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Politics : The Left Wing Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: briskit who wrote (3562)	1/31/2001 9:24:18 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6089

Our government should not be in the business of supporting religion or religious institutions, no matter what those institutions are doing. If our government gives money for one thing, that frees up money for the religion to use in other, more evangelical areas. That is establishment of religion. If religious institutions want to do good works let them get the money the old fashioned way- beg it from people in their congregations. Our society is to diverse for this not to cause serious problems. I for one look forward to Shrub getting tarred with those problems.

To: briskit who wrote (3562)	1/31/2001 1:04:06 PM
From: jbe	Respond to of 6089

I am all in favor of encouraging charitable giving, and agree that faith-based charities do a lot of good. But so do non-faith-based charities. The only thing that really bothers me personally about Bush's initiative is the emphasis on the former. Note, for example, the name of his new agency: "Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives." By no means all secular charities are community organizations, and many have a national base (e.g., Save the Children). Bush said that one of his objectives was to give religious charities an "equal" chance at receiving federal funding. Just what particular "restrictions" do they now labor under that do not apply to secular charities, and what is the rationale for them? I am a little puzzled. In a Washington Post story yesterday, for example, I read that the independent diocesan programs (day care programs, shelters, etc.) run by Catholic Charities USA received 62 percent of their $2.3 billion budget in 1999 from counties, states and the federal government. Personally, I doubt many secular charities can boast of that level of support. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4869-2001Jan30> Seems to me the whole thrust of this Bush effort is to encourage specifically faith-based charity. Why not just encourage charity as such? And set up an agency with a nice neutral name, a la the "Office of Charitable Giving"?