NationStates Jolt Archive

It seems that religious organizations that recieve funding under Bush's "Faith Based Initiative" to provide services to the poor, drug addicts, and other needy people are free to discriminate. They can refuse to hire gays, non-christians, or anyone they don't like. They can also deny benefits PAID FOR BY PUBLIC FUNDS to anyone who refuses to participate in prayers and bible study.


Am I the only person offended by this blatant violation of the separation of church and state?

Check out the second paragraph marked with a dot.
www.onlinejournal.com/Theocracy_Alert/061105Turner/061105turner.html

Anyone who didn't know this shit was going down when they were named "faith based intiatives" is a naive twit

Ihatevacations']Anyone who didn't know this shit was going down when they were named "faith based intiatives" is a naive twit
It's funny how you seldom hear it mentioned in the news though. I've only heard people talk about it on NPR a couple of times. Never on CNN, or the major network news programs.

Most emphatically, drunk commies, most emphatically you are NOT. Alone, that is.

Not in the least. This is precisely what people started rining alarm bells over some months ago, though their feelings were rather brutally disregarded at the time by the vociferously smug Bush apologists and assorted anti-everything cheerleaders in America.

Haven't decided what to think about this but this is the white house opinion on it
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/

Meh.

The government should take away their funds if the program is discriminating. Everyone in need deserves help.

But then again, the churches could view it as them needing spiritual help as well as financial.

Meh.

Haven't decided what to think about this but this is the white house opinion on it
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/
I'm about sick of this guy treating the Constitution like a Guantanamo bay koran.

This is ridiculous. If they were doing this on their own, so be it. They would be funded by people who share their various discriminatory attitudes. However, when public money goes in to these organizations, then it becomes a problem. Not only that, but you can't choose where the money is going. What happens when hate groups begin to start "charities" and hand out their vitriol paid for by US taxpayers?

(Shrug) Those initiatives will die a natural death when Bush leaves office-they'll either be pressured to conform to standard legal by the courts, or they'll lose their funding when the Democrats retake the white-house in '08. (if they don't, it's their own fault-The U.S. public generally doesn't like to have one party in power in the whitehouse longer than eight years, unless the opposition party is dreadfully incompetent.)

Every president has waterheaded ideas that he or she wants to fund with taxpayer money. Clinton funnelled federal funds to environmentalist whack-jobs, Bush funnels it to prayer groups. Since I veiw both as being more about dogma than evidence, it's no different.

I'm about sick of this guy treating the Constitution like a Guantanamo bay koran.
fair enough. It does seem dodgy giving tax dollars to a religion. I'm assuming that all religions are involved :rolleyes:

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/29/bush.faithbased.01/

CNN take on it aswel

Haven't decided what to think about this but this is the white house opinion on it
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/


Well let's make up a scenerio.

Say we have a kid that was a gay prostitute on the streets. Get's himself out of it and decides he wants to help others.

He hears one of these "faith based" organizations is doing this and goes to apply. Say the org are hardliners and decide he is a homosexual. They don't have to hire him because:

* Pushing for Charitable Tax Incentives and Protection of Religious Hiring. The President has called on Congress to pass his proposals for tax incentives for charitable giving. President Bush has also called for action from Congress to extend the charitable choice provisions that prevent discrimination against faith-based organizations, protect the religious freedom of beneficiaries, and preserve religious hiring rights.

I do hope when we get a new President, he tosses this crap out. Especially when you hear the likes of Pat Robertson getting in on this money.

I award bush with the double Middle finger award. Not funding Religion my Ass.


Stupid Fundimentalists. You can't have fundimental without 'mental.'

It's funny how you seldom hear it mentioned in the news though. I've only heard people talk about it on NPR a couple of times. Never on CNN, or the major network news programs.
Weird. I've heard about this a lot in Canada. The other thing I love is how in bookstores at certain 'natural wonder' sites like the Grand Canyon, creationist books are given precedence, while the scientific descriptions of their formation are naught to be found...

In God’s country

The Bush Administration’s latest attempt to blur the boundaries between church and state is its promotion of ‘faith-based’ national parks. Government-owned bookshops at national parks are now selling books promoting Creationist theories of the Grand Canyon which, according to one book, was formed only in the last few thousand years by Noah’s flood.

The books, listed in the ‘natural sciences’ section, have been approved by the Bush Administration for sale in the national parks bookshops despite protests by park officials and the scientific community. Other books written specifically to dispute the Creationist interpretation of the formation of the Grand Canyon have however been banned.

In a related controversy, the Bush Administration overturned a ruling by the superintendent of the National Canyon Park to remove three plaques sponsored by the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary which were on display at prominent locations in the Park inscribed with Biblical quotations overtly suggesting that the Canyon was the direct creation of God.

One of the controversial books, The Grand Canyon: A Different View, has proven so popular with regular visitors that it has sold out. More have been ordered from the Arkansas-based publisher New Leaf Press, which describes the dispute as ‘the next battlefield in the struggle for Christian rights’.

According to Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which has led the campaign against the books’ inclusion in government shops: ‘Selling the book at the Grand Canyon is no different than approving a book claiming Yellowstone’s geysers are the work of Satan.’ But Creationist groups such as Answers in Genesis are not fazed: ‘Paleontology is much like politics: passions run high, and it’s easy to draw very different conclusions from the same set of facts.’ Indeed.

Seriously itself is now launching its own publishing programme in the expectation of White House sponsorship. The first two in the series will show how the Pacific Ocean was formed from God’s tears and how volcanic eruptions are caused by outbreaks of sodomy in nearby cities.

Weird. I've heard about this a lot in Canada. The other thing I love is how in bookstores at certain 'natural wonder' sites like the Grand Canyon, creationist books are given precedence, while the scientific descriptions of their formation are naught to be found...
Maybe I should start a religion. Cash in on some of those faith-based funds, write a book about how the grand canyon was created by the reptillian saucer people and force the government to sell them for me.

I hope you're joking. If it's true though, seeing how Book burning was a thing that Religious people do, it's about time I have a book burning for these Creationist National Park books. I'll roast them on the campfire and take pictures to put in the National Park gift shop.

I hope you're joking. If it's true though, seeing how Book burning was a thing that Religious people do, it's about time I have a book burning for these Creationist National Park books. I'll roast them on the campfire and take pictures to put in the National Park gift shop.
She's not joking. I'd heard about these creationist propaganda books being sold in the national parks a few years ago.

She's not joking. I'd heard about these creationist propaganda books being sold in the national parks a few years ago.
Then I'll be doing alot of burning this summer.

Then I'll be doing alot of burning this summer.
Try not to set the woods on fire.

Maybe I should start a religion. Cash in on some of those faith-based funds, write a book about how the grand canyon was created by the reptillian saucer people and force the government to sell them for me.

I don't know, you'll probably need to check with Rev. Ivan Stang to make sure you don't violate any copyright laws...

I don't know, you'll probably need to check with Rev. Ivan Stang to make sure you don't violate any copyright laws...
I have no idea who he is. Is he an agent of the Reptillians or the Grays?

Do you have a non-biased source for this/

Some of the other information in that article was blatantly wrong, so I don't really trust it.

Do you have a non-biased source for this/

Some of the other information in that article was blatantly wrong, so I don't really trust it.
I'll look around a bit.

Alternate sources

www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0309&article=030941cThis one requires free registration. If you look it up on google and view their cached version of the page you can get around the registration.

www.watchingjustice.org/issues/subIssue.php?docId=107

www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/publications/religionbased_employment/