Faith-Based Charities Unconstitutional, says the father of the
Constitution
and Bill of Rights
http://candst.tripod.com/faith.htm



Background of Faith-based Initiatives
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/churchandstate2.html

Faith-based Initiatives

Some recent developments have added fuel to the debate about how separate
church and state should actually be. Central to these changes has been
legislation permitting federal dollars to be awarded to religious
institutions. Learn more about these recent developments below.

Welfare Reform Act and Ashcroft Amendment (1996)
The 1996 Welfare Reform Act, signed by President Clinton, enabled some
houses of worship to receive tax dollars for delivery of social services,
due to an amendment sponsored by then Senator, now Attorney General, John
Ashcroft. Prior to that year, government funds could go to religious
groups
for social services, but the institutions were required to have separate,
secular nonprofit entities to administer the programs. With the
"charitable
choice" provision of the 1996 act, religious charities were permitted to
compete for government welfare dollars.

Some groups fear that the ramifications of adding religious groups to the
federal welfare equation are far-reaching. The National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force complains that the 1996 Welfare Act also "allowed religious
institutions to discriminate in their hiring practices on the basis of
religious belief, gender, race and ethnicity, and other factors. Moreover,
the 1996 law eliminated safeguards that were intended to prevent
recipients
from being subjected to unwanted proselytizing, the display of large
religious icons in areas where services were provided and other forms of
captive-audience religious expression."

Faith-Based Initiatives
In January 2001, President Bush announced the establishment of the White
House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and Centers for
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in initially five, and later seven
Cabinet agencies: the Departments of Justice, Agriculture, Labor, Health
and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Education and the
Agency for International Development.

The Office was formed to lead a "'determined attack on need' by
strengthening and expanding the role of faith-based and community
organizations in addressing the nation's social problems. The President
envisions a faith-friendly public square where faith-based organizations
can compete equally with other groups to provide government or
privately-funded services."

Critics say that Bush's faith-based initiative doesn't have clear enough
protections against prosleytizing and discrimination in hiring. But it's
not just Republicans who've thought that taxpayers' money should be given
to religious organizations to run social welfare programs. In fact, during
his campaign for the presidency, then Vice President Al Gore proposed
doing
something very similar.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) strongly oppose
giving broad-based funding to churches and other religious groups.
Charging
that faith-based initiatives violate the separation of church and state in
various ways, AU refers to such initiatives as "Taxpayer Funded Religious
Discrimination."

Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Act
A version of this bill, seeking to offer tax incentives to encourage
charitable giving, sparked debate in the Senate in 2002 but was not passed
by the time Congress adjourned for the year. On April 9, 2003, the Senate
passed a modified version of the bill, which omitted the contested
language
that would have allowed faith-based groups to maintain their religious
character while receiving federal funds for their social service programs.

The final fate of this legislation has yet to be determined.

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You are invited to check out the following:

The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm

American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm

The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html

[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]

HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/

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. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why
"a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v.
Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote

"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"

That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.

It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.

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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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