We have some crazy news to report!
Yesterday afternoon, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the theocratic strong-arm push by Governor Kevin Stitt and Ryan Langston-Walters to force Oklahoma taxpayers to fund a public religious charter school is unconstitutional.
Here are details via the AP:
The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the state's approval of a publicly funded religious charter school is unconstitutional.
The ruling follows a decision last year by an Oklahoma school board to approve the Catholic Church's application to create the first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in the U.S. The state's attorney general then took the matter to court.
"St. Isidore will evangelize the Catholic faith as part of its school curriculum while sponsored by the state," the court said.
The state's constitution mandates that public schools, including charter schools, be nonsectarian and prohibits the use of public money for the benefit or support of religious institutions.
Yep, that’s right. If parents want taxpayers to pay for their kids to be indoctrinated in a particular faith, they’re going to have to take the old-fashioned route and apply for private school tax vouchers instead.
Take that, theocrats!
The court’s decision flustered famed constitutional scholar Ryan Walters – a legal mastermind if, of course, you live in a world where legal masterminds eat their own poo.
Did you catch all that?
The public school grifter with a bachelor’s degree from an Arkansas bible college who can’t even spell the word “sanctuary” knows more about constitutional law than our Supreme Court Justices.
Good to know, huh?
Because we now live in a full-blown idiocracy, I was actually a bit surprised by the court’s decision.
I totally expected a majority of our justices to agree with Ryan, disregard the section of the Oklahoma Constitution that mandates public schools be nonsectarian, ignore centuries of federal and state court precedent regarding the separation of church and state, and give the school the green light to proceed as planned!
I guess it’s good to know that the jurists on our state’s highest court still have a smidgen of character and didn’t allow their own religious biases, party loyalties, and nut job feelings to trump the rule of law.
Well, at least most of them do. Meet Justice Dana Kuehn.
Justice Kuehn – a Stitt appointee who apparently values the Executive Branch and Bible more than the Constitution – not only voted in favor of allowing the Catholic public school to proceed as planned, but also went so far as to threaten the other judges that she would give Thanos the giant infinity stone she keeps around her neck if they didn't follow her lead!
Okay, I'm exaggerating a tad.
In a dissenting opinion that ignored both the US and Oklahoma Constitutions and reinforced negative blond stereotypes, she argued that prohibiting religious charter schools from getting taxpayer money is actually a form of discrimination.
How's that for some mental gymnastics?
Basically, she thinks you can’t throw the baby out with the holy water. Religious charter schools should be allowed to use taxpayer funds to indoctrinate because people don't have to send their kids there!
If that sounds like a stupid argument, it is.
And it makes me wonder – does Judge Kuehn actually believe that illogical B.S. that defies the fundamental American value of separation between church and state, or is she simply doing Stitt and the theocratic Christian nationalist brigade a favor?
I really hope it’s the latter.
If you pay them enough, you can always get a good lawyer – or even a dumb judge – to provide a convincing legal argument for just about any topic, including forcing taxpayers to fund some other religion’s teachings despite there being clear laws and rulings against it.
And you have to admit, an appointment to the Oklahoma Supreme Court is a pretty nice payment.
But if it’s the former, and she actually believes her dissent to be true, it’s just more proof that the Christian Nationalist wing of the GOP is not only taking over the legislative and executive branches of our government, but it's tightening the stranglehold of the judicial branch, too.
Right now we only have one Kuehn on the bench, but in 10 years or so, we may have six or seven, and instead of writing fringe arguments that mandate taxpayers fund religious schools, she’ll be writing majority rulings that uphold prayer in schools and the stoning of heretics.
Okay, that's a bit extreme, but idiocratic times often result in idiocratic measures.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We'll keep you advised.
