Bush signs executive orders for faith-based programs
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Larry Mundinger look.be...@signature.org
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BUSH SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDERS FOR FAITH-BASED PROGRAMS Americans must now fund religion-based social programs, thanks to two Executive Orders signed today by President George W. Bush. A federal office will funnel $10 billion a year into the coffers of churches and other religious groups. Should Americans -- including millions of Atheists -- be taxed to support prayer, preaching and proselytizing? (1-29-01) Visit us on the world wide web at http://www.atheists.org/flash.line for news, analysis and commentary.
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Larry Mundinger (aa#451) American Atheists Internet Representative <irep @ atheists.org> <http://www.atheists.org/> <http://www.atheistviewpoint.tv/> <http://www.americanatheist.org/> PGP KEY ID 892D8932
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sliderulex slideru...@my-deja.com
And, were Americans who are opposed to abortion, being taxed to support abortion clinics?
Eric.
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animeg3 ...@aol.compelsia (Animeg3282)
Eric said: But those same Americans are also against useless wars, crushing poverty and the ruining of the earth, so it balances out.
Hana no Kaitou This sig sucks. Bear with me.
http://members.fortunecity.com/animeg3282 <---Fancy Lala Club!
http://members.fortunecity.com/animeg3282/dic.html<--1 kid and a dictionary-
translating....
kirstinn kirst...@my-deja.com
can he do that?
doesn't it take (literally) an act of congress to create a new federal office?
is the president really allowed to appropriate 10 billion a year like this? does the money come from his own cabinet, or can he take it from other government agencies?
since this didn't even come from congress, can it be blocked by the supreme court?
and, of course, all my earlier questions are still unanswered: who will oversee this? (my guess is one of the fundies who worked his campaign - falwell, reed, or robertson - they didn't spend tens of millions of dollars to get him elected for nothing!) will there be established criteria as to what is and is not a "faith-
based" organization?
will the 10 billion include money to fight all the lawsuits when wiccans and other groups are told they can't qualify for gov't funds for their charities because they're not real religions? or does that money come from somewhere else?
what programs are going to be de-funded to pay for this? or is he going to increase taxes by executive order, too?
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Kirstin Nicklaus (kirst...@my-deja.com) EAC, BWWLDAB chapter "With 80's nostalgia stretching to putting Bush's son in the White House, who needs satire?" Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Fred Stone fston...@earthlink.net
Let's not panic. Here's the text of W's speech when he signed the orders...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/bushtext012... I think it's really fairly reasonable at first glance. He's not talking about direct funding of churches or religious activities at all.
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Fred Stone aa # 1369
johac jha...@remove.electriciti.com
All well and good, but how is he going to prevent the service providers from proselytizing and bible waving once they get their hooks into the unfortunate. Secondly, as religious organizations the can discriminate in hiring those who would work in their organization. "No Catholics, Jews, Wiccans, dogs, nor atheists need apply." That is fine for a private organization, but not one funded with my tax money.
Lastly, If I were a believer, I would be worried sick about my religious group taking government money. What the government funds, it always regulates. I'm sure the last thing that the leaders of these groups would want is some bureaucrat telling them how to preach the bible.
Separation of church and state has worked just fine for 200 years. I think that we should keep it that way. Write to your senators and congresspersons and tell them to vote against funding.
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John Hachmann, aa #1782 It was the schoolboy who said: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910).
Fred Stone fston...@earthlink.net
This is where the backlash will start. By definition, when Uncle Sam hands out money, he has some pretty big strings attached. Like EEOC rules, etc.
I doubt me that congress would let W get away with byp***ing all of that baggage.
Yep. Like I said, Uncle doesn't hand out money for free. Let's see how it works out.
Ought to be an interesting fight. I personally agree with you, but I don't think it's the end of the world quite yet.
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Fred Stone aa # 1369 Life's a beach - then you dive.
"Hendrix Fan" calvin...@hotmail.com
What does funding for abortion have to do with religious belief? For one thing, it has to do with what the majority want... something that Bush isn't. But it has nothing to do with the law makers' sticking their religions into their decision making, and it is not money going to support a sectarian faith but a health service. Now, please go read your constitution.
