Wisconsin: Should Public Taxpayers Pay for Discrimination?
https://aclu-wi.org/story/should-public-taxpayers-pay-discrimination
Why Milwaukee Public Schools should not sell Malcolm X to St. Marcus
The St. Marcus School in Milwaukee has been in the news recently for trying to bully the city's School Board into selling a large public school to St. Marcus, a private voucher school. Amid the controversy, no reporter has asked whether the public should be forced to financially support homophobic, anti-woman beliefs that are at odds with democratic rights and public policy.
Unlike in Milwaukee's public schools, for instance, the school council at St. Marcus is appointed, not elected. More important, only men are allowed to appoint the St. Marcus council members. The St. Marcus Evangelical Lutheran Church, which oversees the St. Marcus School, is part of the conservative Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. As a religious-based school, St. Marcus and its teachers are expected to defend and promote the synod’s beliefs.
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) was founded in Milwaukee in 1850. Its core beliefs include:
Homosexuality is a sin.
Living together outside of marriage is a sin.
Women are not to hold positions of authority over men. (The synod’s web page notes: “God gave to the man the unique calling of being a loving head and to his wife the unique calling of being a loving helper to him.”
A literal interpretation of the Bible.
The theory of evolution is wrong. (In explaining the discrepancy between the scientific view that the earth is 4-5 billion years old and the Biblical timeline of about 6,000 years, the synod’s website notes: “The short answer is that the earth was created with the appearance of age. On the first day everything looked older than it was.”)
The Papacy of the Roman Catholic Church is the anti-Christ. (A “Doctrinal Statement on the Anti-Christ” from the WELS website ends with the statement: “Scripture teaches that the Antichrist would be revealed and gives the marks by which the Antichrist is to be recognized (2 Th 2:6,8), and since this prophecy has been clearly fulfilled in the history and development of the Roman Papacy, it is Scripture which reveals that the Papacy is the Antichrist.”
Since 1998, the St. Marcus School has received almost $22 million in public tax dollars via the voucher program, according to figures from the state Department of Public Instruction.
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