Tanya McIntire
Grantham, NH
I am writing regarding the executive order Gov. Sununu recently signed prohibiting boycotts of Israel in state procurements and investments. The governor was applauded for standing up against national origin discrimination. Yes, it is true, “New Hampshire will not tolerate antisemitism.”
However, it has tolerated anti-Christian sentiment for years. In 2009, a local school board and the State Board of Education were asked to reassign 2 students to appropriate educational programs. The older student was conflicted in his conscience. He wrote in a letter to the superintendent in Grantham, “I knew what they were teaching me conflicted with my beliefs and parents’ teachings, so I would have to forget it all and relearn everything later. I gave up.”
This request for reassignment was denied. The reasons included: “The school requested is a ‘Christian’ school…placement of the students there would violate Part 1, Article 6 of the New Hampshire Constitution, and the First Amendment to the US Constitution.”
The NH Constitution in Part First [Art.] 4., recognizes Rights of Conscience as unalienable rights.
The public obligation to fund the education of all educable students was withheld from these two. The cost and subsequent debt to fulfill the obligatory years (13 in total) of education was transferred to the parents.
The actions by the local school board and upheld by the State Board of Education failed to fulfill the legal obligation of the state to ensure funding for a constitutionally adequate education; and, in fact, proved their failure to adequately comprehend our basic constitutional provisions. Our family’s nation of origin is America.
America was founded and built on the creeds and principals of Christianity, which was found and built on the creeds and precepts of Judaism (Semitism). The Annals of Dorchester record that the first Free School in America was founded by the Congregationalist reverend Richard Mather and that the land for that school was procured from Edward Breck, over 130 years before the constitutions were written and the colonies became the United States of America, “One Nation under God.”
There are 12 generations from Edward Breck to the two students. In the 5th generation, William Breck, b. May 11, 1745, moved from Boston in 1794, after the Revolutionary War, to settle a farm in Claremont, NH. That farmland is still providing for River Region markets.
How much longer will NH tolerate discrimination against its native sons? The parents continue to request reimbursement, hoping for the procurement and investment of the educational funds that will “ensure our shared progress and prosperity, while fortifying the NH Constitution the moral Iron Dome protecting the basic notions of truth and justice” in our state.
11 Main Street and River Region Market are waiting for this reimbursement.
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