In the capital

Church & State, Nov 1999

Supreme Court Ducks Religious School Voucher Cases

Indicating an unwillingness to make sweeping changes in current law, the Supreme Court refused Oct. 12 to hear four important church-state cases-including a pair of conflicts from Maine dealing with voucher subsidies for religious schools,

The Court's inaction was a victory for church-state separationists, particularly on the voucher issue. The justices left standing a federal appeals court ruling and a Maine Supreme Court decision barring the use of tax money to pay for tuition at religious schools. The cases (Bagley v. Raymond School Department and Strout v. Albanese) had been closely watched by both voucher opponents and proponents.

"This is an important victory for American taxpayers said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "Parents have the right to send their children to religious schools, but they don't have the right to make the rest of us pay the tuition."

In addition to the Maine voucher cases, the Supreme Court also declined to review a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision against sales tax exemptions for Bibles and religious literature (Pennsylvania v. Newman) and rejected a case from New York's highest court striking down a special "public" school district for Kiryas Joel, an Orthodox Jewish enclave. (Pataki v. Grumet)

The news from the high court, however, was not all good. On Oct. 4, the justices declined to hear a challenge to an Arizona law granting tax breaks to those who pay for tuition at religious and other private schools. (Kotterman v. Killian)

Religious Conservatives Attack Population Control

Despite warnings of dire consequences from public policy experts, a group of religious conservatives was in a celebratory mood at the announcement that the world's population has surpassed six billion people.

In a full-page newspaper advertisement Oct. 12 in the Washington ?Tmes, Religious Right leaders and ultraconservative Roman Catholics criticized United Nations family planning programs and insisted that population growth should be encouraged. "Let us join together in celebrating the birth of Baby Six Billion," the advertisement said. "He or she is a sign of our future, our hope and our prosperity.... We are grateful that Baby Six Billion has come into the world. Baby Six Billion... is not a liability, but an asset. Not a curse, but a blessing."

Ad signers included James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Charles Donovan of the Family Research Council, Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America, Paul Weyrich of the Coalition for America, Richard John Neuhaus of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, Patrick Fagan of the Heritage Foundation and Thomas Monaghan, chairman of the Ave Maria Foundation (and former Domino's Pizza magnate).

The advertisement goes so far as to insist that the world is not overpopulated, and in fact, does not have enough people. "Underpopulation, not overpopulation, is the greater threat to the world today... The populations of the developed nations are not doubling today, but are static or declining," the signers said.

Demographers and other population authorities noted the "six billion" announcement with significantly more solemnity. Despite the glee of Religious Right leaders, experts note that rapid population growth has led to deforestation, soil erosion, famine, water shortages and the extinction of 200 species a day. While the religious conservatives insisted in their advertisement that "humanity has never been so prosperous," scholars estimate that half of the world's six billion people live on $2 a day and one-fourth of the world's population lives on $1 a day.