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Author Archives: Fred Yi
Veterans Day 2010
On November 11, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly intern Jessica O’Hara photographed Veterans Day observances at Arlington National Cemetery and at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where ceremonies this year marked the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the pullout of US troops from Vietnam. In the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington, Chaplain Keith Ethridge, director of the National Chaplain Center of the Department of Veterans Affairs, led a prayer for veterans, their families and friends. Edited by Fred Yi.
Eid al-Adha
Originally broadcast November 20, 2009
KIM LAWTON, correspondent: The festival of Eid al-Adha begins with sacrifice. Those participating in the hajj, and all other Muslim families with the financial means, slaughter a sheep, lamb, goat, camel, or cow.
DAWUD WALID (Council on American Islamic Relations Michigan): This sacrifice is in remembrance of what the Qu’ran says, as well as the Bible, of when Abraham was inspired or he had a dream that he was to sacrifice one of his sons, and then God told Abraham that he did not have to sacrifice his son, and a ram came, and Abraham then sacrificed the ram.
LAWTON: American Muslims typically buy meat slaughtered according to Islamic requirements from a market or grocery store. The immediate family eats one-third of the meat. Another third is shared with the larger community of friends and relatives, and the rest is donated to the poor.
WALID: It’s a religious obligation for us to give to other people. We would not be good Muslims or following our religion, because the third pillar of Islam is charity, so we’re obligated to give charity.
LAWTON: In the United States, recipients include places such as Gleaner’s Community Food Bank of southeastern Michigan. They partner with over 400 outlets in their network of feeding programs to distribute thousands of pounds of frozen lamb meat donated by the Muslim community annually.
JOHN KASTLER (Gleaner’s Community Food Bank): It’s a high-protein item, and it’s certainly the type of food product that we really like to provide during the winter months where you get a nice, hearty meal out of the donation. Groups like the Salvation Army, the Cabbage & Soup Kitchen, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, and different feeding programs around town will be able to enjoy this blessing.
LAWTON: Through the soup kitchens they operate, mosques and Islamic centers also serve as distribution sites. Those who come in to pray are offered bags of lamb to take home, as are all non-Muslims seeking food assistance.
I’m Kim Lawton reporting.
Zen Hospital Chaplains
ROB BUNDY (Buddhist Chaplain Trainee, speaking to patient): Instead of pushing that pain away, just let it be. You are not the pain. That pain is something that doesn’t have to be who you are. Just let your breath take that pain away from you. Beautiful.
BETTY ROLLIN, correspondent: Rob Bundy is one of 24 Buddhist chaplains-in-training at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.
BUNDY: Just breathe down into that pain.
ROLLIN: Audrey Alasia has multiple diseases of the spinal cord and is in constant pain. Rob uses the Buddhist techniques of meditation, visualization, and a focus on breathing to help ease Audrey’s suffering.
BUNDY: The pain comes and goes, right?
AUDREY ALASIA: Yes.
ROBERT CHODO JUSSEI CAMPBELL: In our practice as contemplatives, as Buddhists, as many other contemplatives do, it’s to come back to the moment. What’s happening right now? Come back to your breath. Can you breathe right now? Everything else is going on, but can you come back to the breath? Can we slow it down a little? Can we start to relax?
KOSHIN PALEY ELLISON: I think one of the most important things you can do for someone is to hear their pain and how miserable they are.
CHODO CAMPBELL: Rather than “You’re going to be fine, Mom. You will be home in a couple of days, the operation was a success, bought some flowers, you know, you are going to be great. You will be back on your feet again soon.” That’s not addressing what’s happening to me right now.
ROLLIN: Chodo Campbell and Koshin Ellison, both Buddhist monks, are co-founders and directors of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, which runs Beth Israel’s Buddhist chaplaincy program, the only accredited clinical program of its kind. Chodo and Koshin minister to patients themselves and train others, who are both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. Chaplains may also provide their special kind of care to patients’ families and staff. Part of the chaplain’s training consists of learning about other faith traditions. Sister Maureen Mitchell is there to answer questions about Catholicism.
BUNDY (speaking during training seminar): Is it inappropriate for me as a Buddhist to make the sign of the cross as I am helping a Catholic or praying with a Catholic?
SISTER MAUREEN MITCHELL (Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor, Veterans Affairs Hospital): No, it’s not inappropriate. For you to join with the person may give them great joy. They also might think they are converting you.
