Supreme Court Deals Blow to Catholic School Funded by Taxpayers
The U.S. Supreme Court put an end to a taxpayer-funded Catholic school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4 in a closely watched case that could have resulted in the creation of the nation's first religious charter school.
The Catholic Church in Oklahoma wanted taxpayers to fund the online charter school "faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ."
Opponents warned that allowing it would blur the constitutional separation of church and state, sap money from public schools and possibly upend the rules governing charter schools in almost every state.
The case came to the court amid efforts, mainly in conservative-led states, to insert religion into public schools.
Those include a challenged Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms and a mandate from Oklahoma's state schools superintendent that the Bible be placed in public school classrooms.
St. Isidore, a K-12 online school, had planned to start classes for its first 200 enrollees last fall, with part of its mission to evangelize its students in the Catholic faith.
https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-d...rs-2075839
The U.S. Supreme Court put an end to a taxpayer-funded Catholic school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4 in a closely watched case that could have resulted in the creation of the nation's first religious charter school.
The Catholic Church in Oklahoma wanted taxpayers to fund the online charter school "faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ."
Opponents warned that allowing it would blur the constitutional separation of church and state, sap money from public schools and possibly upend the rules governing charter schools in almost every state.
The case came to the court amid efforts, mainly in conservative-led states, to insert religion into public schools.
Those include a challenged Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms and a mandate from Oklahoma's state schools superintendent that the Bible be placed in public school classrooms.
St. Isidore, a K-12 online school, had planned to start classes for its first 200 enrollees last fall, with part of its mission to evangelize its students in the Catholic faith.
https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-d...rs-2075839
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
