It is a no-brainer. Parents want the freedom to choose the educational option that best suits their families. Parent-led, child-focused school choice programs are growing throughout the country, but Arizona is at top of the list!
Heritage Foundation ranked the best states for school choice, putting Arizona on top for allowing parents to choose among private, charter, and district schools, as well as autonomous homeschooling. Our recently passed, CAP-supported universal Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program is the first of its kind in the nation. No other state allows all students access to funding for a variety of education options.
Anti-school choice activists fighting the law are poised to file signatures next week to refer the universal ESA law to the ballot, taking options away from parents and children. More to come on that over the next couple of weeks.
The school choice ranking by Heritage looked at spending, regulatory freedom, transparency, school choice, and also gave an overall rating. Arizona not only ranked #1 in school choice but ranked #2 overall, just behind Florida. We also ranked 5th in transparency and regulatory freedom, and 13th in spending. Read more here.
Spoiler alert: Washington D.C. ranked last overall.
Disrespecting Marriage
The U.S. Senate was poised to vote on the horribly named “Respect for Marriage Act” next week but postponed it until after the midterm election. Apparently, some lawmakers didn’t want to face a controversial vote less than two months from the election. The bill would do nothing to show respect for marriage. Quite the contrary, it opens the door to defining marriage as pretty much anything leftist politicians decide it is in any particular state.
The act codifies same-sex marriage into federal law and includes language requiring all states to acknowledge any marriage that any one state legalizes. That means, if one state legalizes polygamy, all states must recognize it. You can imagine where it goes from there.
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Al Mohler hones in on another key problem with the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act:” its clear destruction of religious freedom. He writes,
If you’re a wedding photographer, if you’re a cake baker, if you’re… Well, any number of these professions or perhaps in a medical profession, then you’re not going to get any religious liberty protection from this bill. And furthermore, there’s something even worse. This bill right out front, states that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act cannot be the basis of any legal appeal to this bill. That tells you the real agenda, right up front.
Seeing the same threat, The Family Leader’s Bob Vander Platts writes, “…the Respect for Marriage Act…will effectively weaponize the federal government (and its 87,000 new IRS agents) against Bible-believing Christians, churches, and ministries who believe in one man-one woman marriage (Matthew 19:4-6)?”
Will Arizona’s two U.S. Senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly protect marriage and religious freedom? You can send them a message here and here and urge them to vote NO on the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act.”
ICYMI
- Read the letter CAP sent to the Biden Administration arguing against the implementation of rules that redefine the word “sex” to include gender identity in Title IX
- Read here how the Left argues ever-changing civil rights necessarily require the destruction of religious freedom
- Read here why science cannot be used as the arbiter of truth, especially in 2022.
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