EYE ON THE ENEMY: What the PFAW is doing about School Vouchers

Over the last few months, you've helped put the Radical Right's federal school-voucher agenda on the ropes. Senate leaders had to strip D.C. voucher legislation from the District of Columbia appropriations bill in order to pass it this week. But Congress' pro-voucher GOP leaders are trying to trump our grassroots efforts with more back-door legislative maneuvers. House and Senate negotiators are drafting a so-called "omnibus" bill that combines Congress' unfinished spending measures, and, as of this writing, privatization advocates have successfully inserted what would be the first-ever federally funded private-school voucher program.

Urge your U.S. Senators and Representative to reject the final omnibus bill if it includes vouchers, and ask senators to filibuster the whole bill, if necessary. Take action now.

Forward this alert to friends, family and colleagues who know that vouchers don't work and, in fact, divert attention and resources from reforms that do.

The Republican voucher strategy calls for our loudest outcry yet. Right-wing legislators in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin enacted their voucher programs using very similar tactics. The GOP's intent is to play a game of "chicken" with voucher opponents. If the voucher language is in the final omnibus bill, your senators and representative will have to choose between stopping school voucher legislation and funding important programs in the states. Plus, the vote on the omnibus bill will be all or nothing - voucher opponents won't be allowed to offer amendments removing the voucher language.

Please call and fax your members of Congress immediately and insist that they reject the final omnibus bill if it includes school vouchers. Tell your members that voucher advocates' underhanded tactics should not be rewarded and be sure to express your support for stopping the omnibus bill with a Senate filibuster, if necessary.

In your calls, ask to speak with the legislative assistant for education issues. Start with the sample message below, then add one or two of the talking points.

Sample message: "I urge Sen./Rep. ______ to reject and, if necessary, support a filibuster on the omnibus spending bill if it includes school vouchers. I strongly oppose this bill because...

"There is no requirement that voucher schools hire quality teachers who, at a minimum, have a college degree."

"There is no requirement that voucher schools submit to the same requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act as public schools or even that voucher students be tested in the exact same manner as public school students."

"The legislation does not prevent voucher schools from discriminating against students based upon disability, gender, limited English proficiency and academic performance and allows religious discrimination against teachers and other staff."

"The legislation will not provide real choice to the vast majority of school children and their families, many of whom will be unable to obtain the additional funds to pay for tuition and other private-school costs that are not covered by the voucher, such as transportation, uniforms and books."

"Vouchers are opposed by many Washington, D.C. clergy, officials, public-school parent organizations and residents, with the latest poll indicating that residents oppose a voucher program by a 3-to-1 margin."

"Legislation with such far-reaching consequences must not be slipped through with little or no debate in an enormous spending bill."

Who is the PFAW?

PFAW was founded by TV producer Norman Lear who is an admitted hater of conservatives. Lear produced TV's "All in the Family" and "Maude" which proselytized abortion and the rest of the hate-filled liberal agenda to unsuspecting viewers.

Lear founded People for the American Way (PFAW) in the 1980's specifically to oppose conservative Christian groups. From Lear's PFAW Web site: "People For the American Way Foundation is the nation's pre-eminent expert on the day-to-day activities of the Religious Right. This essential 'watchdog' work involves keeping exhaustive records of what ultraconservative groups communicate to their own target audiences; being there to tell the truth when they deceptively tailor their messages for the mainstream media; and helping to organize other groups and communities to defeat the Religious Right."

Law-abiding citizens know that keeping dossiers on Americans is not the "American Way." If conservatives kept dossiers on liberals, the ACLU would go ballistic and file lawsuits all over the place.

We need to start now to place PFAW, Planned Parenthood, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ACLU in their proper context. We need to wake up America to the hate crimes these groups are pepertrating on Christians.

The message is this: Individuals who promote abortion, and want to remove prayer and religious symbols from our culture are haters. They are hate-filled bigots. They hate religion. They hate religious people. They are law-breakers who are infringing on American citizens' constitutional rights.

These haters must be exposed for using unconstitutional religious tests to prevent conservative Christians from holding public office. At the core of these subversives' actions to remove all traces of Christianity are hate-filled sub-human beings who despise humanity. They must be exposed for who they really are: self-centered, spiteful, hate-filled bigots. These groups and the ACLU has been pushing their hate-filled agenda onto the rest of us for far too long.

The Ten Commandments are the basis of Western Civilization and drive laws like (1) Murder, (2) Theft, (3) Adultery, (4) Coveting (in sex harrassment or stalking case). These subversive, hate-filled groups are disavowing a huge body of laws analogous to the Ten Commandments.

The Christian-hating PFAW, ACLU, Planned, Parenthood, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, American Atheists, Humanist Association, Planned Parenthood, Southern Poverty Law Center, etc --- do not hesitate to disavow moral laws b/c at the heart of this Fifth Column's activities is a cynical scheme to undermine and weaken the US. And their "success" is apparent

The subversive anti-Christian Fifth Column haters haven't been emboldened enough to verbalize their hatred of religion, or to say that they loathe the people who practice religion (but that could change).

These haters usually offer some high-falluting, elliptical legal argument to justify infanticide, snatch the Ten Commandments, prayers, Christmas carols, religious symbols, and creches from so-called "public" places. Their arguments are always offered in unemotional voices, which makes the hate-filled devils believable to the uninitiated.

The hidden agenda of these religio-phobic groups is to decimate all references to morality b/c in their small, inferior, insular minds, morality equates to dreaded sectarian religious beliefs. How very successful they have been. Everyday we see their agenda's outcome as we experience unimaginable crimes, societal corruption, and the collapse of our once-thriving culture's moral underpinnings.

In November 1998, the Supreme Court Justices let stand a Wisconsin state court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the school voucher program in Milwaukee. From an article in the New York Times . . .

"This was not an explicit endorsement of the Milwaukee program," Bolick said, noting that the Supreme Court simply avoided getting involved at present. "But it means that the highest court ruling on this is the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which held that Milwaukee's voucher program did not violate either the state or Federal constitutions."

The Milwaukee program is among the most explicit, allowing state money to be used specifically for religious schools. The program provides vouchers for up to $5,000 -- the estimated cost of educating a child in the public schools -- to as many as 15,000 of the district's 100,000 students. The grants are given to the poorest students and this year, they have been used at 122 private schools in the city, 89 of which are parochial, court documents show.

Predictably, this continues to draw the ire of organizations such as the ACLU, People For The American Way, WEAC, etc. The attacks on the program instituted in Milwaukee continue.

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