Homeschool News & Views

Issue 44, November 9, 2007

From Homeschool Helpers

Greetings. This is Dan White with Homeschool Helpers.

Last winter Utah passed a voucher law. The Parent Choice in Education Act passed the Utah House of Representatives by only one vote.  Then it passed the Utah Senate more easily and was signed into law by the Republican governor.   The bill passed in the House only because of a stipulation that if students decide to leave the public schools, the public schools would still get paid for those students for five years.  The amounts of the vouchers were from $500 to $3000, depending on family income. That would have been about $5,000 less per pupil than they spend at the public schools.

As expected, the education bureaucracy fought this threat to their monopoly with all the powers at their disposal. They got a referendum on the law on a statewide ballot. The National Education Association, the NEA, poured money into the state, as did teachers’ unions from individual states.

The Utah law did not force people to leave the public schools. We must remember that. It did not mandate that anyone had to leave the public schools. Those people who support the public schools could still send their kids there. The only thing it did was to offer parents who don’t support the public schools the freedom to make another choice.

On Tuesday of this week, Utah voters turned down the Parent Choice in Education Act by almost a 2 to 1 margin. Even though Utah is a conservative state, they overwhelmingly voted to keep a socialistic, left wing school system. Every county in Utah voted to keep the public school monopoly. They forced all tax-paying parents to support the public schools, even if they don’t like them.

That was a big vote.

There is an inherent conflict in people who are paid by tax dollars supporting campaigns for more tax dollars.

Missouri has a state lottery, like many states. The lottery first gained approval in Missouri because it was said that the money taken from the people by the lottery would go to the public schools. The lottery is in place, with all the vice that legalized gambling brings, but somehow the public schools still need more money. We visited a Wal-Mart the other day, and public school teachers were out front campaigning for more money.

We wonder if someday prostitution will be legalized and taxed, with the rationale that the proceeds will go to the public schools.

The state lottery skims off the lottery haul about half of the money taken in, and returns the other half to the lottery winners. That’s legalized theft. A horse racing track may take a tenth of the bets on each race as profit, which pretty much guarantees that after ten races, most betters will be about broke. For a gambling venture to take half of each bet as profit is brazen robbery.

After robbing the people, Missouri uses some of the money it takes in from the lottery to run a promotional campaign to get more people to play the lottery. What a con game that is! They use the money taken from the people to try to get still more money from those people. That’s a vicious cycle. The more money the state thieves take in from the lottery, the more money they have to convince more people to play the lottery.

The public schools do the same thing. Teachers are supported by taxes. They then use some of that tax money which is paid to them to campaign for getting still more tax money. The more tax money they get, the more power they have to get still more tax money.

That’s what happened in Utah. Tax money from all across the country came into Utah to support the government education monopoly. Teachers unions from Florida to Alaska put money into Utah to oppose parent choice in education.

Somehow it seems that people who are paid by tax revenues should not be allowed to campaign for more tax revenue. But that’s not the way it is. The teachers’ unions did pour money into Utah, and Utah’s freedom of education law went down the drain.

What does this mean for the nation?

It means that the nation is almost certain to turn into a modern day Sodom. Robert Bork, who was turned down for the US Supreme Court by the radical left, wrote a book some years ago called Slouching Toward Gomorrah. Now we have passed that stage and we’re sliding into Sodom.

California just passed a bill, signed into law by a Republican governor, which will put into effect the teaching of sodomy in all California public schools, and eventually all schools, including private Christian and home schools. A federal judge, appointed by a Republican president and the son of a Republican Senator, has ruled that all staff and students in Boyd County, Kentucky must be taught to approve homosexuality. Utah’s Parent Choice in Education Act was a bold step in the other direction. Now it has been decisively rejected by the voters of a conservative state. That will greatly discourage other efforts toward educational freedom all across the country. If the education monopoly can’t be stopped in conservative Utah, where can it be stopped?

Utah’s Republican legislators do not plan on focusing on educational freedom again in the near future. Several other states, such as Texas, Arizona and Louisiana, were working toward an educational freedom movement. They will now probably be slowed up on that.

Once an institution is established, people then accept it, not because it is right or good, but just because it’s there.

The Home School Alumni last spring took a tour of Europe, and they saw firsthand some instruments of torture used by the Roman Catholic Church in its thousand year Inquisition. One was a wooden wheel, with a sharp metal spike on one side. The victim was laid out flat, with supports under all his joints. Then that metal protusion on the wheel was rolled over his joints, crushing them. The body then had no support and was totally limp. The limp person was then woven into the big wheel, with no joints to offer resistance to the contortion.

How could those who claimed to be following Christ accept this?

Because the Church was an institution. Most people would accept whatever it did. After all, it was the church, which was associated with God Himself.

The public schools are viewed in the same way. It is an institution, associated with beloved children, and most people will accept whatever that institution does and not reject the institution. It is there, it has been there for as long as anyone remembers, and most people want to keep it, no matter what it does.

The Utah voters supported the institution of the public schools, which is associated with their beloved children. To vote against the public schools is like voting against children.

The Southern Baptist leaders have spoken of setting up a Baptist school system. The Utah vote makes it clear that the Baptists will face the same difficulty in getting their people to leave the public school institution. If the Southern Baptists do try to start a school system, they will run into institutional inertia. Any body which is traveling in a certain direction tends to keep traveling in that same direction. People are the same way. Most Southern Baptists will not want to leave the public schools, no matter what the public schools do.

This battle over freedom of education is really a battle for freedom of religion. The liberals, as intelligent as they are, are only pawns of a higher power.

Eph 2:1-2 CEV

(1) In the past you were dead because you sinned and fought against God.

(2) You followed the ways of this world and obeyed the devil. He rules the world, and his spirit has power over everyone who doesn't obey God.

The King James Version calls him the prince of the power of the air.

The public schools are being used by the prince of the power of the air to teach a nation to accept sodomy. That is the issue. That is what Utah conservatives voted to support.

Some time ago, the Republican candidates for president participated in a debate, called the Values Voter Presidential Debate, moderated by Joseph Farah, founder of the World Net Daily web site. Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Thompson did not attend this debate. The Democrats also were offered the opportunity for a Values Voter debate, but all of them declined. Those four Republicans and all the Democrats spurned the values voters.

One man posed this question to the candidates who did show up for the debate.

“My name is Stephen Bennett and I’m a former homosexual. I used to think I was born gay and was sexually active in a homosexual lifestyle for over eleven years. Now because of Jesus Christ, my Savior, I’m happily married for almost 15 years to my beautiful wife, Irene, and we have two precious children. Homosexual behavior is immoral and dangerous. I know. Many of my friends today, both male and female, are dead. Even so, schools across the nation teach our children that homosexuality is healthy, normal and unchangeable. I’m living proof that’s not true. As president, would you support legislation ensuring that schools forfeit federal funding if they expose our children to homosexual propaganda that puts them at risk?”

All the candidates answered yes to that question. However, even if they had the power to enact such legislation, the word of one radical left wing judge can prevail. One county judge in Iowa – a county judge – ruled that Iowa’s law against gay marriage was invalid. The public schools teaching homosexuality is only a function of the problem. The real problem is the public schools.

The candidates were also asked, “What do you intend to do to counteract the homosexual agenda?”

Candidate John Cox answered, “We also have this problem with transvestites who want to be school teachers. Well, I’ve got to tell you – what the Republican Party needs to stand for is school choice and home schooling, so we can keep our children in the schools of our choice.”

Representative Tancredo, also a lesser known candidate, answered, “I agree with John on this issue, in particular in terms of schooling. You know, when you look at the agenda that we are talking about here, where does it manifest itself? It is in the curriculum in the schools throughout this country. There is a very strong movement to influence the curriculum in the schools to obtain some sort of moral neutrality on all issues, including homosexuality. Well, how can you stop that? I’ll tell you how. I believe completely in the idea of school choice. I actually introduced a voucher system when I was in Colorado in 1992. It is up to the parent. It is up to them to control the school environment.”

In 2004 Utah passed a ban against gay marriage by a margin of 66 to 34 percent. In 2007 Utah supported the public school monopoly which teaches gay marriage by a margin of 62 to 38 percent. So they opposed gay marriage and supported the institution which promotes gay marriage by about the same margin. Obviously, like most people around the country, they don’t see the connection.

Unfortunately the liberals do.