FFRF Action Fund’s “Secularist of the Week” is Pete Buttigieg, who defended state-church separation and public schools at a VoteVets Town Hall last week in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Buttigieg, who served as the secretary of transportation in the Biden administration and as mayor of South Bend, Ind., from 2012 to 2020, recently spoke at a town hall hosted by VoteVets, a progressive veterans advocacy nonprofit. During his remarks, Buttigieg discussed the constitutional principle of the separation of state and church and its importance in public schools nationwide.
A retired teacher posed a state-church issue to Buttigieg: “Right now, there is a case that’s going before the Supreme Court, out of Oklahoma, that is dealing with what amounts to the separation of state and church. It also goes to … one of the other questions about where the tax money is being sent. And this is a case where the tax money could be spent on church schools.” This referred to the just-decided U.S. Supreme Court case about the nation’s first proposed religious public charter school.
The packed town hall audience collectively booed at the concept of taxpayer funds going to private religious schools, and the retired teacher continued, saying, “I pay more taxes than Jeff Bezos does. I don’t mind paying taxes, but I would like to have it be spent where it needs to be spent.” The teacher added, “I would like you to speak about the separation of church and state and tax money being spent on public schools.” The crowd erupted in applause.
Buttigieg responded: “Look, the separation of church and state is a foundational principle of our republic. Our country was founded by people who decided they didn’t want to have to live subject to somebody else’s interpretation of his own religion.”
“They were, by the way, religious people,” he added. “They didn’t want us to live by somebody else’s religion. And, they did not seek to impose theirs through the mechanisms and the machinery of government on anybody else.”
Buttigieg said that the “foundational principle” of state-church separation is “absolutely being tested in our schools.” He continued, “A public school is, speaking of democracy, subject to the decisions of a school board that you get to vote people on to or off of. It’s part of a democratic process, as should be everything that we pay for with our taxpayer dollars.” Buttigieg further clarified that he holds this stance while being someone “who appreciates religious education.”
“I benefited from religious education,” said Buttigieg. “I went to St. Joseph’s High School, the Catholic high school in South Bend, Indiana. I got a great education there, but my family never expected for one minute that our neighbor on Marquette Avenue would have to pay for it.”
Buttigieg also touched on a pending U.S. Supreme Court case stemming from the religious objections of some parents to LGBTQ-plus materials in schools. This case argues that parents should be able to opt their children out of participating in instruction on the LGBTQ-plus community that goes against their personal religious convictions. Buttigieg explained the absurdity of this case and its desire to give a “line item veto on any lesson” to every parent.
“That is completely, just in practical terms, completely unmanageable,” asserted Buttigieg. “I mean the idea that a teacher is supposed to keep a roster for every student and only include a different combination of students in every paragraph, of every textbook, is, again, against the basic idea that we hold our school systems accountable to a school board that we elect.”
He elaborated that it is a school board’s duty to “hire people who can be trusted to run those schools in accordance with community values.” He continued, “That’s an idea that is richly rooted in a tradition of respect for local decision-making that conservatives used to talk a lot about, and I think we all ought to be able to agree on.”
“This isn’t just about what we’re against, it’s what we’re for,” concluded Buttigieg. “Not just that we are against forcing people to pay with their tax dollars for private education that they might not subscribe to agree with. We are for using those tax dollars for excellent, first-rate public education.”
FFRF Action Fund’s parent organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, filed amicus briefs in both these cases urging the court to protect the separation of state and church. We profusely thank Buttigieg for his defense of state-church separation and his commitment to our secular public schools.
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.