Remarks at the Deliberative Session 2/7/2023

First, it must be said:  I know nobody here tonight who wishes anything but the best for the Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Church or its Sacred Heart School. 

Those of us in opposition to this warrant article come not to oppose the Church, but to embrace the Constitution and the principles which emanate from it, including separation of Church and State, which, it must be remembered is why we do not tax church property. 

I know the Church has congregants here tonight who support this warrant article and they are honorable folks and good citizens.

3 TIMES OVER

But the good folk of Hampton have paid for the 53 Hampton children who attend SHS, three times over, every year. They have paid first by providing enough seats and enough teachers to accommodate these children at the 3 public schools.  We do not save money we have already spent.

 And the taxpayers will pay a second time for these students, by paying for the state vouchers for private school students, 

and the taxpayers pay a third time with this warrant article.

You might even consider a 4th way: by exempting the church from taxation, we subsidize the property of the Sacred Heart School.

The New Hampshire Constitution  says, and I quote, "But no person shall ever be compelled to pay towards the support of the schools of any sect or denomination. "

I have in my hand the itemized reports of invoices paid by Ms. Curtis: She tells me she has never refused to pay to cover an invoice from Sacred Heart School in all the years she has written these checks. Among the items were glitter crayons and paper crowns,  computers and molding clay.  But knowing what the items were does not tell you how they were used. If you knew the paper crowns were used in religious pageants,  by kids acting as the three wise kings, the clay used to mold a baby Jesus and the computers used to stream services from St. Patrick's cathedral, would you then still pay the invoices? 

The answer, or course will be: But they never used these items this way. And I will ask: How do you know?

Last year we voted down an amendment to fund all religious or private schools as we do Sacred Heart  because that might mean funding a school for the Church of Satan. So we a favor only some churches in Hampton.

In Hampton, we have voted to fund the Sacred Heart School as a special case, as if it were the Church of Hampton.    By my calculation if only 53 of 239 students come from Hampton, then  3/4 of the students  attending Sacred Heart are not even from Hampton.          So we are not simply offering to all Hampton children a benefit, we are offering a benefit to students beyond Hampton,  who want to go to a religious school, which makes this is a special tithe paid by the town to Miraculous Medal.

In Congress Representative Marjorie Taylor Green has said that separation of church and state is a "myth." She says we should be a Christian nation. Representative Lauren Boebert says she is "tired of separation of church and state," and the church should govern the government. 

But I do not agree. 

I still believe in the separation of  church and state, and I suspect  some Miraculous Medal congregrants support this principle, when it means they are exempt from property taxes, but when it gets in the way of taxpayer support for the church, then never mind, we don't much like it then.