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niyad

(113,336 posts)
Fri Mar 6, 2015, 05:23 PM Mar 2015

more on justin harris--the ark. leg who "rehomed" his adopted daughters to a rapist

(I suggest reading this with a barf bag handy--or a very strong drink)

Let’s Meet Justin Harris, The Arkansas House’s Godly Child-Abandoner


image:
And you may ask yourself, 'Why the big suit?'

Yesterday we introduced you to the honorable Justin Harris, a proud Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, who kinda-sorta hid from the public the fact that he’d adopted two little girls out of foster care, tired of them after a year in his home, and given them to another family to raise. The other family wasn’t so great, seeing as how the new adoptive father, Eric Francis, raped the older of the girls, all of six years old. Francis had also briefly taught at the Christian daycare owned by Harris and his wife, “Growing God’s Kingdom Preschool,” and when the news of the sexual assault broke last year, that was the only connection Harris admitted publicly; the Arkansas Times broke the full story this week. It’s a horrible story, and the more we find out about Rep. Harris, the more charming he seems.


For instance, Justin Harris is a small-government conservative who likes to say that government spending never created a single job — and whose daycare business depends almost exclusively on taxpayer-subsidized tuition, as an Arkansas Times column noted in 2011:
Harris’ business operates on almost $900,000 a year and serves about 150 kids. Of that, all but about 6 percent comes in the form of state and federal dollars in a program aimed at developmentally disabled and poor children. The money provides Harris and his wife almost $60,000 a year in salary and benefits. It also covers the mortgage on his privately owned building and rent payments to the Harrises. So the government spending hawk lives on government spending, a double dip of payroll, perks and rent payments.

In addition, while Harris was pushing a bill to deny state services and in-state tuition to any Arkansas residents who couldn’t prove they were U.S. citizens or legal immigrants, Growing God’s Kingdom Preschool was happy to take government subsidies for “perhaps a dozen undocumented students among his 150 pre-schoolers” — not that undocumented kids shouldn’t get daycare, but it’s rather rich that Harris was seeking to deny benefits to some undocumented people while collecting taxpayer money for others. As columnist Max Brantley put it:
. . . . .
Oh, but that’s not all. God’s Little Acre Growing God’s Kingdom also came under fire in 2011-2012 when Americans United for the Separation of Church and State lodged a complaint against the state’s “Arkansas Better Choice” (ABC) program for granting funds to the Harrises, even though Growing God’s Kingdom explicitly advertised that it provided religious instruction, and would even turn out little evangelists. The preschool’s handbook promised parents that teachers and staff would:
“strive too [sic] ensure that your child feels the love of Jesus Christ while preparing them for Kindergarten.” The preschoolers, it continues, will be taught “the word of God” so that they can “spread the word of God to others.”

Harris insisted that it wasn’t no thing, since parents had the option of letting their kids sit out during daily prayers and Bible readings, but the ABC program later revised its guidelines to specify that no state funds could be spent on religious instruction during the school day. So Harris once again took a strict course of sorta-compliance, saying he would shift the prayers and religious instruction to after-school hours only. And of course, he complained that his state-subsidized clients were being discriminated against, because while he can’t stand Takers, he sure loves parents and little children:

. . . .



Read more at http://wonkette.com/578427/lets-meet-justin-harris-the-arkansas-houses-godly-child-abandoner#yZMzSJRuEJyeZfqe.99

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