(12)    Tue 20 Jun 95 17:33
By: Robin Murray-o'hair
To: All
Re: Gingrich Calls Vouchers Prayer Solution
St:
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@EID:f608 1ed48c20
@MSGID: 1:382/1006.0 8834FA2E
@TID: WILDMAIL!/WC v4.11  94-0279
GINGRICH CALLS FOR VOUCHERS AS A SOLUTION FOR STATE/CHURCH
SEPARATION CONCERNS

So, you want to send your kids to the only public school in town.
But when they enroll you find out that daily prayers are said
over the intercom into every classroom and that a Bible history
class is required. When you object that your kids are required to
say prayers in which you do not believe in order to get an
education in a public school, the teachers make them wear
earphones during the prayers. And, of course, all the other kids
make fun of them and call them "devil worshippers." So you
finally sue to seek a solution.

What does that make you? An example of anti-religious bias.

Or at least that is what Newt Gingrich, speaker of the House,
said about Lisa Herdahl of Ecru, Mississippi, a Lutheran mother
who has objected to school-run prayers at her local school.
Herdahl sued the Pontotoc Country School District last year.
School authorities have defended the practice as constitutional
since the prayers are led by students, not teachers or
administrators. They are broadcast to all school rooms.

At a town meeting in Roswell, Georgia, on Saturday, June 17,
Gingrich told the audience that "I think it is nonsense to say
that one person can dictate to 3,000. My attitude is that we'll
give you a voucher for the value of your child's education. Go
find a school you like. . . . What we've gotten into is a
situation today where the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union]
finds one person who will be a litigant in a lawsuit, and so that
one person is not uncomfortable, we make 3,000 uncomfortable."
The solution, Gingrich claimed, is a voucher system allowing
parents to select their preferred schools: "If you want to go to
an Atheist school, fine. Go to an Atheist school. I'd offer
vouchers and say, 'Find a school you like.' But don't dictate to
everybody else in your community based on your particular
prejudices."

Ecru, Mississippi, is a town of 3000 persons, mostly Baptists.
There is little doubt that Ms. Herdahl  would not be able to find
an  Atheist school  there in which to educate her Lutheran
children. In fact, the only school in her area is a private,
Baptist school.

Ms. Herdahl summed up Gingrich's idea most succinctly: "It's
completely nuts,"  she said on Sunday, June 18. "Are you going to
give vouchers for different religious groups? [Roman] Catholics
go to one? Baptists go to another? I can t believe that, my
trying to make a community follow the law and the Constitution.
The Constitution was not written for the minority or the majority
but for everybody," she told Reuters News Service.

Her words echo those of the Supreme Court in West Virginia Board
of Education v. Barnette (1943): "The very purpose of a Bill of
Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of
political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of
majorities and officials . . . One's right to . . . freedom of
worship . . . and other fundamental rights may not be submitted
to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."

The Herdahl case will be tried in a U.S. district court next
March. In the meantime, the family has received bomb threats from
the local Christian community.

                           --30--


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                     THEISTWATCH
An educational service provided by American Atheists, P O
Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195, Telephone (512) 458-1244,
FAX: (512) 467-9525, BBS: (512) 302-0223, Fidonet 1:382/1006.
For information on American Atheists, e-mail: info@atheist.org.

 * WCE 2.0/2394 * One man's religion is another man's belly laugh.

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(13)    Tue 20 Jun 95 17:33
By: Robin Murray-o'hair
To: All
Re: Parents, Teachers Protest Vouchers
St:
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@EID:c47b 1ed48c20
@MSGID: 1:382/1006.0 8834FA31
@TID: WILDMAIL!/WC v4.11  94-0279
PARENTS, TEACHERS PROTEST VOUCHER PLAN

     The State of Pennsylvania has been trying for over
thirty years to pass a program which gives vouchers to
parents who want to educate their children in church schools.
Each time the legislation is defeated, but the Roman Catholics
in the state keep coming back again and again attempting to
obtain the financing. This time, the anti-vouchers
contingency had 200,000 cards and letters sent to legislators
the week before the vote on the proposed voucher bill --
and managed to make 25,000 telephone calls to them during
the week before the vote.

     At least 3.5 million persons are now in a Public
Education Coalition to Oppose Vouchers (PECOTV) and  to save
the public schools -- double those in the last effort to stop
the voucher program in 1991. The teachers of the state are in
the forefront of the fight. But the Roman Catholics keep
hammering away.

                            --30-


-----------------------------------------------------------
                     THEISTWATCH
An educational service provided by American Atheists, P O
Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195, Telephone (512) 458-1244,
FAX: (512) 467-9525, BBS: (512) 302-0223, Fidonet 1:382/1006.
For information on American Atheists, e-mail: info@atheist.org.

 * WCE 2.0/2394 * One man's religion is another man's belly laugh.

--- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.11
 * Origin: American Atheists Online (512) 302-0223  (1:382/1006.0)
SEEN-BY: 102/2 850 851 890 943 270/101 280/1 31 333 396/1 3615/50

@PATH: 382/1006 29 91 92 3615/50 396/1 280/1 102/2 851
