Using "journalism" to dismantle Western civilization's underpinnings

Pervasive media bias has been widely acknowledged for decades now. Still, we must not become inured to it. I'm not even talking about "fake news." The facts in this story are probably as stated. But is it ever laden with subjective qualifiers.

No, actually, there is one glaring falsehood, and it gets its first trotting-out in the title: "Anti-LGBT Florida Schools Getting School Vouchers." These schools are not "anti-LGBT." The accurate characterization would be "with admissions qualifications that students adhere to sound doctrine regarding sexuality."

Here is the sly way the authors nod to objectivity and proceed to hammer home their in-your-face position:

The private schools defend their views about sexual orientation and gender identity, saying they are found in the Bible, the foundation of their faith. School administrators have a right to infuse those beliefs into school lessons and policies, they say, and parents using scholarships have a right to choose those religious schools for their children.

“Students don’t need to go to that school if they feel that is going to be a problem for their families and their lifestyles,” said Howard Burke, executive director of the Florida Association of Christian Colleges and Schools.

Burke’s association counts as members nearly 40 schools that take Florida vouchers and espouse anti-gay policies. “Don’t try to conform our programs into something they’re not established to provide," he said.

The debate touches on civil rights, religious freedom, past discrimination cases and the future of Florida’s school choice programs. It comes as the U.S. Supreme Court this week hears arguments in a Montana case about whether state scholarships can go to religious schools. The outcome could hinder or fuel the expansion of Florida’s scholarship programs.

Florida scholarship laws prohibit private schools that accept the tuition vouchers — earmarked for students from low-income families and for those with disabilities — from discriminating against students based on “race, color or national origin."

So far, so good. Schools accepting tuition vouchers shouldn't be able to discriminate on that basis. There's even a mention of the Florida Association of Christian Schools and Colleges position, which is just a statement of the primacy of free choice in school selection, But then comes the apples-to-oranges comparison:

 But they do not protect LGBTQ youngsters, and neither federal nor state laws require such safeguards.

Flawed juxtaposition. There's nothing in Christian doctrine that says it's a sin to be of a particular race, color or national origin.

And this lady needs to understand that there's no right to send one's kid to a particular school. She disqualified herself from being able to choose a Christian school when she "married" her "partner":

About eight years ago, Nicole Haagenson’s wife, Cari, received Florida scholarships for her two oldest children and tried to enroll them in Master’s Academy of Vero Beach school, which they’d previously attended when Cari was married to a man. The school refused to accept the girls, she said, when they learned their mother was in a relationship with another woman.

"I don’t want to infringe on someone else’s religious belief,” Haagenson said. "But you should not be accepting public funding if you’re going to discriminate.”

Haagenson, a U.S. Air Force veteran and an information technology director at a Vero Beach company, ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the Florida House last year. She and her wife, who now parent a blended family with five children, want Florida’s voucher rules to change.

“Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean my kids can’t go to a great school,” she added.

Master’s Academy, which shares a campus with a church, describes “homosexual behavior” as “sinful and offensive to God" and explains neither gay students nor youngsters from homes that don’t uphold a “biblical lifestyle” can enroll.

Nice touch, the quotes around "biblical lifestyle."

Now, I suppose the argument can be made that Haagenson is justified in saying, "Hey, I want to send my kids to this particular school with a taxpayer-funded scholarship!"

Which may result in at least some Christian schools taking a pass on accepting scholarships if the program is amended:

The schools see the proposed legislation as an unconstitutional attack on their religious rights, and many likely wouldn’t change their policies, even if the scholarship law gets amended.

"I would say most schools would stop taking the scholarships. They are operating within their philosophy and their beliefs,” said Wesley Scott, executive director of the National Alliance of Christian Schools.

And can you believe this? The schools are allowed to set their own standards for teacher credentials, facility and curriculum! They "operate largely free of state oversight"! The horror!

As the Sentinel reported in its 2017 “Schools Without Rules” series, the private schools that take Florida scholarships operate largely free of state oversight, setting their own standards for teacher credentials, facilities and curriculum, which can fall short of the requirements the state imposes on its public schools.

Read the Orlando Sentinel series, "Schools Without Rules" »

The schools are also able to set their own admission standards, which could include rules about sexual orientation and gender identity as well as demands for church attendance and certain academic benchmarks, such as satisfactory test scores and good grades.

Of course, the authors take the historical tack, citing Christian schools that, in the past, did not accept black students, quite blatantly trying to lump that kind of discrimination in with the instance upon adhering to sound doctrine about sexuality. The gaping hole in this lame attempt to draw a parallel is exposed by the inclusion of a photo of Florida state senator Manny Diaz and Florida governor Ron DeSantis posing with Piney Grove Academy leaders Frances and Alton Bolden, both black, and two Academy students, both black. The caption says that "Piney Grove is one of 146 schools with anti-gay policies that the Sentinel found."

There's an expansion of the scope to show that the  "discrimination" can be found in other states. Indiana, Georgia and Maryland Christian schools make the authors' list of infamy.

And then the authors come full circle, wrapping up their "report" with more on the Haagenson sob story:

The rejection still stings for Cari and Nicole Haagenson, whose two oldest girls were refused admission when they wanted to return to Master’s Academy in Vero Beach. The school received at least $371,000 in state scholarship money to educate more than 60 students last year.

When Cari told her the children could not return to the school, Nicole initially assumed there had been a misunderstanding.

“I’m pretty sure they can’t discriminate against you,” she remembers telling her. "I was wrong. They definitely could, and they definitely did.”

The story is lengthy - one of those deep dives, doncha know - but it comes down to the question of what kind of say-so the government can have in a school's affairs if it's receiving government gravy. To what extent is a scholarship the same thing as good old receiving of tax-generated funds like public schools get? I think a strong case can be made that a scholarship is a little different, that it is a check to a family, given with the message, "go forth and find the educational institution that best suits the values you want to equip your kid with."

But if that argument can be shown to not hold up, then I'm all for tearing the whole playhouse down. That's right. Get government at the state or federal level completely out of the education business. This is one of those frontlines in the war for our culture that must not be dismissed with a roll of the eyes. It's not a crank and far-fetched position. In fact, when one brings it up in a debate with people like this article's authors, they have to fall back on the "education-is-a-public-good-like-roads" position. It is not. There's a narrow window of opportunity for a parent to instill as much of the family's values and sense of what's needed for someone to effectively engage the world throughout life, about eighteen years at the outside. That window must be protected. The alternative is saying that government should instill some kind of core set of values to be embraced by everyone growing up in our society. (Of course, there is such a core set of values, but government's hands should be nowhere near it.

We all know what the authors of this story mean to do: further entrench the notion that there is something inherently bigoted about Christian doctrine.

These schools are not "anti-gay." I would wager that their principals, admissions counselors and faculties, upon having to decline to enroll a gay student, or the student of a gay couple, pray for those applicants as they continue their search for a school that is a proper fit. Real Christians are not anti-anybody. The Gospel message is the ultimate in inclusivity.

But the key thing to remember here is that both parties, school and applicant, are free to respond to circumstances. They have agency. No one is being denied any  rights under the current structure of this scholarship law.

A little factoid that Leslie Postal and Annie Martin, the authors of this story, would no doubt rather didn't get brought up in the conversation.