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Ruth: No need for religious liberties bill

 
Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, debates against the medical marijuana bill during session on Thursday, May 1, 2014, in Tallahassee, Fla. A strain of low-THC marijuana would be legal in Florida for medical use under a bill passed by the House.  (AP Photo/Steve Cannon)
Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, debates against the medical marijuana bill during session on Thursday, May 1, 2014, in Tallahassee, Fla. A strain of low-THC marijuana would be legal in Florida for medical use under a bill passed by the House. (AP Photo/Steve Cannon)
Published March 8, 2017

Well, it's begun again in Tallahassee, another session of the Florida Legislature. Or as it might otherwise be known, 60 days of stupefaction.

As you know, Tallahassee is an old Seminole word for "A check for me? Why yes, I'll have another."

And thus the session commenced with feuding egos Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-I Feel Petty, Oh So Petty, continuing to deliver raspberries at each other over a snit involving the future of Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida.

Scott sniped that folks like Corcoran are nothing more than "career politicians," this from a guy in his second term as governor who would like to be Florida's next U.S. senator. The speaker declared his House Republicans would never think to "... cave into special interests," when only the night before the start of the session many legislators gather at a huge lobbyist sponsored party.

That Richard Corcoran, he's a funny guy.

Please. The Florida Legislature remains the best little whore house in Tallahassee, where folks like Corcoran and his colleagues can be had with a well-turned stone crab claw dangling at the end of a lobbyist's checkbook.

You don't rise through the ranks by being Beaver Cleaver of Apalachee Parkway.

It would be naive to think the Florida Legislature, that Gathering of Beagles, would use the next eight weeks or so to actually address such pressing issues challenging the state like climate change, health care/Medicaid expansion, true education reform, paying teachers more money and protecting the state's fragile eco-system,

Instead, the Legislature brays and dithers over making sure Floridians can shoot each other with greater ease and less accountability, while further gutting the state's long-treasured public records laws until the lack of transparency in government becomes the envy of East Germany.

And then there is the God card, which is always good for some old-fashioned breast-beating demagoguery.

Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Sack Cloth & Ashes, has introduced a measure misleadingly referred to as the "religious liberties bill," which states public school teachers and students have the right to pray.

Baxley always has been a man in search of a solution for a fake problem. The politician was the godfather of the state's absurd "stand your ground law," even though everyone has had the right defend themselves.

This is the same Florida Legislature that felt compelled to support all manner of voter suppression efforts under the phony guise of combatting an imaginary crime spree of non-existent voter fraud.

Now the parson of the Florida Senate is offering up dark hints of widespread religious intolerance running rampant across the state's public schools.

In fact, the rights of religious expression are already protected in both the United States and Florida constitutions. Prayer and religious expression have long been allowed in public schools as long as they are initiated by students and not sponsored or hosted by the school itself. Seems pretty simple.

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Pray away. Have a nice time.

While there may be the occasional glitch where a teacher or school administrator crosses the line, there is no evidence Florida public schools are hotbeds of religious intolerance.

That hasn't stopped Baxley, R-The Elmer Gantry of Ocala, from claiming nefarious plots are afoot to prevent him from worshipping. "I grew up in an America where you were free to express your faith and there was no intimidation of whether you could say 'Jesus' out loud or not," Baxley told Kristen M. Clark of the Times/Herald Tallahassee bureau. Uh, Senator, you can rest assured many people reading this and are freely muttering "Jesus" out loud without fear of retribution.

Florida schools are an amalgam of religious faiths - Christian, Jewish, Muslim and many other beliefs. We have a system in place that honors those beliefs while at the same time preserving the ideal of the separation of church and state.

But Baxley has already stacked the deck in his favor to push the "religious liberties bill" through the Senate. Bills often are reviewed by three committees. The "religious liberties bill" will only be heard by the Judiciary Committee, chaired by supporter Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota.

That's odd. Does Baxley, R-I Don't Want To Testify, have so little faith in the efficacy of his bill not to give it a full hearing? That doesn't seem very fair.

What would Jesus do?