Voucher supporters ignoring separation of church, state

Tuesday, the Idaho Senate rejected the education voucher bill, which attempted to fund religious schools (among other things), cutting into funds for public education. Our senator, Scott Herndon, voted for it. The house education committee stopped a similar bill. Our representative, Mark Sauter, voted to stop it.

It makes a big difference who we elect from District 1 to the Idaho Legislature.

The bills rolled at least two of our founding fathers over in their graves: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, both fanatical supporters of freedom of religion, fanatically opposed funding religious institutions with government money. Money changing hands either way between government and religion leads to corruption of both institutions.

President Madison vetoed a bill to give support to a religious charity, because it “exceeds the rightful authority, to which Governments are limited by the essential distinction between Civil and Religious functions, and because it gave to “religious Societies as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty” (support of the poor, and education).

The voucher bill supporters tried to distract from how the bill proposed to corrupt the separation of church and state. The opposition in the Idaho House of Representatives and Idaho Senate were not distracted.

NANCY GERTH

Sagle