Remarks at the Deliberative Session

There is a technique of public speaking which holds you should tell the folks what you are going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you've told them.

That can get tedious, but I'll at least engage the first two, if for no other reason than it will help you know when I'm about done, and you won't have to keep looking at your watch, wondering when I'm going to finish.

So the three points I'm going to make with respect to this warrant article which grants public, taxpayer money to the Sacred Heart School of the Church of the Miraculous Medal are these:

1. Nullification

2. Money

3. Separation of church and state: Is it good for Catholics or bad?

1. With respect to nullification:  

I visit New York City, Manhattan, now and then and I come to a crosswalk and see that sign flashing in red letters: DON'T WALK. I look down the grid in both directions and I see no car approaching, and I cross the street. Often, I'm accompanied by a policeman or a dozen other citizens. What we have done, of course, is against the law, but if we do not obey the law and if there is no enforcement, we have nullified that law. 

There are other examples: The governor of Alabama, George Wallace, stood in a schoolhouse door and said no Negro child would ever cross that threshold into a public, all White school. He did not care what the Constitution or the Supreme Court said. Nullification.  

And then there is judicial nullification, in which judges nullify a law. The state of Maine refused to use public funds to pay tuition for students to a religious school and Justices Thomas and Alito ruled the state had to pay. They said to discriminate against a religious school simply because it was religious was discrimination.  Justice Sotomayor noted that this ruling at its heart said that separation of church and state is unconstitutional.

This is a peculiar finding, of course, to say that the First Amendment, a part of the Constitution, is itself unconstitutional. 

Some say separation of church and state is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. The First Amendment clearly says government shall not establish a state religion. And the Constitution was not written for lawyers; it was written for the common man, and when it was written every common man knew what state establishment of a church meant, because they already had an established church: The Church of England. And they knew there were only two ways to establish a religion:  if you state this is the state church, or if you used taxpayer money to support a church, that was state establishment of a church. Apparently, Justices Alito and Thomas have forgotten all that. 

But they won't serve forever.

The question we have before us today is whether the nullification of the United States Constitution, the First Amendment, as we do it every year through this warrant article is more like crossing against the light, or more like the more pernicious forms of nullification of the Governor of Alabama or the US Supreme Court.

2.Then there is the money argument: 

For years it was argued that it was simply cheaper to pay for Hampton kids to go to Sacred Heart, which was less expensive than the oh so expensive public schools. That may have been true once, but now there have been empty seats in Hampton schools for years; we have already paid for those Sacred Heart students once and now we pay again.

The corollary to this is "I am a Hampton taxpayer, and my taxes should go to pay for my kid's education and I want my kid going to Sacred Heart." But the fact is only 25% of the kids at Sacred Heart live in Hampton. 75% of the student body is from out of town, so what we are really paying for this a Catholic school education for anyone who wants one, no matter where they live. 

There is simply no money argument for spending Hampton taxpayer money on Sacred Heart--for paying for computers for Sacred Heart, especially when it has always been promised that the funds were spent for only "non religious" things like computers, but when pressed  on the subject, officials admitted they have no idea whether those computers are used to stream religious services.

3. Separation of Church and State: Good for Catholics or an Insult?

You will say to me, "You have no right to tell Catholics what is good for them as Catholics. You are not even Catholic."

This is true: I am not a Catholic.

But I am old.

And I remember, before most of the people in this room were even born, a man named John F. Kennedy, who said, "Because I am not a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, it is apparently necessary for me to state that I believe in the absolute separation of church and state, that no public funds should ever be granted to any church, or to any church school." 

Then he went on to explain why he felt he had to discuss this, but even at age 13, when I heard him, I already knew why: My neighbors said, "Oh, you can't vote for Kennedy, he is a Catholic. That would be like putting the Pope into the White House. He would be a puppet on a string."

Of course, Kennedy did keep that promise, and it was not always easy, but because he kept that promise that finger of suspicion was never pointed at a Catholic candidate again and Catholics have been elected at every level of government, including the Presidency, since Kennedy.

So separation of church and state is good for Catholics, I would submit.

I'll close with my favorite story about separation of church and state, and it involves a past governor of Texas, Ann Richards. 

One day, Governor Richards looked up from her desk and found herself confronted by four very morose looking staffers who told her they had some bad news.

"What is it?" she asked

"Well, you see that nativity scene out there on the lawn outside your office, just a few feet from the entrance to the Capitol? The Supreme Court has ruled we have to take that down, because it violates separation of church and state!"

Governor Richards turned and stared wistfully out her window at the manger scene, and said, "Oh! I do so hate to do that. It's a such damn shame! This is the one and only time, every year, when we are ever able to gather three wise men together in one place at the Capitol!"