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« Senate Republicans Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill The RantsSign the ACLU's "Refuse to Surrender" Pledge »

Alabama Votes to Retain Segregation Laws
2004.11.21 (Sun) 15:25

Apparently in Alabama, 1950s racism is alive and well as a proposed amendment to the state's constitution to repeal Jim Crow segregation laws failed in a popular vote. Reported by God is for Suckers from the Arkansas Times Record:

This year, the Alabama Legislature referred Amendment 2 to the voters to take out of the state’s constitution the three most egregious vestiges of racism in its segregation amendment. They were that schools must be segregated, that a poll tax had to be paid and that a right to an education at taxpayer expense did not exist for an Alabama child. (And you thought the purpose of a constitution was to grant, not void, rights.)

The idea of the latter was to make sure no lawyer, judge, outside agitator or godless liberal could ever say under constitutional imprimatur that Alabama bore any responsibility to its black children’s schooling.

Alabamians voted Nov. 2 on whether to repeal. With nearly 1.4 million votes cast, it appears that Amendment 2 failed by about 2,500 votes. The typical Alabama voter marked a ballot for Bush and segregation.

So how did this not pass? The state legislature and the governor supported this unamimously. Segregation and poll taxes have been illegal for decades. Common sense would dictate the repeal of this harmful, hurtful language in the state constitution. Who would oppose it?

The opposition was led by the state’s Christian Coalition, which assured everyone that it opposed segregation and a poll tax, of course. It said those provisions had long been moot anyway. It said it would work with the Legislature to repeal them.

But it was Amendment 2’s third repealing action — of the clause saying no child had a right to an education in Alabama — that these professed Christians rejected.

Roy Moore, the ousted Alabama Supreme Court chief justice who built a Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse, said that repealing the ban on a right to education would effectively establish such a right. That, he asserted, would be bad. He said trial lawyers would use the deletion to file suit to get taxes raised for public schools and maybe interfere with home schools and Christian schools.

Oh, horror of horrors!! Leaving Alabama open to raising taxes so they can fund education!! Guaranteeing every child an education, which is only the most important thing they could ever get!! How terrible!!

Further, we have no idea how any of this would interfere with home schooling or private schools of any kind (though all they seem to care about are Christian schools).

Frankly, whatever rationale is used to justify this vote, it is a huge black mark on the State of Alabama, and the United States, and a sad commentary on the people who voted in favor of racism.


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[  Filed under: % Civil Liberties  % Government & Politics  ]

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