Roggensack Supports Using Taxpayer Dollars to Fund Scientology Schools

Submitted by Jud Lounsbury on Thu, 03/14/2013 - 3:45pm

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Patience Roggensack supports the use of tax payer dollars, via school vouchers, to fund Scientology and any other religious teaching that someone may find controversial.
In 1997, then a 4th District Court of Appeals judge, Roggensack wrote the dissenting opinion that would be the basis for the landmark 1998 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling upholding the law that enables tax dollars to be spent on religious schools, including Scientology, through school vouchers.
People may scoff at notion of a Scientology school receiving funding in Wisconsin, but there is nothing to prevent it and, in fact, it would be illegal to discriminate against Scientologists should they wish to be included in a voucher program and met the minimum qualifications of other voucher schools. And the idea isn't that far-fetched: Scientologist elementary schools are popping-up all over the country.
This issue recenlty came up in Louisiana, where Republicans passed a voucher bill and wrongly thought they were funding "religious" schools of the Christian variety and were shocked to find that tax payer money could be spent on Scientology and, even worse, a MUSLIM school:

http://www.uppitywis.org/blogarticle/roggensack-supports-using-taxpayer-dollars-fund-scientology-scho