John Kasich, the current governor of Ohio, has been suspected of having presidential ambitions, just waiting for the right moment to join the vast throngs of Republican elected and non-elected people who think they have what it takes to do the job. He has been coy about expressing his ambitions openly but he just gave an indication that he is seriously considering it by taking an action that is blatant pandering to the religious nutters.
He has created a mentoring program for students in Ohio, but for any school district to get a piece of the $10 million allocated, they have to partner with a faith-based organization. This requirement was not part of the legislation that was passed but was added by him unilaterally at the last minute.
He is clearly inviting a legal challenge, likely hoping that it will elevate his standing with the religious base as a fighter for Christians even if he loses the case, as is likely. He may be hoping that this will compensate for the anger that he caused among the right by his acceptance of the Medicaid expansion part of Obamacare.
This is where I’d love to see the Satanic Temple get involved. It is “faith-based” after all.
@1
Exactly. Or any sort of “faith” such as, I dunno, leprechaunism.
It’s the Medicaid part of Obamacare that Kasich expanded. Medicaid != Medicare.
As to “faith”, I like a definition stated by one of Mark Twain’s characters: Faith is believing something when you know it isn’t true.
lpetrich,
Thanks for pointing out the error. I have corrected it.
The religious requirement came from the Department of Education it seems. But of course they added it after talking with the governor’s staff and advisors.
It does have restrictions that the religious groups can’t proselytize or recieve state funds. So that means from the point of view of this program, those groups would ostensibly look secular. Then why the requirement it must be a religious group? Either these restrictions are enforced and the requirement is pointless and unnecessarily limiting the help children can get, or the restrictions won’t really be enforced.