ROLLIN: Rabbi Jeffrey Silberman is one of the Jewish instructors.
RABBI JEFFREY SILBERMAN (Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor, Norwalk Hospital): When do you offer direct prayer to people that you are working with?
ANNE REIGELUTH (Buddhist Chaplain Trainee): Most patients you can ask them just would you like prayer, and they will tell you.
(Praying at patient’s bedside): Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, may Anne be at ease. May she be free of all pain and suffering.
ROLLIN: As part of the medical team, chaplains often provide insight about the spiritual needs of patients. Buddhists relate to patients in a non-theistic way.
CHODO CAMPBELL: Many chaplains coming into a hospital, they are coming from a theology, and they are coming from a doctrine, that this is what you do, this is how you tend to the sick. You give them the sacraments; you give them the last rites, whatever it is. For us, we are coming in from a place of just being present to whatever is arising in the moment.
KOSHIN PALEY ELLISON: I was training with other seminarians of Christian or Jewish tradition and sometimes their theologies would be an obstacle in connecting to a patient, because they had ideas about, and moralistic views from their tradition.
ROLLIN: Patients usually request chaplains of their own religion, but Buddhists tend to go everywhere, although Chodo has found that not every patient welcomes him at the start.
CHODO CAMPBELL: I knocked on the door, and I said, “Hi, Mr …. I’m the chaplain on the floor.” And then, “Are you a Jew?” I said, “No.” He said, “Get out!” And I said, “Okay.” He said, “Where are you going?” “I’m leaving. You told me to get out.” “He said, “Get back in here,” and I sat down and he said, “So what are you?” And I said, “I’m a Buddhist,” and he said, “Really? Tell me,” and this was the beginning of the most wonderful relationship I had with many patients in this hospital.
BETTY ROLLIN: Chaplain services of any kind are not covered by insurance. Hospitals usually pay for them, but they do not pay for Buddhist chaplains, who are privately funded. Buddhist interns are not paid at all. Paid or not, the Buddhist chaplains get a lot of appreciation not only from patients, but from staff.
SHIRLEY ESCALA, RN (Patient Care Services, Oncology, Beth Israel Medical Center): When you have nurses who are so busy and who are taking care of cancer patients, or even in the CCU, patients who have just had heart attacks or are in hypertensive crisis, and sometimes you have a patient who just wants to sit and talk, and my nurses do the best they can, but they don’t always have the time. So this is another way to support a patient that’s just incredibly valuable, and they’re able to make them look at things in a contemplative way, being present in the moment, and that helps calm, relax. It brings peace.
ELAINE MESZAROS, RN (Clinical Nurse Specialist, Oncology, Beth Israel Medical Center): If they are calm as we are trying to treat them, they actually get better sooner in terms of their outlook.
CHODO CAMPBELL (praying with patient): I pray that you watch over him…
ROLLIN: Hospitals don’t need Buddhists, but they provide something that more and more hospitals are unable to give to patients—time and loving attention.
For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Betty Rollin in New York.
Washington Jesuit Academy
DEBORAH POTTER, correspondent: The outlook for many young African-American boys is grim. National studies say about half will drop out of high school. But for these boys the future is considerably brighter.
MARCUS WASHINGTON (WJA Assistant Headmaster, speaking to students): Five, four, three, two—two, one. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.
POTTER: This small middle school is bucking the trend.
WASHINGTON (speaking to students): Come on, fellas. Let’s get in line.
POTTER: In just eight years it’s built a strong track record, with every one of its graduates either enrolled in or graduated from high school. More than 80 percent have gone on to college.
STUDENT: Good morning, Mr. Washington.
WASHINGTON (speaking to student): Later on we’ve got to talk about something.
STUDENT: All right.
POTTER: Washington Jesuit Academy [WJA] is an independent Catholic school. All of its students are African American or Latino. Most are not Catholic. Tuition is $18,000 a year, but families pay nothing. The money comes mainly from private donations and foundation grants.
SHANA HAIRE (WJA Parent): I just love my kids, you know, and I want the best for them. If you have your education you can go anywhere. Anything that you want to do in life, you can do it.
POTTER: Shana Haire’s son, Domonic, is in seventh grade at WJA and willingly gets up before dawn to begin a rigorous 12-hour day at school, 11 months a year.
