Backwardness in Alabama -- imagine that!
Pending a recount, an amendment to take racist language out of the Alabama constitution failed on Nov. 2. The amendment would have taken out wording requiring separate schools for "white and colored" children; of course, the meddlesome federal government stopped the actual enforcement of that law a few years ago.
Now, what happened to this is that along with taking out the wording regarding segregation -- as proposed by Republican governor Bob Riley -- it also would have removed a section saying there was no guarantee of a right to public education, which had been added as a "clever" maneuver to try to undercut Brown v. Board of Education. Opponents used that part of the amendment to draw its defeat, proclaiming that if the amendment passed, then "activist judges" and "trial lawyers" would sue to demand more financing of public education.
What moved this vote was your typical legion of right-wingers, including former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, he of the refusing to remove the 10 Commandments display. Moore came out against the amendment, as did the Christian Coalition, both of them supposedly because of the fear of raising taxes to fund education.
It's clear to see why such Godly people would be against funding public education; I'm sure their Bibles say something like "Thou shalt spend no more money for education than is absolutely necessary," although I can't find it in mine.
The truth is, those forces moved against it because the cause of the right -- in this case, gov'ment meddlin' in a state's idear of edjukashun -- is increasingly becoming the cause of some religions, and in part because of the latent racism still left in the South. This vote springs from the same well that saw gay marriage bans pass in several states.
Dr. Martin Luther King's dream still has a ways to go, especially in the South.
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