Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond — a Republican — is bucking his own party in a new lawsuit aimed at preventing what would be the first publicly funded religious school in America from opening.
On Friday, Drummond filed the suit in Oklahoma Supreme Court, challenging the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s 3-2 decision in June to grant a contract to open St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School. According to PBS, Drummond warned that the establishment of St. Isidore, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would lead to the floodgates opening for religious groups of all stripes to make bids for public funding for schools of their own.
“Make no mistake, if the Catholic Church were permitted to have a public virtual charter school, a reckoning will follow in which this state will be faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests to directly fund all petitioning sectarian groups,” the lawsuit read.
Oh wow! There’s a unicorn in the Republican party! It appears that a modern Republican actually had the inclination to think of “what would happen next?”, BEFORE implementing said thing. Whew.
CoS keeps to themselves. The Satanic Temple are the activists. They’re the ones that do the After School Satan Clubs.
Lucien Greaves, the cofounder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, says his organization may submit its own application if the decision stands.
“We’ll consider opening an alternative school if the courts uphold a flagrantly self-serving & uneducated, utterly unqualified & ignorant school board’s vote to overturn the constitution,” Greaves tweeted.
Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said the board should now welcome other religious groups like Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, and Bahai’s when they present their applications in the future.
Zed says he has written to the board to apply for a Hindu virtual charter school but has not received a response.
Religion aside, opening the floodgates in this way just doesn’t make sense. Our public schools are already underfunded. Why would they want to use the same pool of money to fund even more schools?
Because the point isn’t to fund schools. It’s to create a Christian Theocracy.
Alberta, Canada, has a separate publicly funded catholic school system. They bus kids to our main government building every year for the big anti-abortion rally.
Interesting tidbit: in the Netherlands all schools are publicly funded, including religious ones.
Drummond warned that the establishment of St. Isidore, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would lead to the floodgates opening for religious groups of all stripes to make bids for public funding for schools of their own.
Emphasis mine.
It isn’t that he doesn’t want a Catholic school to be publicly funded. He is worried that other religious groups (subtext: Muslims) will try to get the same funding.
Lol, he didn’t just imply it, he outright went there in a press conference:
"Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism. Because of the legal precedent created by the Board’s actions, tomorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Sharia law. In fact, Governor Stitt has already indicated that he would welcome a Muslim charter school funded by our tax dollars. That is a gross violation of our religious liberty. As the defender of Oklahoma’s religious freedoms, I am prepared to litigate this issue to the United States Supreme Court if that’s what is required to protect our Constitutional rights.” - Press release
The broken analog clock is still right twice a day?
While he could have said it differently and with a lot more cultural sensitivity, he’s correct.
If you allow religion in our schools, you are opening up Pandora box. Flying spaghetti monster deserves a space too.
For sure. It just amuses me that someone can find the shittiest possible ways to argue for the right outcome, and that the media can just overlook the shitty parts because they (rightly) agree with that outcome.
I think it’s also worth noting the phrasing is very deliberate - he reportedly has political aspirations and existing beef with the Senator, so he’s appealing to his potential base too. He mentions Sharia later at least once more and makes sure to let people know he thinks kids should be reading Bibles with their family. It’s all filthy and deliberate politics, and it’s clearly the right thing to do, bizarrely twisted into… this.
As the defender of religious freedoms… [we are ok with catholicism but not islam]
This is beyond parody.
To be fair, that’s the argument that’s most likely to resonate with a lot of Oklahoma voters
Ah, so it’s the old Catholics vs Protestants again.
More like he knows Lucian Grieves of the Satanic Temple has already prefilled a letter with his lawyer friend to have St. Lucifer’s Preparatory Academy financed by Oklahoma state funds. Just waiting for the Catholic funding to be upheld and the letter gets mailed. Along with affidavit from a local Oklahoma Satanist who is absolutely enthusiastic about having their child schooled at St. Lucifers.
Like protestant vs Catholic is least of their problems. They have to finance a Wiccan Coven school, Muslim masrada, scientologist school, a norse Viking academy and so on.
Since as the rule goes: can’t start making rulings on which religions are in and which are out.
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt — himself a Republican who endorsed then-incumbent Attorney General John O'Connor in Oklahoma's 2022 Republican primary — reportedly dismissed Drummond's lawsuit as a "political stunt."
"AG Drummond seems to lack any firm grasp on the constitutional principle of religious freedom and masks his disdain for the Catholics’ pursuit by obsessing over non-existent schools that don’t neatly align with his religious preference," Stitt said.
Project much?
The “constitutional principle of religious freedom” says there shall be no official state religion. So…when the state funds something religious, what does that sound like to them
