State-Funded Religion Before Kentucky Supreme Court

The ways the freakazoids find to scarf up taxpayer dollars to fund their vicious, hateful crusade against everyone who doesn't follow their Bronze Age superstitions are manifold, thus we must ever be guard.

In 2006, the Snidely Whiplash of Kentucky politics, repug and Senate president David Williams, slipped $11 million into the state budget for the College of the Cumberlands, a private Baptist University in Eastern Kentucky.

He might have got away with it, too, except that shortly thereafter the college, in an excess of hubris, expelled an openly gay student. Because teh gay violated the school's Baptist code.

In Kentucky, we prefer our discrimination separate and equal; either public funding of religion or gay-bashing might pass, but the two together raised a firestorm. A coalition of civil rights and gay rights groups filed suit, and got the appropriation overturned.

On Friday the Kentucky Supreme Court heard the case.

In March 2008, Franklin Circuit Court Judge Roger Crittenden ruled that the 2006 appropriation — $10 million for a pharmacy building at the University of the Cumberlands and $1 million for a scholarship program — was unconstitutional and violated a provision in the constitution that does not allow state tax money to go to private, religious schools for educational purposes.

The case could have far-reaching implications for higher education in Kentucky. If the University of the Cumberlands wins its appeal, other private, religious-based schools could also be eligible for state tax dollars. It is unclear when the justices will rule on the case.

SNIP

Kimberlee Wood Colby, a lawyer for the Eastern Kentucky Baptist-affiliated school, said that a 1949 Kentucky Supreme Court case held that two religious-affiliated hospitals could receive state dollars because it would serve the greater good.There is a nation-wide and state-wide shortage of pharmacists, Colby said. Colby also argued that the university would follow state and federal laws regarding admissions of students of all faiths. A memorandum of understanding between then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher and the school guaranteed that the university would follow state and federal rules regarding admissions, Colby said.

SNIP

But Supreme Court Justice Mary Noble questioned whether a pharmacy school had the same type of public health benefits as a hospital. “If only 10 percent of your graduates stay in Kentucky…is it still a public health benefit?” Noble asked.

SNIP

“Our biggest issue is that taking taxpayer dollars and funding private institutions is not legal,” said Michael Handley, co-chair of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance. “As a member of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender) community, I don’t want the state to use my tax dollars to discriminate against me.”

Read the whole thing.

Note that the getting-more-irrelevant-every-day ACLU of Kentucky is not part of the coalition. I just got a membership renewal notice from the ACLU and I'm not looking kindly on it at the moment.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic.