President Bush repealed and proposed several regulations yesterday to make it easier for religious charities to receive federal money, including allowing such groups to make hiring decisions based on job candidates' faith.
This won't stand up in the SC, even with the current lean of the court. It looks like Bush is really trying to do right by the contituency that helped get him elected. I'm just waiting for someone to try and put a positive spin on this.
Re: Re: Re: Bush Presses 'Faith-Based' Agenda I think there ought to be a government branch called "department of handing out foods for the poor". Why should the church get these jobs? I hate to be asked to recite a passage of Bible first before receiving my soup.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Bush Presses 'Faith-Based' Agenda I've been trying to get a piece of the soup kitchen racket for years. It's better than whoring yourself out to the aluminum can.
Yes. But still, there's no deny that this is the most dejected failure of the government. They just pay lip service to the principle of "separation of church and state".
What do soup kitchens have to do with the separation of church and state? I'm with Mike. Make sure the moneys aren't used for religous activities and let the downtown church soup kitchen apply for a fderal grant to buy chicken stock.
Re: Re: Re: Bush Presses 'Faith-Based' Agenda From the article: So, it seems that one concern is that these regulations (I haven't read them) might not create the division you advocate. Instead, the division is made much flimsier. I also haven't had time to reflect deeply on this issue yet, but how these "laws" came to be should be analyzed. Is a regulation issued by the Bush Administration the appropriate way, rather than through Congress passing a law? Is there more concern about these regulations being fair and balanced since they have not been through the legislative process? Need to think more on that point.
I'm very uneasy about this. I realize that religious organizations do a lot of wonderful charity work and I'm all for that. And I don't know what the situation has been in terms of their receiving federal $$$ in the past. But it's got to be difficult to separate charitable activities from religious/evangelical activities. Isn't it reasonable for a homeless person to think, when he must enter a church with a giant image of Jesus on the Cross over the door, that the services being offered there are intended for Christians?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bush Presses 'Faith-Based' Agenda Process is still important. Change the scenario to a President declaring war because Congress failed to act. A President issuing a regulation creating a new tax because Congress hasn't acted. A President issuing regulations allowing for individual rights to own sub-machine guns because Congress hasn't acted. Like I said, I haven't seen the regs to be able to make a judgment yet, but I wouldn't offhandedly dismiss the checks and balances issue as irrelevant yet.
I am with Mike and GringoTex on this point. I think it's more reasonable for the homeless person to conclude that the soup kitchen services being offered are intended for the hungry. That doesn't mean I'm totally groovy with these regulations (which I reiterate I haven't read).
just another example of how W thinks he is above the constitution and 200+ years of 'the american way' - c'mon! who seriously believes that this money will be properly filtered? - FCOL the cat said god talked to him and told him he should go get sadaam!!! he's a delusional and a transparent one at that, how is he not a laughingstock?!?
Never mind. I was trying to defend this as a mild, practical and useful. But Bush fucks up everything he touches. This from a very long article: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/09/24/moon/index.html Bad Moon on the rise Overcoming his church's bizarre reputation and his own criminal record, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has cemented ties with the Bush administration -- and gained government funding for his closest disciples. - - - - - - - - - - - - By John Gorenfeld Sept. 24, 2003 | Last December, at his three-day God and World Peace event, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon drew a notable slate of political figures, from Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and, perhaps most notably, James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who offered some respectful opening remarks to Moon's Unification Church faithful. Moon followed, and called for all religions to come together in support of the Bush plan for faith-based initiatives. Coming from Moon that made perfect sense, because he already believes all religions will come together -- under him. "The separation between religion and politics," he has observed on many occasions, "is what Satan likes most." His gospel: Jesus failed because he never attained worldly power. Moon will succeed, he says, by purifying our sex-corrupted culture, and that includes cleaning up gays ("dung-eating dogs," as he calls them) and American women ("a line of prostitutes"). Jews had better repent, too. (Moon claims that the Holocaust was payback for the crucifixion of Christ: "Through the principle of indemnity, Hitler killed 6 million Jews.") His solution is a world theocracy that will enforce proper sexual habits in order to bring about heaven on earth. Last summer, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gave a $475,280 grant to fund Free Teens USA, an after-school celibacy club in urban New Jersey. Free Teens USA, like other Moon civic organizations, claims it has no ties to the Unification Church. But according to documents obtained by Salon under the Freedom of Information Act, the director and chief finance officer of the Free Teens USA club, as well as others listed on the group's board of directors, are former or present high-ranking Unification Church officials who omitted those leadership roles from their applications for the federal grant. The small success of Free Teens' government funding is just a small indication of the remarkable transformation of the billionaire Moon. A man who once inspired considerable public horror in the 1970s when his church faced a congressional inquiry and battled accusations of coercive recruitment and mind control, not to mention his own criminal conviction for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice, now goes about his business generally unnoticed. (The Unification Church would not return calls for this story.) Along the way, he has been able to gain acceptance by the most powerful people in the country, surely with the help of his media mini-empire -- including the UPI wire service and the right-wing newspapers Tiempos del Mundo, in South America, and the Washington Times, which he runs at losses well into the tens of millions every year. His exorbitant spending on politicians, largely conservative, hasn't hurt either; his Washington Times foundation gave $1 million to the George H.W. Bush presidential library and has paid the former president untold amounts in speaking fees. And Moon has also made impressive headway into the current Bush White House. Other administration officials have attended Moon events, including then-incoming Attorney General John Ashcroft, who attended Moon's Inaugural Prayer Luncheon for Unity and Renewal, just before George W. Bush took office. And perhaps more important, other former and current members of his Unification faithful have ascended to high levels of the Bush administration.