Hendrix Fan a.a atheist #1692
"August Pamplona" necatoramericanusancylostomaduoden...@poboxes.com
[snip] Already, there's a hint that the faith based partnership funding might be, contrary to Marvin "I love the 19th century" Olasky's ideals, restricted only to religions the majority likes. From a link posted on a different thread on the same topic (http://www.abcnews.go.com/ sections/politics/DailyNews/Bush_faith010129.html) a Bush spokesman is quoted as saying that The Nation of Islam would be unlikely to qualify for federal money (I wonder why that would be the case?). Even they find some test by which the Nation of Islam gets disqualified, it will still raise the issue of whether the test has been tailored to disqualify unpopular religions.
Of course, I'm aware that the Nation of Islam, at least under current leadership by Farrakhan, is a group that promotes very strange conspiratorial thinking to promote it's racist views, but should that be a sufficient reason to disqualify the group (viewed in the context of allowing funding of religions and ***uming somewhat of a pretense to not utterly disregard the establishment clause)? Should Southern Baptist affiliated charities be disqualified because of their anti-gay stances? Should the Moonies be disqualified because they're, well, the Moonies? Who gets to decide and under what authority?
No, the party line is that this is going to save us all money because private charities (religious ones included) will always be more efficient than government programs and always be more effective. Whatever gets defunded is being theoretically replaced by these faith based partnerships so we're not losing anything.
Speaking of nostalgia, have you seen this Onion piece: http://www.theonion.com/onion3701/bush_nightmare.html August Pamplona
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"Today, at the dawn of the 21st century, the global village is finally complete. At last it has a global village idiot."
--some article at The Guardian (20, Jan., 2001 ) a.a. # 1811 To email replace 'necatoramericanusancylostomaduodenale' with 'cosmicaug'
ai ...@unity.ncsu.edu (Wayne Aiken)
Considering how hideously wasteful the welfare bureaucracy has become, this might actually be true from a pure efficiency stand, at least in the beginning.
But that aside, what will end up happening is that taxpayer money will end up being used for religious services and religious proselytizing. Its inevitable-- its the prime reason that religious groups are so heavily involved in charity at all. Its an integral part of their religious outreach; their concern for people is necessarily in a religious context.
To preach and convert is their reason for existence; all else is secondary.
The religious message and subtext simply can't be neatly separated from any other activity they might do.
Taxpayer money necessarily comes with certain restrictions that don't apply to any other private, voluntary funding. Religious groups entrusted to run completely neutral, secular programs with public money, have already demonstrated that they just can't do it. The temptation is too great-- and with even the most basic oversight procedures having been dismantled with the recent welfare reform acts, guaranteed.
At one time in our colonial history, people were directly taxed to support the state church and its activities. Sadly, we now seem to be devolving back to the situation that Thomas Jefferson once described as "sinful and tyrannical".
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Wayne Aiken (#304) / NC Director \ Getting AANEWS? Send msg to: PO Box 30904 / American Atheists \ <AANEWS...@atheists.org> to Raleigh, NC 27622 / wai...@atheists.org \ start your Free subscription (919) 954-5956 / http://www.atheists.org \ ICQ: 9763940 - AIM: slackx42
Christopher A. Lee chris...@sevenmil.com
I suspect there's more than that. It's well known that eg the Salvation Army make the recipients of their programs join in prayer etc as the price for being fed. And the recipients put up with it because it's the price they have to pay for a meal.
The City of San Fransisco had contracted with them to administer one of its programs - and when they p***ed their domestic partner ordinances (specifically including partners in medical schemes as though they were family) the Salvation Army threatened to pull out even though I doubt any member would have a domestic partner.
Churches etc have a far less stringent tax reporting burden than other non-profits. This will have to be changed: when they use taxpayer money this will all have to be accounted for, and they will become subject to all sorts of other laws like the domestic partner one, because of their involvement with the government I don't know if they forced the recipients to pray on this one;
buck ...@exis.net
Faith-Based Charities unconstitutional, says the father of the Constitution and Bill of Rights ============================================================ SOMEONE SHOULD SEND THIS TO BUSH AND THOSE WHO ARE PULLING HIS STRINGS, OR BETTER YET THE OPPOSITION, OR IS THERE NONE ANYMORE?
