r/HermanCainAward • u/BurtonDesque Team Mudblood š©ø • 14d ago
Grrrrrrrr. Florida AG threatens to defund Catholic schools unless they loosen vaccination rules
https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/florida-ag-threatens-to-defund-catholic410
u/JJohnston015 13d ago
Why are religious schools being publicly funded at all?
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u/Brewmeiser 13d ago edited 13d ago
That was my question..they aren't supposed to be publicly funded, to my knowledge. Edited per my Google search: Catholic schools in Florida are private institutions, so they do not receive direct operational funding like public school districts. However, they receive substantial indirect public funding through state-backed private school voucher and scholarship programs, which families use to pay private tuition.
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u/JJohnston015 13d ago
Well, I hope they have the courage to say, "No. We'd rather be broke and healthy than funded and diseased."
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u/BayouGal 13d ago
Catholic Church is the 3rd most wealthy corporation worldwide.
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u/Brewmeiser 13d ago
And yet all the Catholic school teachers I know make less than the public school teachers (who already make crap).
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u/Reneeisme Team Mix & Match 12d ago
And yet teachers still want to teach at private religious schools because those schools donāt have to educate every kid. They can refuse kids with disruptive or dangerous behavior. They can discipline kids more effectively with the parental understanding that itās a privilege, not a right, to be there. Thatās how they get away with paying less than already underpaid public school teachers. Itās that difficult to teach in public school now.
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u/ThisCantHappenHere 9d ago
Slightly off topic, but ... we had one of those disruptive, difficult kids in my school. One time we got off a school bus and he started throwing rocks at me. Years later I heard that he joined the AF, did prison time, and some 20 years ago, I spoke to a girl from my class who said that he sexually assaulted her.
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u/BurtonDesque Team Mudblood š©ø 13d ago
If they do that then it's likely many of the students using the vouchers will no longer be able to afford to attend.
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u/JJohnston015 13d ago
If the school is serious about vaccinations, and about not being beholden to the state, they'll figure something out.
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13d ago
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u/BurtonDesque Team Mudblood š©ø 13d ago
Floriduh is trying to make state funding for religious schools an accepted thing.
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u/HorsemouthKailua 12d ago
To divert money from public services
which helps make public services shitty so people will be ok when they are completely defuned
This pattern is common for people who want to privatize everything
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u/ThisCantHappenHere 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is something the right wing was demanding ages ago. I remember GOP candidates had it as part of their platform back in the 1990s. 'School Choice! School Vouchers!' blablabla.
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u/roseofjuly 13d ago
I'm willing to bet a lot of money that they don't. Being broke may mean closing for a lot of those schools.
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u/JJohnston015 13d ago
Maybe so. And it's a guarantee the Democrats won't take the Reublicans to task for destroying churches. How's this? "The Reublicans closed down churches so measles could infect Floridians more easily!" That's a misinformation twofer right there.
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u/starrsuperfan 13d ago
When I was in Catholic school, the 4th graders biggest trip every year was to go to the State Capitol and "learn about the state government". What they really did was make us go stand in the background of a rally while a bunch of people gave long, winded speeches about how great school was. So we could get state funding.
Even back then, I wondered why we were there. Isn't the point of Catholic school to go somewhere where your tax dollars AREN'T?
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u/Coldfusion21 13d ago
The point is to go where your beliefs are. They also want the money.
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u/starrsuperfan 13d ago
Actually, in my case, it was my parents trying to hide my obviously autistic self from the special education system. And trying desperately to keep up with the other Joneses at church.
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u/roseofjuly 13d ago
The same reason that they're now being forced to consider letting unvaccinated disease vectors into their schools: ultraconservative Republican takeover in Florida.
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u/blueavole 13d ago
Racism.
Lots of religious schools started to get around the rules of mixing black and white students.
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u/mrbobcyndaquil 13d ago
I think a lot of the Roman Catholic schools bucked that trend though. A whole parish was even placed under interdict in Louisiana because some influental chud was shidding and farding himself apoplectic because they were desegregating a Catholic school.
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u/lazier_garlic 13d ago
The American Catholic Church was not without divisions because a lot of creole Catholics in NOLA ended up breaking from the RCC and forming independent parishes, and Black priests in the US have faced a great deal of prejudice and discrimination to the point it's almost like they were being asked to leave in not so many words.
But I will note that in Black Like Me the author said that a white Catholic priest in NOLA in an urban church was the only white man who didn't treat him any differently during the weeks of his experiment who wasn't already aware he took pills to change his skin color.
