by Ugur Akinci, Ph.D.
http://tork.blogspot.com

There is an admittedly male-biased Turkish folk saying to express the utter helplessness of a situation in which one feels paralyzed, unable to make a rational decision: "If I spit upwards, it'll hit my mustache. If I spit down, it'll ruin my beard."
Turkish State has decided to expand its control on religion education by offering night and summer Kuran classes.
Turks are divided into two groups on this issue: those who believe that if the State is not involved, then the radical Islamists will try to turn Turkey into Saudi Arabia (spitting up), and those who insist that the secular State should have no supervision whatsoever over religion and leave all religion education to private hands (spitting down).
The Religious Affairs Directorate General, which reports directly to the Prime Minister himself, is now authorized to offer a Kuran class if 10 students petition for it. There is little doubt that this decision will expand the number of existing authorized Kuran courses across Turkey.
Minister of National Education Hüseyin Celik justified the development by saying that "religion education should be carried out with the State's resources and under State supervision, in a healthy manner, instead of being pushed underground as a nefarious activity carried out in apartment basements and dungeons."
I'm sure this new regulation was adopted with the best of intentions, to provide the Turkish students with a non-radical and non-fundamentalist type of “quality religion education.” The idea seems to be to provide "a religion education that is not itself religious".
But there are many professional groups and civil society organizations which are questioning whether the State needed to reach this deep further into religion education in Turkey. The fear is that the impressionable youngsters will be imbued with religious sensitivities instead of the kind of scientific education that would be needed to compete successfully in the EU market place.
No one so far has raised the question that barred a similar involvement in the United States: can the State use taxpayers' monies to support only a given religion in a secular democracy?
In USA, 36 states have passed laws that prohibit use of public funds for religious education of all kinds.
Every American citizen has the right to whatever religious education he/she wants to get -- but not at public expense. By this logic, could the Turkish Imam and Preacher High Schools and the State-supervised Kuran classes operate in the United States? I don't believe so.
This wall between public monies and religious education is being tested these days by Joshua Davey of Spokane, Washington who is demanding that the State of Washington be compelled to provide him a scholarship (for which he is academically qualified) to study theology at Northwest College. The case went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. A decision is expected not sooner than 6 months, which reflects the intensity of discussions to be taking place on this (probably) "landmark case."
The Washington State ban has its roots in the 19th Century "Blaine amendment" taking its name from Rep. James G. Blaine (R-Maine) who was afraid that the Roman Catholic Church would take over the country by providing Catholic education funded through tax revenues.
Washington State's legal brief admitted that "there is no question that Davey has a constitutional right to practice his religion, including pursuing a degree in theology. However, he does not have a constitutional right to have the State of Washington pay for it."
Why? Not all Washington State taxpayers are Christians. Even among Christians, a Baptist may not want to pay for the religious education of a Catholic, or an Episcopelian may not want to subsidize a Seventh Day Adventist. And would a Mormon like to pay for the education of a Muslim, a Hindu or a Jew, or vice-versa? And what if somebody wanted to get a college degree in Atheism or even Satanism?! And so on. Thus the American state governors and legislatures do not want to get caught in between all that crossfire. Kind of makes sense, doesn't it?
Sociopolitical controversies usually don't get resolved. They are only managed.
In the United States, the Church and the State are managing one another through taxpayers' wallets.
In Turkey, it still continues to be a political tug of war between the old secular establishment and the new religious-conservative elite. Nobody's talking about the wallets yet.