DOMONIC HAIRE: It’s fun to do because you learn more every day, you know, you get to interact more with the students, so it’s like it’s another part of your family.
SHANA HAIRE: I’m a single mom. His dad isn’t around. I like the fact that most of the faculty is men. He definitely needs that in his life—someone he can relate to.
POTTER: Male teachers, small classes, and well-equipped classrooms are the norm here.
TEACHER (speaking to student): Excellente!
POTTER: But what really sets the school apart is the student body. Three-quarters of the boys live in single-parent households. One in five has a parent in prison. The average family income is slightly above the poverty line, so the school feeds its students breakfast and lunch, as well as a complete dinner five days a week. And there’s something else on the menu:
JOSEPH POWERS (WJA Headmaster, speaking to students): Let us remind ourselves right now that we are in the presence of God.
POTTER: Religion and an emphasis on moral values
POWERS (speaking to students): Today’s focus is going to be on gratitude. Where have you seen gratitude? Where have you seen it in action here?
STUDENT: When I help somebody with their homework they said thank you.
STUDENT: Your peers recognizing your mistakes and trying to help you correct them.
POWERS: How about that, guys? Thanking, being grateful to your peers for pointing out something that you’re doing wrong. Most people don’t like being corrected, right? You’re doing something wrong and if your peers are pointing it out and you know you’re doing it wrong, you need to be grateful for that, because they want you to get better. We want you to get better every single day here.
POTTER: Washington Jesuit Academy is one of 64 schools in 27 states and the District of Columbia that use a similar faith-based curriculum. They’re part of what’s called the Nativity-Miguel Network, educating boys and girls from some of the poorest communities in the country. Two-thirds of the schools, including WJA, have opened in the past decade since a wealthy businessman set up a foundation to support the network with almost $10 million in grants. Many of the boys get scholarships paid for by individual donors.
MARY CLAIRE RYAN (Executive Director, Nativity-Miguel Network of Schools): People want to be a part of something good. People want to be a part of something that works. People want to be a part of something that is effective.
TEACHER (speaking to class): Make sure you get through all five religions today…
POTTER: Almost all of the network schools are affiliated with Catholic religious orders. About half are co-ed, and the vast majority are middle schools, focused on children ages 11 to 13.
RYAN: These are the years where students academically can slip very quickly and quite severely and get off path.
POWERS (speaking to students): It’s not a social period, it’s a work period, right?
RYAN: Generally students are coming to us below grade level. What many of our students are not lacking in, though, is a desire to do well and motivation to do well. A teacher senses in a child that level of ambition. Children can tell even by an environment, a physical environment, that “I matter.” Children know this.
ANN CLARK (WJA Director of Counseling Services): They come from schools where they’ve hidden in the back row for years and passed, and we ask them to work 12 hours a day 11 months of the year in very small classes where there’s nowhere to hide, in the service of a future that is not always imaginable to them.
POTTER: And yet they respond to that?
CLARK: They respond to that like plants to light.
POTTER: Not all students thrive, however. Nationally, about 30 percent of students who enroll in Nativity-Miguel schools don’t graduate. Many are dismissed for academic or behavior problems. Severe family dysfunction, not a lack of desire to learn, is often to blame.
CLARK: That’s pretty bad. That is pretty bad. But you know what? We all sleep well at night because we give them every possible chance, every possible chance.
TEACHER (speaking to students): Get your piece of paper, take it step by step. I’m not going to do the work for you.
POTTER: The support starts at school with a required two-hour study hall after dinner five nights a week, supervised by teachers and volunteer tutors. Nativity-Miguel schools also provide academic support and counseling to students after they graduate, helping them win scholarships to elite high schools like Gonzaga, a Jesuit prep school in Washington, DC, where Demitrius McNeil is now a junior. He wouldn’t be here, he says, without WJA.
DEMITRIUS MCNEIL: If you’re a good person overall, then academics will come, you know, so they taught me how to be a good person first, and then they taught me overall how to become well academically. It’s a wonderful opportunity that’s not given every day in every other school. You will quickly find that out. It’s for kids that’s willing to put in the work and the effort.
