Should we be paying for this?

[wordsmythe]

http://www.cjonline.com/stories/121605/bre_bacon.shtml

Published Friday, December 16, 2005

Taxpayers billed for trip to church event

The Capital-Journal

State Board of Education member John Bacon has charged taxpayers for expenses he incurred while attending a church-school sponsored event that featured leaders of the movement to make the Bible the foundation of public life.

"I would encourage any member of the state board, or any public official, to get informed about these issues,” said Bacon, adding that he gained valuable information at the conference last month in McPherson and thought being reimbursed by the state was justified.

The expense request he submitted included his board salary for two days, per diem for two days and mileage to and from his Olathe home. It is expected to total about $500.

Bacon, a Republican, is one of the six-member majority on the state education board that approved public school science standards that open up evolution to criticism. The new standards were sought by proponents of intelligent design.

He also has voiced favor for private school vouchers, expansion of charter schools and requiring parental permission for students to take sex education classes.

David Case, the administrator of Elyria Christian School, the sponsor of the McPherson event, described the conference, which about 1,200 people attended, as a way to assert that the Bible was integral in the founding of the United States.

"The greatest force in our society today is secularism,” he says. "There is a blatant attempt to remove anything spiritual or religious from the public sphere, and that is not honest in terms of our culture.”

Case, who says the founders of the United States were evangelical Christians and that the separation of church and state was a myth, says about 1,200 people attended the conference.

[Highwayman]

A member of the State Board of Education attends an event where there is discussion of a movement that might affect the way public schools teach. Yeah, it’s hard to justify when you look at it like that.

[K C Muffin]

We can't expect our leaders to make good decisions unless they have the information available to them to make those decisions.