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FEBRUARY 21, 1811 VETO MESSAGES.
FEBRUARY 21, 1811.
To the House of Representatives of the United States: Having examined and considered the bill entitled "An act incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Alexandria, in the District of Columbia," I now return the bill to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with the following objections: Because the bill exceeds the rightful authority to which governments are limited by the essential distinction between civil and religious functions, and violates in particular the article of the Constitution of the United States which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment.'' The bill enacts into and establishes by law sundry rules and proceedings relative purely to the organization and polity of the church incorporated, and comprehending even the election and removal of the minister of the same, so that no change could be made therein by the particular society or by the general church of which it is a member, and whose authority it recognizes. this particular church, therefore, would so far be a religious establishment by law, a legal force and sanction being given to certain articles in its constitution and administration. Nor can it be considered that the articles thus established are to be taken as the descriptive criteria only of the corporate identity of the society, inasmuch as this identity must depend on other characteristics, as the regulations established are generally unessential and alterable according to the principles and canons by which churches of that denomination govern themselves, and as the injunctions and prohibitions contained in the regulations would be enforced by the penal consequences applicable to a violation of them according to the local law.
Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.
JAMES MADISON.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: A COMPILATION OF THE MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS, VOL. II, BUREAU OF NATIONAL LITERATURE, N Y, PP 474-475)
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NOTE, his reason for vetoing it was because it crossed the line of separation between church and state and thus would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty.
FOR FULL ARTICLE SEE: Some of The First Official Meanings ***igned to The Establishment Clause http://members.tripod.com/~candst/madvetos.htm ********************************************** THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE: SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html "Dedicated to combatting 'history by sound bite'." Now including a re-publication of Tom Peters SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE and Audio links to Supreme Court oral arguments and Speech by civil rights/constitutional lawyer and others.
Page is a member of the following web rings: The First Amendment Ring--&--The Church-State Ring Freethought Ring--&--The History Ring American History WebRing--&--Legal Research Ring **********************************************
stillsu ...@my-deja.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/elections/bushtext012901 .h I've read his speech twice. The thing is, though it sounds kind of bland, there's really not much of substance in it.
I don't know that that will have much impact. Government has been funding things for years that lots of people didn't agree with.
Maybe later. Trouble is, right now, it sounds like a very good idea.
Local organizations *do* do a good job of reaching into their own communities, and working with *people* as opposed to numbers. And churches tend to breed people who are committed to going out and changing things, sometimes at great personal cost to themselves. It *sounds* efficient, and workable, and a way to encourage personal involvement in communities to turn communities around.
But it still scares me.
I ***ume that, if that's the case, they would have the option of not taking the money. Didn't his speech say groups would have to compete for it?
I don't think it's the end of the world, either. And like I said, it sounds quite practical and comp***ionate. But there's this: Madison wrote, in response to a proposal by Patrick Henry to tax Virginians to support the teachers of the Christian religion of all sects (which was, by the way, supported by George Washington): "Because the proposed establishment is a departure from the generous policy, which, offering asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion, promised a lustre to our country, and an accession to the number of its citizens. What a meloncholy mark is the Bill of sudden degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution. It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all thsoe whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be, in its present form, form the Inquisition it differs from it only in degree.
The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance." I think the thing that is so frightening about this proposal is that it is, in fact, a good, practical, and apparently well intentioned idea.
Which flies in the face of everything this country stands for.
Sunny Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
crazybe ...@my-deja.com
Is American Atheists prepared to take this to court? How about the ACLU?
I certainly hope one or both are preparing to do so.
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Roger Andrews aa#1477 Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
negrae ...@my-deja.com
The issue here is not whether tax money is being used to support things that some people disagree with. That will always happen. The issue is whether or not the government of the day is trying to disguise direct support of a religious organization as something else. The answer appears to be yes. And surprisingly few people are outraged. This may well the beginning of the end of your constitution - at least as it has existed for the last 200 or so years. This is REALLY serious stuff.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
magi ...@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin)
Religion and religious discourse are per force treated differently from other beliefs and opinions, owing to the First Amendment. Whereas other opinions can be made into governmental policy (such as support of, or opposition to, right to choice/right to life), religious doctrine cannot.