POTTER: With just 76 enrolled in grades six, seven, and eight, WJA isn’t easy to get into. There are at least three applicants for every opening. Admissions requirements include a low family income, decent grades, and a motivated parent. Most students, like Elijah Simms, came here because their mothers pushed them. As a Muslim, Elijah wondered how he’d handle being at a Jesuit school 12 hours a day.
ELIJAH SIMMS: My first instinct was like no, I will not, definitely, I will never go to this school ever in my life.
POTTER: Now he’s winning awards…
TEACHER (speaking at assembly): Most improved, seventh grade, Elijah Simms.
POTTER: …and thanking his teachers.
SIMMS: The teachers are more caring here. They care about me as a person. They push you to a higher level.
TEACHER (speaking at assembly): Seventh-grade student of the week, Domonic Haire.
POTTER: Remember Domonic? He’s a Baptist who couldn’t be more thrilled to have earned a bracelet with the words “Men for Others,” a paramount objective of Jesuit education.
DOMONIC HAIRE: It says “Man for Others,” and in our school being a man for others is a big thing; because it’s an all-boys school they want us to grow as men and to be helpful to the community and to be close to God and help others in need.
CLARK: We do this not to create Catholics, but because we are Catholic. It’s the social justice teachings of the church that drive us and that basically “Men for Others” kind of works in almost any religious setting that you have or any religious creed. It’s basically leaving things better than you found them.
POTTER: What many of these students find when they go home after school are tough neighborhoods where they’re expected to set a good example.
RYAN: We’ve all heard stories about the ridicule that a uniformed child might get. But to me it’s about, you know, does this learning environment create or help generate within a student a strong moral character that has them—that gives them the ability to navigate difficult situations within a community? Does it give them the ability to influence their peers, influence their family?
POTTER: Family involvement is critical at WJA. Parents must attend monthly meetings, and the school hosts an annual family retreat.
CLARK: A weekend to spend with your child and be able to sit down and talk to them is a great, great gift for them to give each other, and that’s what we hear from the parents and even from the boys sometimes: “It was just great to be with my Mom.”
POTTER: The school’s main goal is simple but audacious: to shatter the stereotype that poor minority students can’t succeed.
CLARK: When you’ve been told you can’t, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t, you believe you can’t. We tell them you can and you will. You can and you will, and then we say and look, you have when they get there, and they’re shocked.
POTTER: About 5,000 students have graduated so far from Nativity-Miguel schools nationwide. Two-thirds have gone on to college. They leave middle school believing anything is possible.
DOMONIC HAIRE: College-wise I want to go to Yale, MIT, the school called Texas Christian University, or Harvard.
CLARK: I think every time a graduate walks through the door and he is proud of himself and on the road to something meaningful for his life it’s just the greatest feeling, and they’re just great kids.
POTTER: And they’re kids who carry high expectations that they’ll give back to these schools and their communities, helping to break the cycle of poverty.
For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Deborah Potter in Washington, DC.
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Religious Leaders Urge Attention to Moral Injuries of War
To mark Veterans Day, the Truth Commission on Conscience in War, a coalition of more than 60 religious, academic, advocacy, and veterans groups, released a report on the moral injuries suffered by service members.The report urged religious leaders to do a better job of educating communities about the criteria governing the moral conduct of war and the needs of veterans and their families. It also called for revisions to current US military regulations to allow service members the right of conscientious objection to a particular war as well as to all wars. Watch Rev. Herman Keizer Jr., a Vietnam veteran, former army chaplain, and Truth Commission co-sponsor; Jake Diliberto, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and co-founder of Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan; and Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, co-chair of the Truth Commission planning committee.
Harold D. Trulear: Where is the Moral Vision?
The 2010 election results have some declaring that the United States has taken a hard right turn. Others, including many African Americans, see the outcome as a racist rejection of African-American leadership. I choose to view the results through a different lens—that of a Christian ethicist amazed at the lack of moral language available during both the campaigns and the post-election analysis.
After a strong effort in 2008 to highlight the values at stake in the presidential campaign, the whole issue of moral vision evaporated this year in a humid, overcast sky of personal discontent. Apart from health care, policy issues found no hearing. The economy received less attention than jobs, and both major parties grabbed for the “we’re on your side” issue of lower taxes with no discussion of those things on which tax dollars should or should not be spent.
