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Battle lines drawn in debate over public funding for religious groups

By Lynn Hatter

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-978103.mp3

Tallahassee, FL – The push to repeal Florida's 125 year old ban on taxpayer funding for religious organizations began in earnest this year when the legislature adopted a proposal to kick the language out of the state's constitution. Now a legal fight is brewing to keep the wording intact, and Lynn Hatter reports, the debate has big consequences for the way the state funds schools, and social programs.

Article One, Section Three of Florida's constitution says, "No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or religious denomination, or in aid of any sectarian institution."

Those words make up what's commonly called the Blaine Amendment. And Longwood Republican Representative Scott Plakon sponsored the constitutional proposal to strike those word's from Florida's constitution. It's Amendment 7 and voters will see it on the 2012 ballot.

"There's been some debate on whether it was related to anti-Catholic bigotry or not, I know there are some different views on that, I happen to believe that it was, where we find ourselves now is that this language can be used and applied to all people of faiths, to essentially treat people of faith and institutions of faith different from secular institutions. That's why we're trying to repeal it."

The Blaine Amendment is named after Congressman James Blaine who wanted to put similar language into the U.S. Constitution back in the 1870's. That didn't pass, but soon after, 38-out-of-50 states adopted varying forms of it in their own constitutions. The Florida ACLU looked into the charges of an anti-Catholic bias, and Spokesman Derek Newton says the organization found nothing to substantiate that claim.

"The literature and the historical record at the time make no reference to anti-Catholic bias, in fact the Catholic Church in Florida at the time never mentioned this provision as being targeted to Catholics, it never objected to it. There just isn't any historical support for this being targeted to Catholics or any particular religion."

Florida has been giving taxpayer dollars to religiously-backed groups for decades, despite the constitutional ban. For example: the Department of Juvenile Justice gives money and partners with churches for mentoring and diversion programs. Many of the state's prisons have faith-based ministries. Michael Sheedy with the Florida Catholic Conference likens the situation to a virus: It's been there for a while, but it's only now becoming a problem.

"It was not an issue until the precipitating event, and I think comparing it, the fight over school vouchers was the precipitating factor in bringing that to the attention of everybody and making us want to deal with it."

There have been two recent court cases where Blaine has been cited. 2009's Secular Humanism versus McNeil which dealt with religious programs in public prisons, and 2004's Bush versus Holmes, which kicked out the school voucher program established under former Governor Jeb Bush.

"On a two-to-one decision, the first DCA did find that the program was unconstitutional based on the no-aid provision. And then they also ended up having an on-bond decision, because they had the whole DCA sit in on it, and the majority decided that was the right decision."

For the last decade Florida has been diversifying its educational landscape, much like how investors diversify their portfolios. Under three Republican Governors, the state has seen the creation of charter schools, virtual schools, taxpayer scholarships for students with disabilities and a corporate scholarship for students in failing public schools to go to private ones. Still, school choice supporters are looking at something bigger: giving money to parents and letting them send their children to ANY school they want public, private or religious. But there's a big roadblock to that goal: The Blaine Amendment. Mark Pudlow is the spokesman for the state's teacher's union, the Florida Education Association.

"Sure, that's what the point of this is. If you get rid of this provision then you can do something like that, and that's going to be a real chaotic education system. We give people a lot of guidance about the quality of our public schools, we grade them, we constantly take a look at them, but we don't look at the private schools n the same way."

The union is opposed to the repeal and has fought similar attempts to overturn the Blaine Amendment in the past. This time around is no different. The FEA union is considering filing a lawsuit but spokesman Mark Pudlow says it isn't prepared to make an announcement yet.