By Charles C. Haynes
“I liked the idea,” she explained, “of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school.”
Hodges got a First Amendment reality check when she discovered that Christian schools wouldn’t be the only religious schools getting tax dollars.
Although Gov. Bobby Jindal’s voucher plan passed last month without her support, Hodges vowed to keep looking for alternative ways to “support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools.”
Beyond the fact that some of the Founders were not Christian, Hodges appears confused — to put it mildly — about the implications of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom for all, including American Muslims.
She is not alone.
State Sen. Kevin Grantham of Colorado has worried out loud about the proliferation of mosques in America. Fresh from hearing an anti-mosque speech by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders (outspoken opponent of all things Islamic), Grantham said recently that “mosques are not churches like we would think of churches.”
Categories: Americas, Awareness, Constitution, Human Rights, United States