Recent national elections, presidential and otherwise, saw candidates reach for moral grounding. Organizations such as Sojourners pressed voters to consider poverty as a moral issue, and discussions about abortion and war drew on moral and religious discourse, as did 2008’s call for “hope” and “change.” But vision is out and reductionist self-interest is in. The struggle for America’s soul in past elections disappeared, replaced by a tug of war over who sides best with middle-class interests. Outside of a few buzz words such as “too liberal,” or identifying ad hominem similarities between current candidates and unpopular current or former office holders, Republican and Democratic campaign commercials were virtually indistinguishable. It is as if America no longer has a soul. The collective fear factor loomed so large it eclipsed sound moral reasoning and any need for real policy debate.
Yet, under the radar screen, the role of religion in public life goes on unaffected. Congregations such as First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, New Jersey, featured in the CNN documentary “Almighty Debt,” continue working at the intersection of the American economy and moral values. Collaborations between the faith community and government in such areas as prisoner reentry, fatherhood, and marriage and family go unexamined. Discussions about abortion and interfaith cooperation sponsored by the current administration’s Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships are mostly unnoticed. Consideration of religion and morality is postponed while angst and anger born of fear receive central attention.
It has been almost 20 years since Stephen Carter lamented the trivialization of religion in the public square in his book The Culture of Disbelief. The ensuing years witnessed a rise in the public engagement of a variety of faith traditions, enriching civic life and making citizens more intentional about drawing on moral values to frame their lives together. Barack Obama’s appeal to hope in 2008 reflected the cresting of that important wave. Sadly, in 2010 it seems to have gone back out to sea.
Harold Dean Trulear is associate professor of applied theology at Howard University in Washington, DC and director of the national faith based prisoner reentry initiative Healing Communities.
Post-Election Religion Analysis
BOB ABERNETHY, host: And now we look at the election results and what they mean with David Gibson, religion writer for PoliticsDaily.com, and with Kim Lawton, our managing editor. Kim, you’ve looked at the patterns. What did you see?
KIM LAWTON, managing editor: Well, not surprisingly Republicans made gains among all religious groups, but there were some pretty significant gains. White Protestants voted Republican overwhelmingly. They’ve done that, they usually do that in elections, but even more so this time. The interesting thing for me was around Catholics. In the last two congressional elections, overall Catholics have favored the Democratic candidates. But this time around they went Republican and by significant margins. Catholics have really become in some ways a swing voting bloc. Obviously there are some who always vote Republican, some who always vote Democratic, but there’s this group who keeps swinging, and this time around they really swung Republican.
ABERNETHY: David, why did so many Catholics switch so much from Democrats to Republicans?
DAVID GIBSON (Religion Writer, PoliticsDaily.com): Well, Bob, I think you, know, the governing issues here driving the election were the bread and butter, kitchen table issues of economics and the size of the federal government, and Catholics were swayed by those as well. But I think also there was, you know, a real degree of moral issues going on here—the debate over abortion funding in health care reform A lot of the things that the Christian right were hammering the Obama administration on for a long time—those also came into play. There was a sense that the Obama administration had been pushed over to the cultural left, and that really made a lot of Catholics very anxious and uneasy.
LAWTON: You know, a lot of people say, well, of course these religious groups went Republican because the whole electorate went Republican more so this time around, but I’ve been talking to some strategists who crunch the numbers, and they said, well, yes, that was a pattern throughout the electorate. Religious voters, especially Protestants and Catholics, voted more Republican at much bigger rates and margins than the general electorate.
ABERNETHY: And why?
LAWTON: Well, you know, David said there’s a lot of different issues why. People also say that the Republicans were doing a lot more outreach and specifically targeting some of these faith communities, and there was criticism this time around that the Democrats didn’t do that as much.
ABERNETHY: David, why do you think that was? Two years ago we were all, you all were talking a lot about Democratic outreach to religious voters and how well they were doing. Why not this time?
GIBSON: Good question, Bob. I think it’s really puzzling in many respects why the administration and the Democratic Party apparatus kind of punted on that religious outreach that had been so successful, that was really, I think, to a degree shifting the political culture where you had religious voters. The biggest predictor of how you’ll vote is church-going. Regular church-goers are going to go Republican more than they are going to go Democratic. In 2006, and certainly in 2008, Democrats had begun to shift that. They really, in the last two years, kind of gave up on that. I don’t know if they got complacent or whatever. But there’s some grumbling certainly on the religious left about the lack of Democratic outreach to religious voters, and you saw the results on Tuesday.
