I don't think it would ever fly here, and I'd be completely against it if someone tried to make it fly. I have a couple reasons I can think of right off hand. A) Separation of Church and State means the Church doesn't get involved in the State and the State doesn't get involved in the Church. I believe it's important for people to worship and believe how they want to, without the State mandating it in any way. If there was some kind of Religious Public Education then, yes, the State would be involved in deciding what is and is not taught. All Protestants do *not* believe the same things, and interpretations of the Bible are varied from one pastor to another, much less one denomination. The government getting involved and saying, "This is what we teach the children about Communion" and "This is what we teach the children about the virgin birth" and "This is how we explain what happened on the day of Pentacost." No no no. None of that flies with me, and I don't think it should fly with any Christian, or anyone who believes in the separation of Church and State.
B) The point above about then having a Jewish School System, and a Muslim School System, etc is valid. I know your reply was "if there are enough students and teachers" but, if there are not, then ... what? Majority rules, sucks to be them? The Christians get to send their kids off for a Christian education simply because there are *more* of them? That's hugely discriminatory and we'd be up to our eyeballs in lawsuits over it before the whole system collapsed.
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Date: 2006-08-17 07:41 pm (UTC)A) Separation of Church and State means the Church doesn't get involved in the State and the State doesn't get involved in the Church. I believe it's important for people to worship and believe how they want to, without the State mandating it in any way. If there was some kind of Religious Public Education then, yes, the State would be involved in deciding what is and is not taught. All Protestants do *not* believe the same things, and interpretations of the Bible are varied from one pastor to another, much less one denomination. The government getting involved and saying, "This is what we teach the children about Communion" and "This is what we teach the children about the virgin birth" and "This is how we explain what happened on the day of Pentacost." No no no. None of that flies with me, and I don't think it should fly with any Christian, or anyone who believes in the separation of Church and State.
B) The point above about then having a Jewish School System, and a Muslim School System, etc is valid. I know your reply was "if there are enough students and teachers" but, if there are not, then ... what? Majority rules, sucks to be them? The Christians get to send their kids off for a Christian education simply because there are *more* of them? That's hugely discriminatory and we'd be up to our eyeballs in lawsuits over it before the whole system collapsed.