EDUCATION IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS.

PREFACE: I’m not in charge of much of anything anymore, but I like the blog’s name, so I’m keeping it, and I am, indeed, a Wahoo for life!  I am in the last month of a self-imposed gag order following my 24 vote loss for re-election to a 3^rd term as Mayor, and am itching to comment (as a private citizen/resident) on local community issues. But, we’re not there yet. There are other things to comment on. Things like a favorite subject: education.

The last few weeks have been filled with graduations: college, high school, middle school to high school, elementary to middle, pre-school to kindergarten. Kindergarten – a German word and idea meaning, literally, children’s garden, is a concept born in late 1700 Germany as an educational approach for pre-school children of working families. Starting as a program of playing, singing, drawing and social interaction, the traditional concept has, through time, transitioned into a much more rigorous form of preparing children for the ‘system demands’ that begin in 1^st grade. I learned a new term while serving my community: kindergarten ready. I am not a trained educator, but even I understand this word. And it has little to do with a garden.

In our current world, children must come to 1^st grade with certain basic skills. Some districts are fortunate to have families and support systems such that a vast majority of their children can hit 1^st grade in stride and begin a successful educational journey. Some do not. My home district found itself in this latter category a few years back as the local demographics changed. The district found itself with a substantial number of students from non-traditional home situations – single parent homes, children cared for by grandparents, aunts and uncles, big sisters/brothers, and court-appointed guardians. Stability was absent as kids were shuffled from place to place, school to school, nightmare to nightmare. For some, English was not their base language. For others, illegal drug activity was a part of their every-day environments. Basic traits as diligence, curiosity, self-discipline, hygiene were not priorities at home.

Schools are ‘graded’ and classified on the basis of arbitrary testing schemes devised in the state’s education department bureaucracy, and students’ performance on these tools are advertised and create perceptions of school systems in their communities. When children enter a system unprepared it, naturally, takes extraordinary effort by those educators to get these children to an acceptable testing level. If I remember the number correctly, I was advised that less than 20% of the children entering my home district’s kindergarten were ready, while neighboring districts were experiencing 80-90%. Imagine the effect this difference has on the reported school scores! It would look to the uninformed like the system educating the kids that were not ready to start on arrival was a ‘failing system’ when, actually, the student by student success was amazing. It is pretty simple: It takes half a glass of water to fill a glass already half full whereas it takes a whole glass to get an empty glass to the same level!

So, what has my home district done to address the situation it found itself in? A number of innovations and programs a little out of the box. It created and operates a pre-school at the high school facility as one ingredient of the recipe to make sure kids become kindergarten ready.  It works with faith-based groups to facilitate ‘Whiz Kids’ groups where local church volunteers work with elementary students weekly on reading, homework, story-telling and general knowledge. It partners with local municipal governments to place school resource (police) officers in every school and to operate an after school middle school program. It has involved itself in other non-traditional programs to address the need.

My point is this: educating our children is everybody’s business – our collective future depends on it. Support your local schools. Do not believe what you hear or take as gospel what the press reports – look deeper. Get involved and make a difference. Turn challenges into successes.

Case in point – a 2011 graduate of my alma mater recently obtained her undergraduate degree from a major state university with 4 - count them - 4 academic majors. She was awarded a Fullbright scholarship to pursue her masters in England. She is African-American. Her mother was a single parent who made a living and supported the family as an exotic dancer, and her father was not around and in prison. Non-traditional family + perhaps difficult childhood + Erlanger-Elsmere Independent public education = unqualified success. Fight on you Juggernauts, fight! Carry on to victory…

Congratulations to the Class of 2015!

Commment on THE current event of the week.

HOOS IN CHARGE?

Preface: I’m not in charge of much of anything anymore, but I like the blog’s name, so I’m keeping it, and I am, indeed, a Wahoo for life!  I am in the last month of a self-imposed gag order following my 24 vote loss for re-election to a 3^rd term as Mayor, and am itching to comment (as a private citizen/resident) on local community issues. But, we’re not there yet. There are other things to comment on. Things like fundamental changes in American society.

I have been giving a great deal of thought to the issue of same sex marriage lately, and knew when SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) accepted the case to review it would be a hot button matter. Decisions from several of the Circuit Courts of Appeal were direct opposites, and those are the kinds of cases SCOTUS often hears – to try to bring uniformity into the Federal Courts. The late (and great, in my opinion) Judge John Heyburn in the Western District of KY decided that KY’s ban on same sex marriage violated the U.S. Constitution, but then held his decision in abeyance while it was appealed. The Sixth Circuit reversed him. SCOTUS affirmed Judge Heyburn’s decision.  May he rest in peace.

Several months ago I had the privilege to assist a woman in a parenting matter who was legally married to another woman in a state that issued same sex marriage licenses. They were local residents and the parenting dispute was with a third person. I became more acutely aware of the status these folks face in the KY court system and of KY appellate decisions touching the subject. I think it safe to say that many of my brother and sister officers of the Court of Justice in this Commonwealth were waiting for the ruling and are not shocked.  

This is my take on the issue. It is not necessarily my religious belief. It is my lawyerly belief. And while not pretending to be either a religious scholar or Constitutional scholar, I know enough about both to form opinions.

