I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference...
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew—or a Quaker—or a Unitarian—or a Baptist... Today I may be the victim—but tomorrow it may be you—until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
At their meeting last night, November 14, 2023, the five members of the Hampton School board provided the adults and children of our town with a lesson in Lincoln's famous observation, "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
But they tried.
You can see this display of four adults trying to talk about anything but the issue plainly put to them, and one who did, but later dodged responsibility.
The link below begins with a presentation by school children talking about their visit to an environmental camp, which allowed the Board members to smile warmly at the children of Hampton, and to prove, once again how all they care about is every Hampton child.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HonSScjwzGA
But at 19 minutes and 29 seconds a citizen rose to ask the Board members about their votes 9 months earlier to fund the Sacred Heart School, and he asked if the school Board members cared about using taxpayer funds to pay for religious ceremonies and pageants at the school.
The chairperson Ginny Bridle Russel, paused a moment, and then started to move on without commenting, but then Andrea Shepard raised her hand and began a lament about what a difficult and wrenching decision this was and wound up saying she had really, really tried to reach a conclusion but she was still undecided about how she felt about using taxpayer funds to fund streaming of religious services on computers paid for by Hampton taxpayers.
Les Shepard then tried to dodge the bullet entirely by saying the Board had no such request in front of it yet, rather than say what he intended to do when that request arrived. In fact, he was assured by Ms. Russel the Board does have the request and is processing it. To which he said something to the effect of, "Oh, well, then." He then sank into what looked like a stupor, as if by falling asleep at the wheel, he could avoid facing the consequences of any statement about giving money to buy paper crowns for nativity scenes at the school.
Frank Deluca saw this as a nifty dodge and said, in effect, we may never get the request the Board had already received--a neat trick considering the school has submitted this same warrant every year for the past 50 years and had again this year-- but he would withhold judgment about whether to recommend it, as if the challenge to say how he felt about sending dollars to fund religious teaching had been fully met. He did say, however that kids had no real choice but to go to SHS when the public schools shut down during COVID, obliquely suggesting the snowflakes who shut down our public schools had it--the flight to parochial schools--coming, and again, believing he had deceived everyone in the room to think that he had not remained silent because he was talking about something, just not about the actual question of whether taxpayers should fund religious pageants or computers which stream a mass from St. Patrick's cathedral. On that he remained silent.
Wendy Rega began boldly, but then, inexplicably, tried to absolve the Board of any consequences of of their opinions, even if they stood up boldly and voted to fund a Christmas manger scene, to send kids on a field trip to the Vatican or to pay for invoices for painting the walls of the classrooms. The Board cannot prevent the warrant article from being placed on the ballot, Ms. Rega said, as if that were the point. All we do is make a recommendation, as if that recommendation were immaterial and without importance.
This ploy has got to be a truly brilliant example of the meaning of the word "disingenuous," in the sense of someone saying something she claims to know less about than she clearly really does know.
Lying silently in front of the meeting was the simple truth that in a package of warrant article ballots extending 30 pages, most citizens simply read the panels at the bottom of each article and if the school Board and the Budget committee recommend it, they shrug and vote for it. Recommendations against a warrant article are typically a death sentence for that article; recommendations for are typically followed by a rubber stamp approval.
Finally, Virginia Bridle Russel, the chairwoman, inveighed against this whole idea of the importance of the Board's recommendation and said it was up to citizens to "do their own research," as if citizens were lining up for vaccines at the warrant article vote.
Nobody rose to object that Ms. Bridle was taking the same position as the captain of the ship who directs his crew to pull hard to starboard and when the ship runs aground claims to have nothing to do with it; the crew should have done their own research.
Ms. Bridle Russel then launched into her tremulous support for "every child in Hampton" as if those who opposed religious education funding did not care about those poor students at Sacred Heart. She did not mention that 75% of the SHS students do not come from or live in Hampton, that those Hampton taxpayer dollars are not paying primarily for Hampton kids, but for kids whose parent want them to be in a Catholic school, no matter where they live. We care about those Hampton kids who go to school in Massachusetts, Ms. Russel said. Our love for Hampton kids is so consuming, it extends to even those kids from surrounding communities who want their kids taught at a religious school and to kids who are for reasons unstated, sent off across state lines.
At this point nobody shouted from the audience, "Ginny, I love all the children of Hampton, too! But I don't want to pay for their confirmation dresses or their bar mitzvahs! That's what they got parents for."
Ms Russel did not say whether or not it bothered her that taxpayer dollars may be used to stream services to SHS kids, except by not commenting on it: As was said, silence implies consent--she did not object to that practice, therefore, she is willing to allow it.
To the great credit of the Board, nobody tried to make the argument made by Samuel Alito and John Roberts, that if a local government decides to fund any form of private school when it allocates funds for the education of kids in its community, it cannot "discriminate" against religious schools, as if that invidious comparison between racial "discrimination" and religious "discrimination" actually is not obscene. "Discrimination" when it comes to race, of course is directed at something the Black child and parents cannot help, cannot change, their own skin color. Discrimination in how we hand out taxpayer dollars, is a different thing entirely, because that word is about the distinction we make between people who do not have a choice and those who do.You can send your kid to a school where religion is never mentioned, pro or con, or send your kid to a religious school for a religious education. That is a choice, and we can make a distinction between religious schools where kids are taught about Jesus Christ and, possibly about the "sin of homosexuality," and public schools where neither of these are mentioned.
During the discussion of the warrant article, an amendment to give the same amount to any religious school requesting funds as is given to the Catholic school was proposed but was rejected with the argument that then Hampton might have to fund a "Church of Satan" school.
Which is to say, in Hampton, we only fund churches we like.
And so, there we have it. Taxpayers for Religious Education.
John F. Kennedy must be rolling over in his grave.
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