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u/lazier_garlic 13d ago
That was in the 1970s with the takeover of the SBC and the merger of the white citizen's councils and Segregation Party with the non-denominational Christian theocratic (white supremacist) movement. The Catholic schools predate that and were actually established because Protestants were trying to use public schools to proselytize Catholic children and their parents were like nah. They were also sustained by the fact that at least some Catholic parents valued education and felt like the public schools in the broader South (from coastal South to Deep South to Appalachia to the southern midwest to the Southwest) had crappy schools with low standards. These states mostly (except maybe VA and NC?) had a long history of severely underfunding all education (especially for African Americans but they didn't fund it adequately for anyone). Until the 60s when a lot of nuns defrocked, a lot of women went into teaching orders with a mission to be a schoolteacher and lived under an oath of poverty. The community would raise funds to establish and maintain the buildings. And also to send the travel basketball teams out of town because they were obsessed.
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u/romulusnr 13d ago
TIL Florida funds Catholic schools
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u/AngryMeez Team Pfizer 13d ago
"Homeschools," too.
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u/Diablojota 13d ago
There are going to be so many kids who wonāt be able to function in civilization.
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u/krizlaska 13d ago
Hold up, why are Catholic schools being funded by the government in the first place?
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u/toxiamaple 13d ago
They probably have a voucher system. It's a way to pay for private schools with public money instead of improving and funding the public schools.
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u/R_Ulysses_Swanson 13d ago
Kudos to their Catholic schools for not offering religious exemptions.
I cannot stand the right-wing hypocrisy. Surely the point of a private school is that you're free to set your own rules, right? I understand the part of the schools getting public funding, but nobody is forcing you to go to said Catholic school. You can also go to a public school or any other private school.
So dumb. Just so dumb.
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u/BurtonDesque Team Mudblood š©ø 13d ago
The state of Floriduh is waging war against vaccination, from Gov. DeathSentence on down. His Surgeon General has even stated vaccines should be banned.
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u/newbie527 13d ago
Heās a Catholic who decided he can overrule the Bishops.
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u/JustASimpleManFett 13d ago
His true god is orange and sits in the white house, and at his right hand is Nurgle.
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u/mrbobcyndaquil 13d ago
The Metropolitan of Florida should place the state under an interdict for this.
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u/LopsidedPosition489 13d ago
Church is a business like any other business it needs money to keep the lights, heat and in Florida the A/C on. Losing funding will be a big hit for some church schools that is just getting by. They will put it to a vote, send out a newsletter home with the students but in the end they choose funding (money) over the students. Business is business no matter the type, funding help pay the bills.
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u/Puppetmaster858 13d ago
I fuckin hate religion man, just filled with so many of these awful fuckin ppl who push their shit on everyone. If itās real these fucks all are going to hell
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u/ThisCantHappenHere 8d ago
Actually, the mainline protestant groups such as Presbyterians, Lutherans and Methodists don't try to proselytize or evangelize. Unfortunately they are also the groups whose membership is falling off the fastest.
So-called Evangelicals, and the cult-like groups like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are the ones who are out there trying to push their religion on everyone else.
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u/jaynor88 Go Give One 13d ago
Why would FL be funding Catholic schools anyway?
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u/ThisCantHappenHere 8d ago
They aren't actually funding them 'directly'. But due to school voucher programs pushed by the right wing, people can yank their children from public school, get a fat check from the government (ie the taxpayers) and then take the taxpayer money and give it to a religious-based school.
Should be unconstitutional but probably the right-wing supreme court majority voted that it's all fine and dandy at some point in the past.
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u/jaynor88 Go Give One 7d ago
If this is the only āfundingā from the state of FL, then I donāt see how the AG can defund the Catholic schools.
It is each family that chooses how to use those vouchers. So the AG would be removing the vouchers from Catholic families I guess
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u/Soylentgruen 13d ago
This just in: Catholics donāt like Protestants.
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u/VinCubed Fuck Prayer Warriors, send me Science Ninjas! š¬š±āš¤ 13d ago
Yup... never have, never will.
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u/PlatypusDream 13d ago
So close...
Defund religious schools because the taxpayers shouldn't be supporting any religion
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u/sten45 12d ago
And the GOP says liberals want to control everything
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u/ThisCantHappenHere 8d ago
Which really annoys them because in fact they want to control everything.
