By Jim Boylan
The Waitsfield Select Board may have reached a new low in its quest to spend other people’s money. The whole discussion and decision about Waitsfield United Church of Christ is astounding.
First: There is a historic tradition in this country based on the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and settled law over a number of years and a number of Supreme Courts that is known as “Separation of Church and State.” Waitsfield United Church of Christ is a church.
No matter what convoluted rationale that anyone wants to present about “meeting houses” it is Waitsfield United Church of Christ. When you go to the website for National United Church of Christ and you go to their “Find a church” link and you put in Vermont you find Waitsfield United Church of Christ.
I agree that Waitsfield United Church of Christ is caring and community oriented, but it is still a church. United Church of Christ is one of the United States’ major Protestant faiths. The separation of church and state doctrine has been interpreted as government funds do not go to support churches.
Second: The select board, which has a serious addiction to federal grants, not only gave its tacit approval to United Church of Christ applying for a federally funded Community Development Block Grant, which is essentially taking tax money out of the pockets of financially strapped low- and middle-class families all across the U.S., but then they voted to approve using their power to tax the citizens of Waitsfield to support United Church of Christ.
Does the select board not understand that the citizens of our town are a mix of many religions? Our town residents are made up of many other Protestant faiths and Catholics, Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims, Buddhists and also those who have no religion. I apologize here to those faiths I left off the list.
Beyond the select board’s support for seeking to spend other people’s money via a federal grant, the inclusion of a $1,500 appropriation in the town budget is clearly using their power to tax as a way to coerce the citizens of Waitsfield to support a specific religion.
In the Supreme Court decision McCulloch v. Maryland, back in 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall set forth his renowned dictum that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy."
The Waitsfield Select Board has clearly overstepped the line here in their quest to spend other people’s money. Their overstep is also clearly a slap in the face to the separation of church and state, which is one of our nation’s underpinning principles and arguably a principle that can be viewed as one that has made the United States a great nation.
Boylan lives in Waitsfield.
