The Roman Catholic Church in the United States is no longer capable of sustaining its religion on its own. The people are obviously not there any longer to support this religion in the US. So if the people won't support their religion, then the religion will just have to go its long time friend, the government and ask it to once again subsidize their activities. Our illustrious conservative Catholic majority on the US Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to uphold Arizona's efforts to provide tax payer funds to prop up failing parochial schools.
Justice Kagan speculated on whether there was any difference between this case, and say, a state that elected to purchase crucifixes for anyone that wanted to have one. Kagan asserted in her dissent that a state could overcome a court challenge by making the subsidy a tax exemption. She suggested: 'The state “could authorize that person to claim a tax credit equal to the price she paid.” For example, if that person's state tax bill was $400 but she'd purchased a 10-inch, walnut crucifix for $40, she would owe the state only $360.'
I can't wait for Virginia to try Justice Kagan's idea of a $500 tax credit to "reward Jews.... for their religious devotion." Like that would ever happen.
What both of these articles conclude is that with Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization vs. Winn, the wall between religion and government has been breached. After over 200 years of a government required to allow the people to maintain control of their religious organizations, those religious organizations in order to overcome the apathy by the people towards their religious institutions, now allows religious organizations to lobby the government in order to continue their very existence. In other words, the government is the last resource to prop up religion in America because obviously the people have turned their back on their religious organizations.
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