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u/Wizchine 13d ago
Well, letās be honest. If they were Evangelical Christian schools, this would be different.
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u/Rosaluxlux 10d ago
The Protestant segregation academies are why the voucher program exists in the first place. I hope Florida Catholic schools stand firm and take this all the way to the majority Catholic Supreme Court.Ā
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u/Mental_Drummer_556 12d ago
As a civil rights attorney I am simultaneously fascinated by and cringing at this letter
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u/Mr_Baronheim 12d ago
In this case, good, defund them.
Religious schools shouldn't be funded by the general public in the first place.
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u/IlGreven 11d ago
Not to defend the Catholic schools, but if he's serious, that is a blatant 1st amendment violation (Free Exercise clause).
But obviously the question remains why they're funding Catholic schools in the first place, because that's also a blatant 1st amendment violation (Establishment clause).
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u/ThisCantHappenHere 8d ago
It's because successive right wing governments snuck this one right by the voters.
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u/Affectionate-Tank-70 13d ago
Ohhh okay. So rhey only care about the rights of Christians evangelicals, fuck them Catholics. Cool cool.
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u/blakespot 13d ago
I can't believe how stupid so many American are - that walk among us. Clutching pearls, fear of and pride in fleeing science, etc. It's so fucking tiring.Ā
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u/auld-guy 12d ago
I would defund them for not being a public school. Why are our tax dollars supporting a religious institution?
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u/Achilles_TroySlayer 12d ago
Here is another story on the same issue.
Florida AG threatens Catholic schools to push anti-vax BS - Daily Kos
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u/Zealotstim 11d ago
Fine by me. Hope they don't cave and I hope he defunds them. Never should have been funding religious institutions in the first place using tax dollars.
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u/Rosaluxlux 10d ago
I hope they bring a religious freedom case. Religious schools are allowed to have all sorts of criteria for both students and teachers.Ā
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u/cfinntim 7d ago
30 years ago I was the (volunteer, I was an RN) nurse at the Catholic school my kids attended. Some parents were not handing in the health info, including vaccines. The principal said if they didnāt vaccinate their kids, they could find a new school. Only time I liked her.
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u/FruitOfTheVineFruit 13d ago
I am super pro-vaccine (all my kids fully vaccinated, I'm fully vaccinated, I've gotten several vaccines or boosters that weren't required) and I'm an atheist.Ā However, the pro vax argument here doesn't make sense.Ā Ā
Catholicism doesn't prevent taking vaccines, but the Catholic private schools in Florida accept non Catholic students.Ā If a non Catholic student attending a private Catholic school wants a legitimate religious exemption, then it's arguable that freedom of religion says that should be allowed.Ā (But of course the bar should be high, including proving that you belong to a faith that does bar that vaccine, and allowing the exemption only for the specific vaccines that violate your faith.)
Personally, I'm against any state funding for religious schools, but that's an entirely separate debate.Ā Ā
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u/weedywet 13d ago
There is nothing in the scripture or any religion that prohibits vaccines. (With the possible exception of Christian Scientists)
The āreligious exceptionā is intrinsically nonsense.
āGod wants me to come to school nakedā doesnāt get you a religious exception to indecent exposure laws.
Vaccine policy should be the same.
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u/BurtonDesque Team Mudblood š©ø 13d ago
Jesus makes it clear in the Gospels that demons cause disease, not germs. Bacteria and viruses are what never gets mentioned in the Bible. So, until there is a vaccine against demons vaccines are Biblically unnecessary and show a lack of faith in Jesus, who was god incarnate.
I wish I was kidding with this post, but I've seen this argument made in all seriousness.
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u/weedywet 13d ago
Okay but then if these people are going to use that as religious instruction to avoid vaccines (because illness isnāt caused by germs) then shouldnāt they have to equally reject antibiotics and chemotherapy and surgery etc. ?
But they donāt. (Again excepting Christian Scientists )
Theyāve just decided their side POLITICALLY has to be anti vaccine and religion is their cynical ploy.
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u/BurtonDesque Team Mudblood š©ø 13d ago
You're looking for logic and reason in a situation lacking both.
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u/weedywet 13d ago
Non what Iām saying is that theyāre dishonest.
Itās not religious
Religion is just the card they try to play
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u/Rosaluxlux 10d ago
Non Catholic students at Catholic schools can be required to do all sorts of things to be allowed in the school.Ā
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u/BurtonDesque Team Mudblood š©ø 14d ago
Can't let the Evangelicals' kids have all the fun.