The Columbus Dispatch reported today that it seems some parents of children who currently attend private school are enrolling their children in troubled public schools so they can get a voucher to pay for the private school they attend. Those who already attend private schools or are home schooled are not eligible to get vouchers.
Tag: Ohio
Well the religious authoritarians in the Ohio legislature have been busy. Instead of finally coming up with a plan for the equitable funding of Ohio schools – as the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled since 1997 – some members of the Ohio House passed a bill last year that would require Ohio schools to post the US or Ohio mottos in classrooms and cafeterias. Sounds harmless but both mottos refer to “God”. The US motto is “In God We Trust” and the Ohio motto is “With God All Things Are Possible”. So indirectly, the bill would force God into the schools. House Bill 184 was passed in June 2005 sits in a committee in the Ohio Senate for consideration. If passed in the Senate then it would become a law.
My friend Dan Birtcher, who organized a protest of the so-called National Day of Prayer, reports that the protest went well and no one was arrested. Read a note he sent out about the event and I included a link to some photos.
A friend of mine passed along the following note concerning the so-called National Day of Prayer. The info concerns a protest to held in Columbus on 5/4/2006. If you would like to participate feel free, if you want more info, above what is posted, his contact info is at the end of the post.
Coach Dave Daubenmire, former London, OH high school football coach and now National Director of Minutemen United and Founder of Pass the Salt Ministries, held a rally in Danbury, Connecticut Tuseday. “Standing on the 1st Amendment promise that ‘Congress shall make no law,’ we declare that Christians, and the Christian God will no longer be pushed back into the church. We believe, as the Founders did, in ‘the free exercise’ of our Faith, unhindered by the unconstitutional restrictions of government. It is our belief that no court decision in the history of America has had a greater impact on the moral condition of this nation than that issued by Justice Black in Everson case of 1947. For sixty years, the mouth of the church has been silenced, as we bought the lie that the church had no voice in the moral/political issues of our day.” – Coach Dave Daubenmire. It is not the first time that Daubenmire has tried to rewrite history. You only have to look at his bio on his ministry website.
I had an e-mail land in my box today that could be one of the smoking guns that proves Rev. Russell Johnson of the Fairfield Christian Church and Ohio Restoration Project is electioneering for Ken Blackwell, who is running for Governor and hopes to be the Republican nominee this fall. It seems Johnson sent a link to a Blackwell campaign video to members of his church and his staff. His note infers that a vote for Blackwell will help “ministers and Christians in America… repent of cowardice in the face of the enemy by allowing our nation to be taken hostage to secular myths”.