Rob Sherman Advocacy   
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State / Church Separation

Rob Sherman Advocacy to Oppose Illinois House Bill that Gives
Up to $15,000,000 Tax Gift to Roman Catholic Church of Chicago

Monday, February 28, 2005

      The Archdiocese of Chicago has asked the Illinois General Assembly to enact a law that would give their parochial schools a gift of up to $15,000,000 tax dollars, despite clear constitutional prohibitions against public funding of parochial schools.

      On Wednesday of this week, Illinois House Bill 1577 will be up for debate before the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee.  I will be there to testify against the bill.

      HB 1577, containing the falsely secular title of Opportunity Scholarship Act, is really just a public welfare bill for the Roman Catholic Church of Chicago.  The Bill calls for $3,500 "opportunity scholarships," with a cap of $15,000,000 total annual expenditure, to pay for the tuition of Chicago residents at private schools, including religious schools, despite the fact that Article X, Section 3 of the Illinois Constitution specifically prohibits public funding of parochial schools.  Article X, Section 3, states, in pertinent part, that the General Assembly shall not ever pay anything to help support or sustain any school that is owned by any church or sectarian denomination.  

      No other region of the state would be permitted to participate because the real purpose of this bill is to provide a $15,000,000 gift from Illinois taxpayers to the Roman Catholic Church of Chicago.

      Thanks to the state/church separation work that I've done for the past 25 years, everybody who needs to know in Illinois, such as the people at the Archdiocese of Chicago and the members of the Illinois General Assembly, knows that public funding of parochial schools is unconstitutional in Illinois.  That hasn't stopped the Archdiocese of Chicago from trying, every year, to sneak through legislation that violates that prohibition, but every year I'm there to stop them.  This year will be no different. 

      It's not the job of taxpayers to pay for religious indoctrination at parochial schools.  If the General Assembly has a spare $15,000,000 lying around, it should give it to the public schools because the General Assembly does not currently meet the constitutional requirement that the State fund at least 51% of the cost of public education.

         Rob Sherman          

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