ABERNETHY: What about the Tea Party?
LAWTON: Well, clearly there was a big religious base in the Tea Party. Depending on who asked the question and what question they asked, almost half of people who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement are religious conservatives, so that was a big factor in helping the Tea Party push some of the Republican candidates to victory. Not all of them did win, but it certainly has energized people on the religious right.
ABERNETHY: David, let me turn your attention now to the lame duck session of Congress coming up and particularly to the new Congress coming in, in January. What do you see them doing or failing to do that would be of particular interest to the religious community?
GIBSON: Well, I think two things in the lame duck Congress could possibly come up. One is immigration reform. Harry Reid on the eve of his election said that he was contemplating bringing that up. He said he would bring comprehensive immigration reform up for a vote during the lame duck session. Again, how is that going to work out? How would that play politically? One thing, referring to the Catholic vote that you have to break out, is that Latinos went very strongly for the Democratic Party this time, so you’ve really got, in a sense, two Catholic votes emerging and two votes overall—the white Catholic vote and the Latino Catholic vote. The other issue that could come up in the lame duck is the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, and the Democrats may try and formally rescind that. Those could be two hot-button issues that would get some immediate push back from the right, but also could be supported by the religious left.
LAWTON: And I’m fascinated by some of the battles that could be shaping up in that, because while religious conservatives certainly are concerned about “don’t ask don’t tell,” they don’t want to see that policy changed, but on the other hand when we are talking about immigration, some evangelicals have, although they are fiscally conservative, some evangelicals have been supportive of some immigration reform. And so while the Tea Party really wants to focus on fiscal issues, and on those issues a lot of evangelicals and other religious conservatives are right on board with that conservative fiscal outlook, when it comes to these social issues or things like immigration, some evangelicals might want to support that, and so there are some complexities there.
ABERNETHY: Do you see anything coming up regarding right to life?
LAWTON: Well, I think that that’s always an issue that’s important to religious conservatives. Certainly on the health care bill, that played a role in terms of is there going to be funding for abortion? Or even the Catholic bishops were concerned about possible funding for birth control. So those issues came into play there and are likely to continue as those debates come up again.
ABERNETHY: David, how do you see that?
GIBSON: I think Kim’s exactly right, and I think there’s going to be a big Republican push to repeal health care reform, or to de-fund certain aspects of it, to undermine it in some way, shape, or form. On the other hand, we could have a couple of court cases in the pipeline that could provide a definitive answer to this question of whether there is funding for abortion in the health care reform bill, which experts say there isn’t but folks on the religious right believe that there is. If there’s a definitive answer one way or another that could really be a game-changer as well on that issue.
ABERNETHY: So many people looking at the election returns see a demand for civility, a demand that the Republicans and the Democrats start trying to work together better. To what extent do you see any of that coming?
LAWTON: Well, I hear that. I hear, especially in the religious community, people hoping that there might be some civility. But when you talk to some of the activists and people who were involved in the campaigns, you know, to me what I hear from them is common ground means you vote like I want you to vote, or you vote like I think, and not let’s find a compromise. I don’t hear people in a mood for compromise. I do also hear in the religious moderates and left sort of a renewed commitment to working for their social justice agenda, and so there’s still going to be some political battling ahead.
GIBSON: Kim’s exactly right. I think that the folks on the religious right and the real strong religious right lobby organizations have basically said that the next two years is going to be about 2012. So they are positioning for the next election, because they see that they can only really get their agenda across if they win the Senate and the White House as well. We are in a real winner-takes-all kind of political culture here.
ABERNETHY: David Gibson, religion writer for PoliticsDaily.com, Kim Lawton—many thanks.
Religious Schools and Tax Credits
School children reciting in unison: “John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe…”
GLENN DENNARD: It literally was a dream. Private school was a dream. It was like man, one day I’d love to be able to. But with the scholarship program, you know, and our few nickels and pennies rubbed in together, we’re able to send every one of our children to private school.
TIM O’BRIEN, correspondent: Glenn and Rhonda Dennard of South Phoenix have six children, five of whom attended private schools. Students at the public schools in Arizona have scored low on standardized tests, and the Dennards felts public schools could not match the opportunities of nearby private schools.
DENNARD: Every one of my children that have now gone to college, and it’s been three, have all said their first year of college was easier than their two or three years of high school in the private school sector. That’s just a blessing.
