By now you’re probably asking yourself, “How can this be?”
How? Because I lied. The court didn’t rule that African Americans are barred from receiving state aid. The court ruled that people of faith are barred from receiving state aid.
Everything else is true. Even the astonishing “born of bigotry” quote is true. All you have to do is substitute the two words “African-Americans” with the words “people who believe in God” and – presto! – not only is the Florida Amendment “born in bigotry” legal, it’s constitutional.
I know, I know. You’re still asking yourself, “But how can this be?”
Here’s how. Way back in 1875, when rising Irish immigration led to an anti-Catholic backlash, a bigoted congressman named James G. Blaine proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that said “no money raised by taxation for the support of public schools shall ever be under the control of any religious sect [or]divided among religious sects.”
Blaine – who later lost a presidential election for refusing to disassociate himself from comments offensive to Irish Catholics – couldn’t get his amendment through Congress. But he did manage to get it passed in 37 states, including New York, New Jersey and Florida. It soon became obvious that the law was directed against Catholics because it was never enforced against public schools that taught the Protestant Bible or held Protestant prayers.
As anyone with even a passing familiarity with American history knows, the 19th century was littered with laws of every shape and size passed for the purpose of discriminating against one group or another. And, as all the world knows, these laws toppled like bowling pins in the 20th century when courts finally put teeth in the equal protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
Strangely, the Blaine Amendment not only tiptoed through this legal wood-chipper, it was strengthened by it.
When I was in law shool, the dean was a wonderful man named Norman Redlich. Dean Redlich was truly a man to admire, but he had some funny ideas about the relationship between church and state. Whenever a law carried even a whiff of religion, he would contort his arms above his head as if he were trying to slip into a sweater two sizes too small, cry “it’s an entanglement!” and conclude that the law must be unconstitutional. It didn’t matter how far removed the law was from religion, or how little people of faith benefited from it. The minute there was an “entanglement!” (arms contorted) the law was toast.
And thus do we arrive at the state of the law in the 21st century. Back when James Blaine was running around insulting Irishmen, the U.S. Constitution was interpreted to mean that the government could benefit a religious institution, so long as it didn’t favor one religion over another. How do I know this? Because if this weren’t so, Blaine and his bigoted buddies would not have bothered to pass their amendment in the first place.
