Last night, the Budget Committee of the town of Hampton voted 4-3 to recommend the warrant article granting public funds to a religious school, Sacred Heart School.
The "recommendation" appears in bold letters at the bottom of the warrant article on the ballot.
For those who are unfamiliar with town voting on warrant articles, in New Hampshire townspeople no longer go to town hall meetings--Hampton has 20,000 people--so they go to the high school one day in March and they are given a thick packet of warrant articles and a black pen and they work through the 20 pages of material and vote on the two articles they are actually interested in and then on all the others, just to feel like engaged citizens.
But they know very little about the other articles and generally vote "yes" if the various town committees have recommended "yes."
In the case of the warrant article granting $50,000 to Sacred Heart School two separate bodies recommend for or against: The School Board and the Budget Committee.
The usual understanding is an article is "recommended" if a majority of the Board votes to recommend, but this year of 5 School Board members only 2 voted to recommend, and the rest abstained. Someone in power decided that was good enough and the warrant article will get its coveted "recommended by the School Board."
One of the favorite arguments for those in favor of the SHS article is, "It's all about the kids." That one particularly rankles the opposition, because it suggests that it's not about anything but the kids, that is is ONLY about the kids, and the opposition keeps saying, sure, it's about the kids--but it's not ONLY about the kids; the real issue is separation of church and state.
To hear the advocates for the SHS article keep repeating this insults the opposition because it implies if you're not for the article then you do not care about the kids.
This insistence on the "All About the Kids" clearly means the SHS crowd is simply not hearing, not listening to the objections.
"Just show me the money" seems to be the response.
No member of the School Board, other than Wendy Rega has actually ever said the words, "separation of church and state." It is as if the Chairperson, the Shepards, Frank DeLuca have never heard the opposition say those words. DeLuca actually asked why the member of the public opposed the article, as if the member had not just spent 3 minutes talking about separation of church and state. Willful deafness.
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| August Maake |
Other deflated arguments have been that it saves the town money to send kids to SHS, which is cheaper than paying to educate them in the public schools, but with public schools having open seats and enrollment declining, with all that excess capacity, it saves no money to not keep those seats filled--the teachers, the facilities are already paid for; paying for SHS is now an add on.
Another favorite, which one of the Committee members used to explain his vote is, "We've always done it this way."
But, of course, that was the same argument used to argue for segregated schools in the South. The Constitution tells you what you cannot vote on and you cannot simply vote locally to ignore the basic law of the land.
"Local nullification" has been pretty well defunded since the Civil War.
Of course, with the current Supreme Court of the United States, it looks as if separation of church and state is now unconstitutional, but as far as New Hampshire goes, the state constitution is as explicit as it can be that funding religious schools with taxpayer money is not allowed. Chris Muns read the parts o the NH constitution and that much was clear. A lady who identifies herself as "Attorney" keeps raising the NH law 189.49 which seems to allow public funds for religious schools-- but it doesn't take 3 years of law school to know that the state constitution trumps any state law which violates it.
The problem with the constitutionality argument, of course, is what is deemed to be constitutional, no matter what the words of the constitution say, is nowadays only a matter of what any Supreme Court, state or federal says is constitutional. But that, of course, can change as the courts change in composition.
Then there is the argument that this warrant article simply reflects the will of the voters, an effort to show good will toward Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal church. This argument is put forth by people as if the Board and Committee recommendations never happen.
Of course, this "well, the voters like this" argument has been said repeatedly at both the School Board meeting and the Budget Committee meeting; But if you really wanted to let the voters decide you would not recommend for or against but simply say nothing. But in saying you recommend it, obviously--Well, duh!--you are putting your thumb (or as one speaker said, an elephant) on the scale.
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| Obadiah Youngblood |
And as Matthew Saunders, a member of the Committee said last night, "We, as the Budget Committee are not in the business of using taxpayer funds to express good will."
Below is an unedited video--the speakers are at the beginning and then you have to scroll to the end to hear the vote of the Committee.
https://reflect-hamptonnh.
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