O’BRIEN: A blessing because the Dennards don’t have much money and could never have afforded private schools without the help of fellow Arizona taxpayers. Arizona allows taxpayers to contribute $500 to private student tuition organizations, or STOs as they are called, and deduct the full amount of their contribution from their state income taxes—a dollar-for-dollar credit. Great for the Dennards and, it turns out, also great for church-run schools in Arizona, which flourished under the program, taking in some $30 million in tuition-credit donations last year alone. Lynn Hoffman is among a group of Phoenix taxpayers who challenged the Arizona program in court, arguing that the tuition tax credit unconstitutionally promotes religion at the expense of the state’s public schools.
LYNN HOFFMAN (Plaintiff): I do not believe that the money that a taxpayer owes to the general fund should be diverted as it is being, I believe, in this case to private parochial schools. We’re just diverting money out of our general fund to private schools, and I’m a public school adherent, and I believe that we should keep the money in the general fund for our public schools.
O’BRIEN: After bouncing around the lower courts for ten years, Hoffman’s challenge reached the US Supreme Court this week, with justices and lawyers debating a question more of semantics than of law: If the money doesn’t come out of the state treasury because it never went into the state treasury, is it still taxpayer money? Attorneys for the state’s largest STO say it is not.
DAVID CORTMAN (Attorney, Arizona Christian STO): We certainly take issue with the premise that this is government money. This is private taxpayer money, just like any other donation. It’s simply not the government’s money until you’ve reached the bottom line of the tax form and no sooner.
O’BRIEN: Attorney Paul Bender, representing the taxpayers challenging the Arizona tuition tax credit, asked the justices, if it’s not the government’s money, whose is it?
PAUL BENDER (Plaintiffs’ Attorney): When you give this money as a credit, you cannot keep that money. You either have to pay it to the state Department of Revenue or you have to give it to an STO. It’s not your money. “Your money” means you can keep it. You can’t keep this money.
O’BRIEN: If the STOs are funded by private, voluntary donations, as the state argues, they can pick and choose which students get scholarships and to which schools. They may also consider the students’ religious beliefs.
BENDER: The Arizona program distributes $30 million a year to people depending on their religion. You can get a scholarship if you’re Catholic from one tuition organization. You can’t get it if you’re Jewish. Another one will give it to Jews, but not to Catholics. That’s unconstitutional. The question is asked to a parent who comes to an STO, one of the religious STOs: “What’s your religion?” You can’t distribute government benefits by asking questions like that.
O’BRIEN: Justice Antonin Scalia appeared to defend the Arizona program and noted that donations to churches are tax deductible even though churches routinely favor their own members—an argument that resonated with STO lawyers.
CORTMAN: It is no different than if you give your charitable deduction to a church, and the church discriminates based on whatever religion it is, whether it’s Jewish or Muslim or whatever it happens to be. Every religious organization—quote, unquote—and I hate to use the word discriminate, but they choose who to affiliate with. This is no different.
O’BRIEN: That most of the money ends up going to Catholic or evangelical Christian schools, Cortman says, is not a problem.
CORTMAN: It’s interesting because statistics show that about 65 percent of the money goes to religious schools, but you have to keep in mind that 65 percent of the private schools are religious.
O’BRIEN: There is another wrinkle in this case that could be even more important than the tuition question. Arizona is also arguing that just because they are taxpayers, the plaintiffs here have suffered no real injury and thus have no right to even challenge the program in court. It’s a position the Obama administration embraced, writing in a friend of the court brief that the injury to taxpayers is “infinitesimally small and conjectural” and defending the Arizona tax credit as a “neutral program of private choice,” all to the dismay and surprise of proponents of strict separation of church and state.
BARRY LYNN (Americans United for Separation of Church and State): It is truly shocking that the Obama administration, through the solicitor general, has taken the position to deny access to the courts for Arizona taxpayers and to support what is unequivocally a direct funding of religious private schools.
O’BRIEN: More than the administration brief, President Obama’s court appointments could change the landscape on the issue of church and state. He replaced retiring Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter, the court’s staunchest advocates of strict separation, with Justices Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, whose views are not as well known. It’s a new court, and this case could provide the first real glimpse of where it stands on church-state issues.
For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Tim O’Brien in Washington.
