion
related to the state.
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What we've got leftover
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I don't think is
necessarily harmful,
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and I'm willing myself even
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to sort of pass this
off like the Supreme Court.
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Some of these residual
things, ceremonial deism,
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or it's just or to
really jump a big fence.
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You know, the religious rights
are always looking at excuses
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to say this is a
Christian nation.
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They go to the constitution,
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and I like the President
has something to do with him
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signing a bill, and it
says Sunday's accepted.
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Well, all that is just
a cultural acknowledgment
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that most people are
worshipping on Sunday,
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and it's not a day of business.
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It has nothing to
do with the designation
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or a formal designation
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by the country that
this is a sacred day.
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So there's just
models that we've inherited.
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But I think if those
models are getting in the way
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of separation
of church and state
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or religious freedom,
we need to examine them.
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Yeah.
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And there is a
bit of an argument
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on tax exemptions and so on.
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But to me, it's an
easy one on vouchers
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and other clever ways
of funneling state money
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through to churches which...
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You know, if I was a Muslim
or a Buddhist or something,
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I'd be vaguely
offended by my tax money
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being channeled directly
into the dominant religion,
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which happens to be
Christianity in the U.S.
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Well, it's interesting,
you should bring that up
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because in North Carolina...
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About four or five years ago,
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North Carolina
passed the first step
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in a what is supposed
to be a multi-step program
00:10:04.67\00:10:08.27
called opportunity scholarships.
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This is the new
name for vouchers.
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So we used to
call them parochial
00:10:14.28\00:10:17.35
then we called them vouchers
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and now we're calling
them opportunity scholarships.
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And in North Carolina,
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the opportunity scholarships
designated about $2 million
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the first year to
that they made it through.
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And when I quiz people
when we talk about this,
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and I'll ask
people, "Who do you think
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gets the majority
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of the
opportunity scholarship money
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in North Carolina?"
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And, you know,
people will say the Baptist,
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or they'll say the Catholics,
or they'll say the Methodist,
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they never ever say the Muslims.
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But in North Carolina...
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But they are so
in North Carolina.
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The Muslims get the
first two or three years
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the program ran the
Muslims got over 60%
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of all the
opportunity scholarship money.
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Interesting.
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Now, you know, good luck
to them on a certain level.
00:11:08.66\00:11:11.47
Yeah.
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But that might
be the easiest way
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with some
constituencies to point that out
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and then it
would stop real quick
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because I know the intent
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is not to help
minorities particularly.
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Right.
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But it goes to the whole issue
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of why we say tax
dollars shouldn't go to churches
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because we all disagree
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with each other
about our religion.
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Exactly.
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Across the board,
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whether it be
Protestants against Protestants
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or Protestants against Catholics
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or either
Christians against Muslims
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or Buddhists or whatever.
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We all
understand that our beliefs
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will disagree
with other beliefs.
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And it inhibits
what should be going on
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the free
exchange of information.
00:11:53.41\00:11:55.18
It starts to put the walls up
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and
misinformation bounds and so on.
00:11:58.81\00:12:01.18
I can't see anything
good coming from state support
00:12:01.22\00:12:04.65
of religion through money
00:12:04.69\00:12:06.59
or even we're not
leaving specific laws to uphold
00:12:06.62\00:12:11.36
and protect that
religion is not good.
00:12:11.39\00:12:14.80
When the voucher
bill went through Florida,
00:12:14.83\00:12:18.50
my department in
the southern union
00:12:18.53\00:12:22.20
because Florida
is in our territory,
00:12:22.24\00:12:24.64
we very specifically
were opposed to vouchers.
00:12:24.67\00:12:28.21
And we made it known
00:12:28.24\00:12:29.68
that we were
opposed to vouchers.
00:12:29.71\00:12:31.41
And one of the things
00:12:31.45\00:12:33.01
that the voucher
bills did in Florida,
00:12:33.05\00:12:35.78
and this has been the caveat
in some of the other areas
00:12:35.82\00:12:39.99
is that number one,
00:12:40.02\00:12:41.99
you cannot force the student
00:12:45.03\00:12:46.86
to attend your Bible
class or your chapels.
00:12:46.90\00:12:50.67
You cannot cherry-pick
the students you want.
00:12:50.70\00:12:55.20
So you have to take all
comers with the vouchers.
00:12:55.24\00:13:00.41
There was some
issue about curriculum,
00:13:00.44\00:13:03.04
whether or not you had
to pass a certain curriculum
00:13:03.08\00:13:05.81
with the state
00:13:05.85\00:13:07.18
and then there were
issues of hiring problems.
00:13:07.22\00:13:10.59
Well, these are all
the issues of concern
00:13:10.62\00:13:12.75
running a church operation
in a secular environment.
00:13:12.79\00:13:14.12
All of them. Correct.
00:13:14.16\00:13:15.69
Yes.
00:13:15.72\00:13:17.06
And it's fraught with peril.
00:13:17.09\00:13:19.06
Maybe this is a good
time to take a break.
00:13:19.09\00:13:20.63
We'll be back shortly
to continue this discussion
00:13:20.66\00:13:23.33
of vouchers and
the implications,
00:13:23.37\00:13:25.27
particularly in education
as Amireh has pointed out.
00:13:25.30\00:13:28.07
Sounds good.
00:13:28.10\00:13:29.44