Progressives would see all children drown rather than provide lifeboats for some.
Progressives in Florida have worked themselves into a lather because some families exercise their freedom of choice under the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program to send their children to religious schools that are not LGBTQ friendly. They would rather take away the freedom of over a hundred thousand families than permit a few families to use their liberty to make choices with which they disagree.
The LGBTQ scare is a smokescreen; liberals always have hated school choice because they are enamored with big government and teachers unions. From the start of the school choice movement, at which I was present, opponents have demonized choice. At first, they claimed vouchers could be used to fund schools run by the KKK or witches covens. Their latest claim that religious schools are anti-LGBTQ is being used as a bludgeon against corporations participating in the scholarship program and, in these hyper-PC times, they have caused a few companies to quit the program.
A key question is: “Whose money is it, anyway?” No one objects to families using their own money for their children to attend the school of their choice. So, to whom does tax credit scholarship money belong? Credits differ from vouchers, which are funded by government. Unlike vouchers, credits never were state funds. The tax credit program was built on the principle of funder choice to keep government out and to permit families to choose. Progressives treat scholarship families as inferior to those using their own funds to pay for their children to attend the same schools.
That government schools discriminate against religion is obvious; less obvious is that public schools promote their own religion. They teach a vapid, politically correct, secular and valueless orthodoxy that, instead of reinforcing parental values, is antithetical to them. Tax credit scholarships permit the lucky recipients to escape failed government hell holes, which often are petri dishes for social dysfunction and breeding grounds for behavioral pathologies. Progressives oppose religious schools but force children to attend schools that indoctrinate them with the government religion.
Critics of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program are hard at work cudgelling companies with the club of political correctness if they don’t agree to quit participating. However, if companies quit the program, that means fewer scholarships inasmuch as companies can’t pick and choose who receives the scholarships or which schools recipients choose. Thus, a family may not, for example, have a scholarship available to move their LGBTQ child from a public school where he/she is being bullied relentlessly into a private school that provides a safe, nurturing environment.
Progressives are acolytes of the secular, valueless government religion; they hate it when even one person sends their children to a real religious school. They shamelessly have used the KKK and witches covens as scare tactics. Progressives would much rather see all children drown than to provide lifeboats, solely because they object to the choices a few people on the lifeboats may make.