Fulcher Favors Religious Discrimination?

In last week's Senate committee hearing to decide whether to print a bill making it illegal to discriminate against homosexuals in employment, education, and housing, Senator Russ Fulcher was quoted in the Idaho Statesman as indicating he was not in favor of such protections for religious beliefs, either.

"Senator LeFavour looks at this as a genetic difference and others, including myself, look at this as a behavioral difference," Fulcher said. "Given that, the debate becomes, 'Do you look at making provisions based on behavior?' "

However, since religion is also a behavioral difference, this indicates that Fulcher is also not in favor of the existing laws protecting people from being fired based on their religion.

For example, from Idaho's formation as a state in 1890, a law was on the books forbidding LDS members from holding office, or even from voting. That discriminatory law was not removed from Idaho code until 1982.

If discrimination based on behavior is allowed, as Senator Fulcher suggests, that raises the spectre that such religious discrimination will again be permitted in Idaho. 

District 21 Town Hall Meeting with Legislators

It hasn't been well publicized, but there's another District 21 Town Hall Meeting with legislators tonight at Reed School at Linder and Deer Flat, 5:30-7 pm.

Education Committee Shoots Down Jarvis Dropout Bill

After a two-hour debate, members of the Idaho House Education Committee voted to kill Representative Rich Jarvis' bill that would have raised the legal dropout age from 16 to 18. The final vote was 9-8, with committee chair Representative Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene, breaking the tie and casting the dissenting vote.

According to articles by Brian Murphy in the Idaho Statesman and Sarah Wire in the Associated Press, dissenters were concerned about the bill's $11 million cost and whether it would actually be effective. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, who did not testify, told the Statesman that he supported the arguments that making schools “rigorous and relevant” will be more successful at retaining students than compelling them to remain in school.  

Rep. Pete Nielsen, R- Mountain Home, told the committee it is better to provide students with educational choices such as alternative schools than to force them to attend traditional classes, the AP said.

Hearings Set for Dropout Age Bill

Hearings on Representative Rich Jarvis' bill to force students to go to school until they're 18 by raising the legal dropout age from 16 will be held on Wednesday,  02/11/09 at 9:00 A.M. in room 148 in the Capitol Annex-East Side.

House Bill 58, which does nothing to provide more services or resources to students, including at the early age where intervention would actually be helpful, is expected to cost a minimum of $11 million just in daily payments to the school districts for the approximately 2,000 youth who would be affected, at the same time that schools are being forced to cut $62 million due to the economic situation.  It also does not expand the truancy court system that would actually enforce the bill.

The bill also limits parental choice by not allowing parents to give their youth permission to drop out at 16, and in fact could result in them being fined $1000 and thrown in jail for six months if their teenagers are declared "habitually truant."

Moreover, there is no indication that it will actually be successful in its goal to gain more high-school graduates. Of the 12 states with better high-school graduation rates than Idaho, 7 of them allow students to drop out at 16, and of all the states Jarvis cites as having a dropout age of 18, only one, Utah, has a better graduation rate than Idaho. Last year, the Minnesota legislature defeated a similar bill when even its supporters admitted that simply raising the graduation age wouldn't solve the dropout problem.

'Protecting' Idaho's Schoolchildren?

Senator Russ Fulcher sponsored, then postponed for a day, a bill that would eliminate one loophole in public education while enshrining another in state code.

Attendees at the recent "Keeping the Promise" Dropout Summit, held in Nampa earlier this month, learned that the Health and Welfare Department could not intervene with parents who were keeping their children out of school, because "educational neglect" was not recognized as a category. Fulcher's bill, S1017, remedies that, creating the category "without proper education" and allowing H&W to intervene.

However, Fulcher's bill also adds that a chid who is being "privately instructed at home by his parent or guardian" is considered to be properly educated -- which completely removes any teeth from the bill; a parent charged with not sending their child to school can simply say they're being homeschooled and get let off.

While the majority of parents who homeschool are doing so legitimately, some tell the district their children are being homeschooled without actually doing any instruction. Due to the way Idaho’s homeschooling law is written, any parent can say their child is homeschooled and there is no oversight, said Nick Smith, deputy superintendent as the State Department of Education at the "Keeping the Promise" summit. “Our hands are really tied,” he said. “I receive calls all the time from parents who’ve just moved to Idaho from other states,” where people are asking how to register and get a curriculum. “I have to explain, we don’t have registration, we don’t provide a curriculum, we do not regulate, we don’t oversee the process at all,” he said. “I don’t see any legislation discussed to change that.” Senator Dean Mortimer (R-Idaho Falls), who has served on the Senate Education Committee for two years, agreed, saying there was “no political will in the legislature” on that issue.

During debate on the Senate floor, Fulcher decided to postpone his motion for one legislative day to further discuss the issue with "stakeholders," whom he did not identify.

'No, You Can't Have Your Medicine'

Imagine going to the grocery store to buy bacon, and having the checker tell you, "Oh, pork products are against my religion, so I can't sell you that."

Or imagine going to the drug store for your blood pressure or diabetes medicine, and being told, "According to my religion, you should be curing that yourself with the power of your mind, so I'm not going to sell that to you."

Now, Senator Russ Fulcher is working on a bill with a faith-based organization to allow pharmacists to make just that sort of religious-based determination on emergency contraception.

Emergency contraception uses the same chemical that's in birth-control pills, but at a higher dose. Used within five days of a sexual act -- including rape or a condom failure -- it can help keep a woman from getting pregnant. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter sales in 2006.

According to the Idaho Statesman, Fulcher is working with Idaho Chooses Life, an anti-abortion religious organization that, deliberately or because it doesn't know any better, considers emergency contraception to be the same thing as an RU-486 chemical abortion (which is administered up to seven weeks into a pregnancy).

Fulcher said in the Statesman the idea would need to be run by the state attorney general's office to make sure it wouldn't violate state or federal laws before it can be brought before the Legislature. He did not say whether he would include a provision requiring the pharmacy to have someone else who could provide the person's medicine.

Such a bill would bring a particular religious belief into the lives of everyday Idahoans, interfere with a person's medical decisions about themselves and their families, and create a slippery slope. Should a pharmacist be able to refuse to sell someone insulin because they should pray to be healed? Should a grocery store clerk refuse to sell Nicoderm because according to their religion, you shouldn't be smoking or chewing anyway?

In short, such a bill would let a pharmacy allow its staff members to decide for themselves which medicine you deserve to get.