Church and State, Gambling and Vouchers

Gambling and vouchers promise to be two hotly debated topics in the 2023 session of the Texas legislature. Legislators have filed several bills to expand gambling in the state, as well as bills to create a voucher program. Texas Baptists are opposing both efforts. Interestingly, they claim that education vouchers violate religious liberty and the separation of church and state while simultaneously working to impose their religious beliefs on the entire state.

Proponents of vouchers want to give parents more freedom to place their children in private schools, whether secular or religious. However, because the vouchers are funded by tax dollars, opponents argue that “public money” shouldn’t be used to subsidize religious schools. Doing so would ostensibly constitute state support to religion. This is the reason that Baptists oppose school vouchers.

However, vouchers will not benefit a particular religion or sect. They are not government support of religion. They are support for freedom of choice.

Baptists oppose gambling because it violates their religious beliefs, and they want the state to impose those beliefs upon all Texans. Baptists and non-Baptists alike should be prohibited from gambling, regardless of their personal desires and preferences. This is nothing more than the imposition of a particular religious tenet. Such actions violate the separation of church and state.

Fundamentally, the separation of church and state is a protection for intellectual freedom. That separation prohibits government from prescribing or proscribing religious ideas. Morally, individuals should be free to accept and act on whatever religious ideas they choose, so long as they respect the right of others to do the same.

The Baptists don’t want others to be free to act on ideas with which they—the Baptists—disagree. They don’t want others to be free to choose, and this is true in regard to both gambling and vouchers. If an individual chooses to gamble, the Baptists want it to be illegal for him to act on that choice in Texas. If an individual wants to send his child to a non-government school, the Baptists want it to be more difficult to act on that choice.

If we support freedom of choice, then we should legalize both gambling and vouchers. If we support freedom of choice, we must recognize and accept the fact that others may make choices with which we disagree. Baptists do not support freedom of choice. They want their choices imposed on everyone else.