In my opinion . . . . . .

The Bible, written by humans, inspired by God, assembled by committees, and refined through the ages by scholars, tells us that God created man then, from a man’s rib, created woman to be the man’s companion. A man shall leave his father and mother and ‘cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.’ Genesis 2:24. The betrothed make a covenant to each other and to their community and is divinely blessed. Many of us believe marriage to be embraced and preferred by our religion. The Bible, however, discusses many aspects of relationships. For instance, David and Abraham, pillars of Judaism and Christianity, practiced polygamy. Traditional monogamy is, obviously, a main subject of discussion, but more unusual topics as celibacy and castration are discussed as well.

There are some who argue that our society must avoid using ancient biblical texts to influence today’s morals, as there are texts that endorse other social institutions, such as slavery. This writing is not meant to be a study in theology. Instead, my point is that ‘marriage’ has many meanings in diverse cultures, including the Judeo-Christian culture in which I live.  What individuals believe in the USA depends in large part on how they were raised, what form of religion they identify with and how their communities have influenced their beliefs over the years.

Had the institution of marriage remained the sole province of religion, there would not be the uproar we experienced this week. Everyone would be free to marry or not as their beliefs dictated. Their religious institutions would influence and, perhaps, control their individual actions.  The institution of marriage did not, however, remain in the province of the church, mosque, synagogue, temple or whatever. Laws were enacted.

Faith, beliefs and spirituality is one thing. Law is another. Our country’s founders did their best to make sure this country would be governed by the rule of law, not by the whim of a monarch. They also did not want religious leaders to enforce their particular beliefs on all of the people. Many had been there and done that with experiences in certain protestant denominations, the Church of England and, of course, the Roman Catholic Church. The founders tried their best to allow people to believe what they choose, to worship how they choose, but not to impose these beliefs and faiths on all the people by force of law. When the Constitution was written, some states had already embraced particular denominations as the ‘official religion’ of the state.

The framers of our United States Constitution set up a 3-part government - executive, legislative, judicial – to ensure a balance of power with one part being a check on the other. Legislators write the law, the executive enforces it and judicial branch interprets it. A main source of contention in political rhetoric is and always has been the distinction between Courts and Judges writing the law and interpreting what the written law means and is to be applied. Think Marbury v Madison – Google it if necessary. Judicial review.

Article IV, Section 1 of the Constitution states: Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. . . Section 2 states: The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

Wary of the excesses of monarchy from what they had recently escaped, and cognizant of the influence of the clergy, the newly independent people of this country then adopted a series of 10 amendments that addressed many of these excesses.   The Bill of Rights was a set of principles restricting what the central government could do to the individual.

The 1^st Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The 10^th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In 1802, a mere 11 years after the Bill of Rights were adopted, Thomas Jefferson wrote this in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, a group concerned with the dominance of the Congregationalist Church in Connecticut:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

As indicated before, and nonetheless, some states established official religions and gave other denominations privileges and rights others were denied. They argued that the 1^st Amendment applied only to the federal government. Applying this concept to the extreme one state could make the Roman Catholic Church the official state religion and in another the Southern Baptist Convention, while a 3^rd state could make Buddism official. Imagine the chaos! (Think, in modern terms, of Sunni vs Shia Muslim denominations.)  In 1947, SCOTUS issued an opinion interpreting the application of the 1^st Amendment to the states.

Justice Hugo Black wrote for the majority (of, again, a divided court – not a novel concept) in Everson v Board of Education:

"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.'" 330 U.S. 1, 15-16.

The 14^th Amendment, adopted in 1868 as this country was recovering from and adjusting to life following the Civil War, states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

So, the rule of law teaches us this:

1.      Kentucky cannot pass a law to prefer one religion over another or one set of religious beliefs over another.

2.     One man-One woman marriage is a concept based on some Judeo-Christian beliefs.

3.     Kentucky law that permits opposite sex couples to obtain an official recognition of their marriage – a marriage license - yet denies that same privilege to same sex couples is law that prefers one particular religious belief.

4.     Kentucky law that permits opposite sex marriage licenses and denies same sex licenses denies to same sex couples living in the jurisdiction of Kentucky equal protection of the law, violating the 14^th Amendment.

5.     Kentucky Law that refuses to recognize same sex marriages performed in a state where it was legal (such as NY) and refuses to give those couples the same rights and privileges KY law affords opposite sex couples with a marriage license violates Article 4, Section 1 of the US Constitution by refusing to give full faith and credit to the law of the other state, and Section 2 by denying KY citizens the privileges and immunities of other states.

6.      The 10^th Amendment reserving powers to the states not delegated by the Constitution does not apply because the Constitution delegated the power to prohibit state religious preference to the US, and the power to enforce equal protection of the law to the US.

Therefore, I was not surprised by the SCOTUS decision in Obergefell v Hodges, et al. Our Constitution was written for people having fundamentally different beliefs on topics of importance to them. While our Constitution does not adopt one theory of marriage, it does give all people the right to equal protection of the law, and denying one group a license afforded to another group does just that – it denies equal protection.

Had I been a member of SCOTUS, I would have voted with the majority.

That is my opinion, for what it is worth.