August 26, 2002
Are anti-voucher laws anti-Catholic?
___By Robert Marus
___ABP Washington Bureau
___WASHINGTON (ABP)--The latest argument in the battle for school vouchers draws from the past: State laws banning school vouchers should be overturned because they are anti-Catholic.
___While the U.S. Supreme Court gave voucher programs a boost this year by ruling that they don't necessarily violate the U.S. Constitution, many states have more restrictive constitutions that ban government support of religious institutions even indirectly.
___But now voucher supporters are saying these laws ought to be abandoned due to their sordid history.
___Depending on who is counting, as many as 37 states have constitutional bans on government funding of religion. They are nicknamed "Blaine amendments," after James Blaine, who as speaker of the House of Representatives in 1875 proposed a constitutional amendment banning the distribution of any public funds to religious schools.
___Blaine's amendment passed the House but failed in the Senate. Even so, many states picked up similar language in their own constitutions.
___Modern critics say Blaine's motivation was anti-Catholic bigotry that was rampant in the United States during his day.
___"When they were originally adopted as part of state constitutions, the motive was virtually always anti-Catholic animus," said Pat Korten, vice president for communications at the Becket Fund, a pro-voucher group.
___Pro-voucher groups say passage of the Blaine amendments fed on anti-immigration and anti-Catholic sentiment as Catholic schools tried to obtain tax funding in the 1800s.
___The Becket Fund's Anthony Picarello has noted that public schools of the era weren't exactly religion-free.
___"The common schools taught the common religion, which was a sort of non-denominational form of Protestantism," said Picarello, the group's general counsel, said. "Readings of the King James translation of the Bible and teacher-led prayer were common in America's public schools, and Catholic parents often objected to these requirements."
___He believes the proliferation of state constitutions banning the use of tax dollars for funding of "pervasively sectarian" schools particularly disadvantaged Catholics, who operated nearly all America's private religious schools at the time.
___Forces on the other side of the voucher argument, however, say that oversimplifies the history behind the amendments.
___Blaine's original amendment was inspired by President Grant, who supported banning not only government funding for sectarian schools but also the teaching of Protestant tenets in public schools, said Rob Boston of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
___"Certainly there were instances of anti-Catholic bigotry at that time, but that doesn't mean everybody who advocated limiting funding to non-sectarian schools was motivated by anti-Catholic animus," Boston said.
___Besides, Boston pointed out in a document defending the Blaine amendments, the Catholic Church wasn't doing much at the time to endear itself to freedom-loving Americans.
___"A series of ultra-conservative popes at the Vatican inflamed the issue by issuing statements that alarmed many Protestants in America," Boston wrote. "In 1864, for example, Pope Pius IX released the 'Syllabus of Errors,' a document insisting that Catholicism should be the official state religion and attacking church-state separation, secular government and the notion of religious liberty."
___Even if there is some mixed history about why the Blaine amendments were enacted, it doesn't follow that they are bad law, added Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee.
___"While it is true that the history of these state constitutional provisions is tainted by some of their supporters at the time, that history in no way diminishes the important broader purpose they served," she said. "To focus on 'bigotry' is to overlook the great value that the 'no-aid' principle has served in maintaining good relations among religions and between religion and government."
___Voucher proponents, meanwhile, take the argument a step further. Rather than singling out Catholics, they say the Blaine amendments now discriminate against all religious people.
___"Under the (U.S. Constitution's) free-exercise clause, government is prohibited from singling out religious people for special disfavor--that is what Blaine amendments do," Picarello said. "Government cannot provide benefits to everybody but single out the religious institutions for discrimination."
___Picarello contends that making government benefits like vouchers generally available but excluding their use for religious purposes amounts to "viewpoint discrimination," something the Supreme Court has said is illegal.
___But Hollman said previous viewpoint discrimination cases have involved speech, not funding. "I can say very generally that the fact that religion must be treated in a non-discriminatory way in the context of some speech cases does not mean that individuals will have a free-exercise right to government money," she said.
___What groups like the Becket Fund are advocating is actually "the creation of a new constitutional principle--the idea that not only can a religious institution receive tax money in certain cases, but that the government may be required to provide it in some cases," Boston said. "To say that the government may (fund religious groups) under certain conditions is one thing; to mandate it is entirely another," Boston said.
___Voters in several states in the past 20 years have rejected efforts to alter or remove state Blaine amendments to clear the way for voucher programs. Soon, however, the debate may be making its way into federal courts.
___In Florida, a circuit judge recently struck down a voucher program, saying it violates the state's constitution.
___Gov. Jeb Bush and other state officials quickly appealed the ruling. A similar case out of Washington could also potentially make it to the U.S. Supreme Court, thus forcing the issue of whether such provisions are constitutional or not.
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