Are you really this dense? I'm not accusing churches of only providing charitable services to Christians. I'm talking about what a person in need might perceive. The image of Christ above the door was one hypothetical example. Perhaps it's difficult for you to imagine, but there are people who are very uncomfortable entering a church, or partaking in any activity sponsored by a church. Their anxiety may seem unreasonable, since 9/10 times the charity organization is not trying to convert, just to help the needy. However, there is the possibility that the needy person could feel intimidated. I realize this is a stretch for your limited imagination. It seems like the constitutionality would have to be questioned on a case-by-case basis. Just as some religious displays on government property are acceptable, and some aren't.
Bingo? I think Demosthenes is clearly overstating things. She already admits that 9 out of 10 times the charity is there to perform charitable works, not proselytize. Wouldn't it therefore be unreasonable for the person in need to "feel intimidated?" This still doesn't get to the point, though, which is whether the new regulations do a fair job of providing funding for charitable works without unduly promoting religion. That's a different, more specific issue from the general question of whether a faith-based organization is capable of providing charitable services without religious "intimidation."
There is often a gap between intention and result. That is why I said the constitutionality might have to be decided on a case-by-case basis. Whether the feeling of intimidation is reasonable or not depends on the particular situation. I don't see how they are separate issues. By "intimidation," I meant the feeling that religion is being promoted, in the sense that one particular religion is being priveleged. People of another faith are made to feel like outsiders. I don't know whether a faith-based organization is capable of providing charitable services without promoting religion. I'd like to think that most can.
Issue #1 is the big-picture question, you state yourself: GringoTex, Segroves and I all came down on the same side of this question. Sure they can, and there's nothing wrong with that, provided there is a definite line between the church activities and the federally funded charitable activities. This is the big picture issue you seem to disagree with. Issue #2 is whether the Bush Administration's new regulations do an adequate job of ensuring there is a clear line between charitable works funded by federal dollars and religion (the key to our opinion in Issue #1). If not -- and the articles seem to suggest not-- then the Bush Administration fails to achieve the goal of Issue #1. Opposing the Bush methodology would not mean having to concede the premise that "religious organizations cannot provide charitable services without promoting religion."
I'm in total agreement with you then. I don't know where you got the idea that I don't think churches can provide charity services without proselytizing. I am indeed questioning whether the Bush regulation will adequately protect against federal money going to religious activities. My original post was only intended to point out the potential problems that could result from Bush's regulation.
i'm sorry i just believe that 9 out of 10 times figure is wishful thinking... it's polite to be sure, but it's gotta be inaccurate - these shelters, missions and rehab programs push the good book, jesus cares, etc. - if it's 5 out of 10... that's a miracle and as for W protecting against funding religous activities... hell people, that's what the man is TRYING to do - i hate when people say bush is a shady dealer... he's not shady, he's downright transparent, no translucid - this freak's motives are right out in the open - let's all take a flying guess as to which religions get all the money in this scenario... i wouldn't buy anything he offers for a nickel
nah, more of an educated guess from experiences of observation - i've volunteered in missions and have gone with people to their rehab outreach programs - in any event, i didn't act as if it was a concrete statistic... note the phrase "i believe" and the word "if"... i obviously don't know an actual percentage, but then again, none of us could