Some state contractors would be allowed to discriminate against employees based on religion under a provision state lawmakers slipped into an unrelated bill during a House committee meeting today.
The change to Senate Bill 367, a property tax bill, would allow any school, college, or religious institution affiliated with a church to hire employees based on religion, even if they have a contract with the state.
House Ways and Means Committee barely approved the change on a 9-8 vote. The amended version of the bill was then forwarded to the full House on a 12-7 vote.The contractors exempted from the non-discrimination requirement includes any school, educational or charitable religious institution owned or conducted by or affiliated with a church or religious institution. This goes back to the fundamental question of the constitutionality of public funding of churches and religious institutions. Both the Establishment Clause contained within the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Indiana Constitution's Bill of Rights impose restrictions on the use of public funds for religious purposes. The only way around the prohibition is if the funds being provided to churches and religious-affiliated organizations are being used in a manner that does not promote any religious or sectarian purposes. Turner wants to let churches and religious organizations have their cake and eat it too. That's got legal challenge written all over it. If you don't want any strings attached, then don't take the money. That's the price you pay for accepting public funding.
UPDATE: That didn't take long. House Speaker Brian Bosma is sending SB 367 back to committee to remove Turner's amendment.
“There was a lot of confusion about the purpose and intent of the amendment, so I thought it best for it to come out so it wasn’t a distraction,” he said.
Bosma said the measure was intended to address a state contracting issue with Indiana Wesleyan University, but that some people felt it went beyond that purpose.
4 comments:
Seems Turner grossly misunderstands the importance and the purpose of keeping church and state separate. Though, beyond his pandering to the evangelicals, it would appear he knows how to make his masters happy : http://www.in.gov/r32/. Wonder if he has any connection to what's going on in Carmel with their airport ? "The Aviation Association of Indiana presented Rep. Turner with the Legislator of the Year Award for his work to alter the state’s tax structure, helping Indiana’s aviation businesses better compete with neighboring states." Why does religious fundamentalism go hand in hand with sleazy insider politics for the benefits of the plutocracy of this state? What an embarrassment.
Evangelicals in this country really need to start cluing-in to how easily they are baited with social issues by two-faced politicians who are hell bent to distract with social issues they don't even care about, so that while their voter's heads are turned they can mount a political slight of hand to dismantle and destroy our freedoms bit by bit while enabling the descent into corporatism. Turner is just the boldest among a large group of charlatans in our state government who gleefully kneel down for the powerful. Evangelicals tend to be organized and educated, and they should be paying better attention. Unfortunately they are hard-wired only to see the faults of their so called enemies. Who will they go after when they have run out of imaginary adversaries to marginalize? And it's not that the democrats are any less culpable for this descent into hell, however at least there isn't such an asinine and despicably transparent effort to foster moral panic, a timeless and base hallmark of fascists and incompetents.
IWU leases their program from Univ. of Phoenix. That's how they started and still continue... I bet this went viral...Should have...IWU does not disclose that UOP owns the programs and rights and such...More coming I expect.
Do I discriminate against black women and gay men because I don't choose them for sexual partners?
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