The First Amendment makes a difference between religion and almost every other subject. But this is something which is necessary to ensure true religious liberty.
"[T]he effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers' expense. That is a difference which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of religious freedom[...] This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the states' hands out of religion, but to keep religion's hands off the state, and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse." -- Justice Robert H. Jackson, in dissent in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947) at 26, 27.
"[The Establishment Clause and Religious Freedom Clause] of our Federal Constitution ha[ve] never been wholly pleasing to most religious groups. They are all quick to invoke its protections; they are all irked when they feel its restraints. This Court has gone a long way, if not an unreasonable way, to hold that public business of paramount importance as maintenance of public order, protection of the privacy of a home, and taxation may not be pursued by a state in a way that even indirectly will interfere with religious proselyting.[...] But we cannot have it both ways. Religious teaching cannot be a private affair when the state seeks to impose regulations which infringe on it indirectly, and a public affair when it comes to taxing citizens of one faith to aid another, or those of no faith to aid all. If these principles seem harsh in prohibiting aid to Catholic education, it must not be forgotten that it is the same Constitution that alone ***ures Catholics the right to maintain these schools at all when predominant local sentiment would forbid them. [...] Nor should I think that those who have done so well without this aid would want to see this separation between Church and State broken down. If the state may aid these religious schools, it may therefore regulate them. Many groups have sought aid from tax funds, only to find that it carried political controls with it. Indeed, this Court has declared that 'It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes.' Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 131." -- Justice Robert H. Jackson, in dissent in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947) at 27, 28.
====================================================================== "It's not denial. I'm just very selective about what I accept as reality." --- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes") ====================================================================== Arturo Magidin magi...@math.berkeley.edu
"Mike" Com80...@msn.com
Bush seems to be making a line between "relgion" and/or "religious activities" and "faith based services" when he said, according to CNN "Government, of course, cannot fund and will not fund religious activities," Bush said Tuesday. "But when people provide faith-based services, we will not discriminate against them." Ok... So, what exactly is the difference between "religious activities" and "faith based services"? Would "faith based services" not be a "religious activity"?
I see what he is going for here, I think, and maybe it will work.....
Essentialy I think he is saying fund the "feeding, clothing, etc" just not the praying, worshipping, bible, etc..... But should that be the case, would that service be faith based any more? I was under the impression faith based services meant services to people with relgion incorporated....
I think the whole justfication for doing this in the first place is that "faith based services have been proven to be more helpful to people over non-faith based services"..... Which is why, I believe, (publicly) Bush wants to fund them in addition to non-faith based. Now, the only thing that seperates "faith based" vs "non faith based" is the religious aspect. So essentialy they are saying they are more effective BECAUSE of religion being incorporated in to them. Just not directly because Bush probably knows any such admitance of funding the "faith based" aspect will harm his plan.
If you are going to fund faith based services, but not allow them to have the "faith" part, then they aren't faith based anymore. So how the hell are you funding something that is faith based, yet isn't (supposed to be) faith based? Ugh, the paradox comes in to play.... Simple answer, convert to relgious services to non-religious services, then fund them. Oh look, now we don't need faith based funding any more and this issue is over.
One final question, if Bush succeeds in making the distinction between the "clothing, feeding, etc" vs the "bible" part of faith based services, will that be enough to justifiy it? i.e. we are just supporting the food and clothing, not the bible. (damned hard to do if you ask me, and I don't see how you escape the fact that in order to get that help you have to have religion put on you or that the church won't use that money for bibles, crosses, etc)
Al Klein ruk...@pern.org
Most anti-choicers were the pro-war protesters of the 60s, and they're against welfare and ecology.
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Al - Unnumbered Atheist #infinity aklein at villagenet dot com
Al Klein ruk...@pern.org
"faith-based charities should be able to compete for funding on an equal basis and in a manner that does not cause them to sacrifice their mission". And the "mission" of faith-based charities is? Isn't it usually religion?
