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by 2four2 632 days ago
"courts have long given voucher programs a pass, ruling that they don’t violate the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state because a publicly funded voucher technically passes through the conduit of a parent on the way to a religious school."

Oh wow, I didn't realize all it took to break the law was a middleman. This is why intent of law matters, not just the letter of it.

4 comments

As long as both secular and non-secular schools are eligble for vouchers in both law and practice then that is fine. You could imagine a situation where they have vouchers 'available for all' but in practice there is some kind of bureaucracy that only allows vouchers to be eligible for religious schools. If the state prevented religious schools from taking vouchers then arguably that is violation of the separation of church and state because they are punishing religious people.
> I didn't realize all it took to break the law was a middleman

You might have meant this sarcastically, but using a middleman is exactly how many laws are routinely side-stepped (broken). It turns out that this is a crazily effective technique.

“What do you do?”

“PLEASE”

My understanding is the "separation of church and state" is at the federal level; states may be free to establish their own religious institutions if their state constitutions permit it. Perhaps the relevant part of the Ohio constitution is Article 1, Section 7.

https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-constitution/section-1.7

Not since the 14th amendment, no?
See also, government and data collection. It's technically okay if they pay for it.

Technically correct is not the best kind, fight me