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Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond — a Republican — is bucking his own party in a new lawsuit aimed at preventing what would be the first publicly funded religious school in America from opening.

On Friday, Drummond filed the suit in Oklahoma Supreme Court, challenging the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board's 3-2 decision in June to grant a contract to open St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School. According to PBS, Drummond warned that the establishment of St. Isidore, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would lead to the floodgates opening for religious groups of all stripes to make bids for public funding for schools of their own.

"Make no mistake, if the Catholic Church were permitted to have a public virtual charter school, a reckoning will follow in which this state will be faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests to directly fund all petitioning sectarian groups," the lawsuit read.

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[-] Alteon@lemmy.world 139 points 1 year ago

Oh wow! There's a unicorn in the Republican party! It appears that a modern Republican actually had the inclination to think of "what would happen next?", BEFORE implementing said thing. Whew.

[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago

The Church of Satan must be opening a school using the same method.

[-] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 68 points 1 year ago

CoS keeps to themselves. The Satanic Temple are the activists. They're the ones that do the After School Satan Clubs.

[-] moshankey@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

Call The Satanic Temple today.

[-] seathru@lemm.ee 38 points 1 year ago

They're on the case

Lucien Greaves, the cofounder and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, says his organization may submit its own application if the decision stands.

“We’ll consider opening an alternative school if the courts uphold a flagrantly self-serving & uneducated, utterly unqualified & ignorant school board’s vote to overturn the constitution,” Greaves tweeted.

Rajan Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, said the board should now welcome other religious groups like Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, and Bahai’s when they present their applications in the future.

Zed says he has written to the board to apply for a Hindu virtual charter school but has not received a response.

[-] variaatio@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago

They are always on the case first. They have feelers through all the various church state separation orgs. As soon as one of the likes of freedom from religion foundation, ACLU etc. Hear about a case, someone is bound to send Lucien a message and would you look at that within days they have found a local Satanist to have standing.

Lucien sends smiling letter to the local government with "I heard there was religious freedom on offer, just give us a week we have the Baphomet statue dusted off from the temple and on the way there. It takes like 2 meters by 2 meters and 3 meters tall. You have free lawn available?"

[-] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 1 year ago

Or a Muslim one

[-] Alteon@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

I hope so. Me and my wife are members. Thank goodness they are around.

[-] CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately they weren't concerned about public money used for religion.

They were concerned that those other religions expect equal treatment.

[-] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Apparently we are a smart AG. To bad our governor and the guy in charge of education both fought to open this school. Glad the AG is trying to stop it. But wonder how the courts will rule.

[-] shasta@lemm.ee 69 points 1 year ago

Religion aside, opening the floodgates in this way just doesn't make sense. Our public schools are already underfunded. Why would they want to use the same pool of money to fund even more schools?

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 73 points 1 year ago

Because the point isn't to fund schools. It's to create a Christian Theocracy.

[-] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 11 points 1 year ago

That's the top priority and long term goal. Until they can get that, they'll settle for an undereducated public since ignorance is the best friend of the preacher..

[-] aDuckk@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Alberta, Canada, has a separate publicly funded catholic school system. They bus kids to our main government building every year for the big anti-abortion rally.

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[-] riskable@programming.dev 36 points 1 year ago

To make them worse. How else is the Republican party going to grow in the future?

[-] TimLovesTech@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago

It is a way to segregate the "worthy" from the rest (or vice versa I guess depending on if your "worthy" or not).

[-] TurtleJoe@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Conservatives have been trying to kill public schools since integration was forced on them. Notice that this was a "virtual" school?

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[-] TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.world 64 points 1 year ago

Drummond warned that the establishment of St. Isidore, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, would lead to the floodgates opening for religious groups of all stripes to make bids for public funding for schools of their own.

Emphasis mine.

It isn't that he doesn't want a Catholic school to be publicly funded. He is worried that other religious groups (subtext: Muslims) will try to get the same funding.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 63 points 1 year ago

Lol, he didn't just imply it, he outright went there in a press conference:

"Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism. Because of the legal precedent created by the Board’s actions, tomorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Sharia law. In fact, Governor Stitt has already indicated that he would welcome a Muslim charter school funded by our tax dollars. That is a gross violation of our religious liberty. As the defender of Oklahoma’s religious freedoms, I am prepared to litigate this issue to the United States Supreme Court if that’s what is required to protect our Constitutional rights.” - Press release

The broken analog clock is still right twice a day?

While he could have said it differently and with a lot more cultural sensitivity, he's correct.

If you allow religion in our schools, you are opening up Pandora box. Flying spaghetti monster deserves a space too.

[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

For sure. It just amuses me that someone can find the shittiest possible ways to argue for the right outcome, and that the media can just overlook the shitty parts because they (rightly) agree with that outcome.

I think it's also worth noting the phrasing is very deliberate - he reportedly has political aspirations and existing beef with the Senator, so he's appealing to his potential base too. He mentions Sharia later at least once more and makes sure to let people know he thinks kids should be reading Bibles with their family. It's all filthy and deliberate politics, and it's clearly the right thing to do, bizarrely twisted into... this.

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[-] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 year ago

As the defender of religious freedoms... [we are ok with catholicism but not islam]

This is beyond parody.

[-] shottymcb@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

They're not ok with Catholics either.

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[-] player2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 year ago

Or more likely, a satanic temple school 👹

[-] rifugee@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Me thinks someone is preparing to run for governor.

[-] tvarog_smetana@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

To be fair, that's the argument that's most likely to resonate with a lot of Oklahoma voters

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[-] ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

How tf is a muslim school a blatant violation of christian religious freedom? It's a violation of their ability to be bigots

[-] archiotterpup@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Ah, so it's the old Catholics vs Protestants again.

[-] makyo@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

It'll probably end up being the Catholics vs. the Satanic Temple

[-] rustbuckett 11 points 1 year ago

I was about to ask when the Satanists were showing up. I love those guys.

[-] variaatio@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

More like he knows Lucian Grieves of the Satanic Temple has already prefilled a letter with his lawyer friend to have St. Lucifer's Preparatory Academy financed by Oklahoma state funds. Just waiting for the Catholic funding to be upheld and the letter gets mailed. Along with affidavit from a local Oklahoma Satanist who is absolutely enthusiastic about having their child schooled at St. Lucifers.

Like protestant vs Catholic is least of their problems. They have to finance a Wiccan Coven school, Muslim masrada, scientologist school, a norse Viking academy and so on.

Since as the rule goes: can't start making rulings on which religions are in and which are out.

[-] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt — himself a Republican who endorsed then-incumbent Attorney General John O'Connor in Oklahoma's 2022 Republican primary — reportedly dismissed Drummond's lawsuit as a "political stunt."

"AG Drummond seems to lack any firm grasp on the constitutional principle of religious freedom and masks his disdain for the Catholics’ pursuit by obsessing over non-existent schools that don’t neatly align with his religious preference," Stitt said.

Project much?

[-] ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 year ago

The "constitutional principle of religious freedom" says there shall be no official state religion. So...when the state funds something religious, what does that sound like to them

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[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests

"It's way too much work and too expensive" is a pretty standard Republican argument against everything, and not exactly what looks like the core of the problem here. But, I guess he is trying to appeal to other Republicans here, and it's pretty clear there are some powerful ones who want a lot more church in their state.

The whole "Oklahoma voted 60% against removing the state constitution prohibition on funding churches in 2016" thing seems a lot more compelling to me.

Did not expect to see this in my lifetime but I’ll take it.

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this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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