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Al - Unnumbered Atheist #infinity aklein at villagenet dot com
Al Klein ruk...@pern.org
I think we're going to see a lot more voting along party lines than in the past.
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Al - Unnumbered Atheist #infinity aklein at villagenet dot com
johac jha...@remove.electriciti.com
What happened to the great 'Uniter' and the 'spirit of bipartisanship'?
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John Hachmann, aa #1782 It was the schoolboy who said: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910).
Johnny Bravo bravo.j...@usa.net
The beginning of the end started quite a while back; when the federal government started taking money from citizens at gunpoint and promising to return it to them for votes.
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? Best Wishes, ? ? Johnny Bravo BAAWA Knight, EAC - Temporal Adjustments Division "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - HP Lovecraft
johac jha...@remove.electriciti.com
John Hachmann, aa #1782 It was the schoolboy who said: "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."
- Mark Twain (1835-1910).
"John P. Boatwright" sa...@teleport.com
Bush seems like a pretty good president.
God made it all, Jesus died for our sins.
Proof God described the planet density profile BEFORE science did: http://www.teleport.com/~salad/4god/density.htm (see the 2 graphs, obviously God was right in Genesis)
magi ...@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin)
If not, then the only other interpretation I can give to the statement is that the services are given or denied based on faith, which would be a violation of the Civil Rights Act with regards to spending federal money.
The main problem here is that faith-based charities enjoy protections and shields above and beyond normal not-for-profit charities. One of them, also based on the Establishment Clause, is that the government may not tell them how to spend their money, who they can offer their help to, etc. They've always wanted federal money without federal scrutiny (as said pointedly by Justice Robert Jackson in the quote I offered before), and that simply cannot stand. Bush is trying to do an end-run on Establishment Clause here, by allowing public moneys to go to these institutions without including public scrutiny.
There are problems ***ociated with all of this. Bush specifically mentions drug treatment, but a faith-based service offering drug-addiction treatment is almost certain to include proselitization and "a return to God" as part as of their treatment. Also, a service being offered by Church X will almost certainly give priority to members of Church X over the general public (when it is offered to the general public at all).
And what is to prevent federal funding for a "faith-based" service which is purely secular in nature and application from freeing funds for sectarian purposes? If the local church can now use federal money for their homeless shelter, then they can take the money they would have spent there otherwise and spend it on missionary work. Is this going to be forbidden?
Simpler answer would be to remove the shielding that is offered to faith-based services and require them to submit to the same level of scrutiny and regulations that regular not-for-profit organizations have to endure. I would wager that under such a plan, many of these faith-based charities would refuse to accept the money.
Depends VERY MUCH on the makeup of the Supreme Court when it gets there (which it surely will), and on the exact details. In the current court, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas argue that if the money is offered on a neutral basis (i.e., both to secular and sectarian institutions on an equal basis), then it is constitutional. Bush's plan, as explained so far, would not p*** even this test, since it is moeny being offered exclusively to sectarian institutions, but let us set that aside and ***ume he merely opens up the applications for money to include sectarian institutions.
Stevens, Ginsburg, and especially Souter (who has been very outspoken) reject the approach and are in favor of a very strict separation. They would almost certainly vote against any plan that disburses public money to sectarian institutions which engage in sectarian activities (and especially if the money can be diverted elsewhere).
Breyer and O'Connor reject Rehnquist's, Scalia's, and Thomas' neutrality test, but believe that it is possible to have disbursment of federal money to sectarian institutions provided the money is used for purely secular purposes. They usually consider it on a case-by-case basis. They have both been known to vote both to upheld and to strike down. Breyer is closer to Souter, Stevens and Ginsburg, so I would expect him to vote to strike down Bush's plan.
Should it come before the current court, it would almost certainly be up to O'Connor whether or not it is allowed.
I doubt the current Court will get to see it, though, given how long it usually takes for a case to get to them; but with Dubyah naming justices, chances are it could only get easier for him to get it through. (Then again, you never know; the most outspoken defender of strict separation on the Court today, Souter, was named by Bush Sr.) ====================================================================== "It's not denial. I'm just very selective about what I accept as reality." --- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes") ====================================================================== Arturo Magidin magi...@math.berkeley.edu
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