JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Your tax dollars could soon go directly to religious schools, via college scholarships or even overtly religious charter schools.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s Attorney General issued an opinion<\/a> ahead of Easter Sunday declaring his office will not enforce state restrictions on religious institutions receiving public funding.<\/p>\n Those restrictions go all the way back to 1885, when the \u201cno aid\u201d provision was added to Florida\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n State laws also prohibit some state scholarships and grants from being used at private religious colleges, and while some public charter schools are owned by or affiliated with churches, they must provide nonreligious instruction.<\/p>\n But now, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier contends those restrictions are unconstitutional.<\/p>\n \u201cFlorida\u2019s Constitution rightly recognizes that \u2018[w]e, the people of the State of Florida,\u2019 are \u2018grateful to Almighty God for our constitutional liberty\u2019,\u201d Uthmeier wrote. \u201cThat constitutional liberty includes the right for religious people and entities to participate in public programs and benefits like everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Executive Director of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, Dr. Howard Burke, applauded Uthmeier\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe constitution was never in opposition to religious education or religion itself,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n He noted that private school scholarships are already allowed to be used at private religious schools.<\/p>\n Burke argued Uthmeier\u2019s opinion simply opens the door for similar scholarship opportunities at religious colleges and would allow religiously-affiliated charter schools to incorporate religious instruction in the classroom.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have the same liberty under the constitution of the United States to have religious freedom and free exercise,\u201d Burke said. \u201cAnd that should expand the choice system, whether it\u2019s the public school or the private school.\u201d<\/p>\n But separation of church and state advocates like Devon Graham with American Atheists argue the AG\u2019s opinion opens a pandora\u2019s box.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to see my tax dollars going to indoctrinate public school, indoctrinate students into a religion they may or may not even agree with,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n She also questioned whether all religious affiliations will be treated equally, given the AG\u2019s recent criticism of private school scholarships being used at Muslim schools<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to fund religion, you can\u2019t pick and choose the religion. You have to cover them all,\u201d Graham said. \u201cThis is a pandora\u2019s box and if he wants to open it, good luck to him.\u201d<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Your tax dollars could soon go directly to religious schools, via college scholarships or even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,34055,6277,99274,99275,2006,18635,28,99272,99273,969,116,118,117,55599,970,99271,634,99276,6279],"class_list":{"0":"post-218611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-ag","10":"tag-attorney_general","11":"tag-constitution_of_the_united_states","12":"tag-devin_graham","13":"tag-doctor","14":"tag-executive","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-florida_association_of_christian_colleges_and_schools","17":"tag-howard_burke","18":"tag-jack","19":"tag-jacksonville","20":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","21":"tag-jacksonville-news","22":"tag-jake_stan","23":"tag-jake_stoan","24":"tag-james_ufmeyer","25":"tag-local","26":"tag-pandora","27":"tag-uthmeyer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}