ALABAMA
AL.com
By Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com
In Alabama there are real problems and there are imaginary problems.
The state’s ban on hunting over baited fields is an imaginary problem, but that hasn’t stopped some lawmakers from trying make it legal to hunt over a big pile of corn.
Lane Cake is an imaginary problem, and yet every year the Alabama Legislature considers the same resolution to make it the Alabama state dessert. If they’d just pass the thing so we could move on to more important imaginary matters, like the state appetizer or the state cocktail.
Religious oppression in schools is an imaginary problem, too, which Rep. Mack Butler solved last year by passing a bill that made things like student-led prayer legal. By Butler’s own admission, everything his bill legalized was already legal, constitutionally protected and fully litigated before the United States Supreme Court. He just wanted to make those legal things even more legal.
Lawmakers love imaginary problems because there’s no cost to them politically and little cost to the state financially, except when they invite federal court challenges.
Real problems, on the other hand, cost money. Real problems take effort to solve. Real problems don’t lend themselves to State House grandstanding, nor do they yield the kind of constituent back-patting lawmakers crave.
Alabama’s negligence when it comes to regulating and licensing religious affiliated daycares is a real problem. Alabama law doesn’t merely neglect state oversight of religious-affiliated daycares, it strains the muscles in its neck looking the other way.
It’s as simple as this: In Alabama, a day care can invoke a religious exemption to the rules and regulations that apply to for-profit and other non-profit child care centers. As a result, hundreds of child care centers throughout the state operate without oversight. In some instances, operators who have been shut down by the state have reopened by hiding behind Alabama’s religious exemption.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.