Candidate Barack Obama drew little attention during last year’s presidential campaign when he ventured into the thorny territory of church and state.
While President George W. Bush had expanded government contracts to faith-based groups, Obama promised to end that arrangement if the groups proselytized to the needy they served, or hired only members of that faith.
Today, that campaign pledge — along with other complex questions of religion and government — are posing something of a dilemma for President Obama, as he tries to balance increasing pressure from the left to renounce Bush-era policies against a desire to find common ground on social issues.
Civil liberties advocates have pressed Obama to keep the promise he made in July 2008 when he told an audience in Zanesville, Ohio: “If you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of their religion.”
But here’s the important part:
Steven T. McFarland, vice president and chief legal officer at World Vision, which supports aid efforts in 100 countries, said needy people around the world will lose if the Obama Justice Department changes course. The Christian charity helps victims of earthquakes, famine and other natural disasters, provides food and support to refugees and abandoned children, and cares for people suffering from HIV-AIDS across three continents.
Richard Stearns, president of World Vision’s American operations, sits on a presidential advisory panel, and has emphasized the importance of hiring to World Vision’s identity with members of the administration’s faith-based office, the charity said. The Bellevue, Wash.-based group has been using religion as a factor in hiring for years.
Read more
That’s right, all these victims will suffer if we don’t get to discriminate. Victims of hurricanes will go un-helped if you force us to help everyone, or to hire the best people possible for any given job. In fact, the groups will “lose their identity” if they are forced to deal with non-Christians.
This, my friends is Bull. Charities exist to help people, not themselves. If your “charity” is so bent on publicizing its mythology to the victims you supposedly help, then you don’t deserve federal funds. If you care so deeply about those you help, hire the best possible people to work the issues, and help everyone who needs it.
There is no valid argument here. Nobody will lose their identity if charities cannot discriminate, in fact their identity will be enhanced. Nobody will lose aid if charities hire the best people, in fact the quality of the aid will increase. The only negaitve is that the charities will not allow to use government funds for bigotry or preaching. If that’s all they care about, then they aren’t really a charity at all, rather just a marketing tool.
“Bull” with a capital ‘B’, I like it. The whole Faith Based Initiative (yeah, pray it all gets better) was never needed in the first place. Religious people who wish to use government funding for charitable work have always been free to join or setup separate charitable organizations, apply for grants, do the work, and obey the rules to make sure such work stays secular. If they believe its the Lord’s work, great, good for them, and I am sure the lord if there were one would be delighted. But to use someone else’s cash to advertise your subjective beliefs is unconscionable.
Speaking of keeping promises…the height of “elitism”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/17/AR2009091703679_pf.html
What’s “Bull”…is the fact that Barry planned on keeping ANY promises…
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
Only a gullible fool would have believed him…
Oh I think he planned on keeping (and is keeping) lots of promises…just not the ones he made to the “general” public on the campaign trail. He’s been very good at making good on his deals made in those “smoke-filled, back-rooms” last fall to sleaze-balls like SEIU, UAW, and especially ACORN — but, unfortunately for him, their chickens [are] com[ing] home to roost.
What does this have to do with the blog entry or the last person’s comment? I agree it was a silly thing to do just to promote organic foods, but you’d sound less foolish if you’d stay on point.
So True JCC…
And speaking of breaking promises to those who elected Barry…Alex…this one’s for you…
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE58H57T20090918
thehumanist says:
th…the article was sympathetic to Barry’s troubles in keeping a promise…
Odd how those who were screaming about the Constitution being ripped to shreds are so silent now…
Hope and change. It makes me feel so good.
Dave,
Thank you. This is a mirror of the post I made on the “Give a Clue” thread. The facade mission of these charitable groups is to help the victims of war and natural disaster. The real mission is form inroads into the culture to to seed their particular brand of christianity.
“Here’s your food, and here’s your medicine, and as a complimentary gift, here’s a bible and some pamphlets written in your native language. Don’t hesitate to ask us if you have any questions.”
It is no different from the madrassas in Pakistan. If you want your child to be literate, you must also subject him (not her) to the brainwashing of fundamentalist Muslim Imams. Accept the carrot, lose your free will.
NeoWolfe
World Vision, by the way, is a CIA front.
What is wrong with WV being a CIA front.
In that case, you were right
OT
Rabbis caution Jews to stop being so greedy!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090917/ap_on_re_us/us_nj_corruption_rabbis
Might as well ask a bird not to fly.
Godless
All of my posts are being censored (aka moderated) following a post no more off topic than yours. How did you sneak that one through the anti-israel filter?
Oh and BTW, some of my moderated posts have not been posted. Hence the censorship.
Because Alex isn’t posting off topic on every single thread about his obsession like you were. You were doing it @ length @ all the time, constantly.
Really, if you can’t figure that out, maybe you should see a therapist.
Reasons, JCC’s, Phreeky’s and your posts go off-topic very often. Often but not always I put an OT ALERT at the top of my posts when I think I’m going off-topic.
But that’s all beside the point because it’s not the off that concerns you. Its the topic.
I don’t want a bigot as a spokesperson for AA. What can I say? I’m funny that way.
Sure they do. That’s obviously not the issue w/you though.
You were obsessively going on and on and on AND ON AND ON about Madoff, & since you got a small nod about that, you are now approaching troll territory w/this other obsession of yours.
Listen asshole, I’m letting your posts in on that other thread because I was addressing that very topic w/someone else, & I didn’t think it was fair to you to keep you outta the conversation, given the parameters.
You’re welcome, I might add.
Then write angry letters to the editor. Like a good old crotchedy man should. But behave & quit derailing threads w/your nagging.
It’s an anti-what filter.
Godless
I think the “Might as well asks birds to fly” comment is out-of-line. Once again, I’m funny that way.
Actually, the Christians on this blog are much better behaved, and usually don’t hijack threads (when they do, they get warnings). This article was timely and relevant, so I blogged it.
BUT trolls are not tolerated here, and those who are trolls will be moderated, even when they stay on-topic. I certainly hope to end this practice, but this is a two-way street.
Now, by making a Jew-centered (note, not Israel-centered) thread I KNOW I will get flack for caving in to trolls, but nothing could be farther from the truth. It is Rosh hashanah, and the topic is good and relevant. I have no interest in making trolls happy, but neither will I shy away or protect the Jews to spite them.
So what’s up with a rogue member with edit privileges getting a free pass when he maliciously deletes posts that make him look like fool?
Is there a double standard or is this just atheist cronyism?
Sorry Dave I don’t buy your feigned concern for going off-topic on threads Dave. It’s he topic that concerns you and not the off.
You just keep telling yourself that.
The fact that the religious berserkers are allowed to post on an atheist blog, while you’re being moderated, should indicate a substantially major flaw in your approach.
& I note that you’re not too popular w/the posters @ Pharyngula, so maybe you need to re-evaluate.
Because you’re just alienating EVERYBODY.
…Doug has been caught altering and deleting what I write?—I don’t need to. I just have to review the threads where you were caught doing it (and that I’ve saved off).
Your denials are deepening your already serious psychological break with reality.
This coming from someone whose imaginary friend beams non-verbal invisible info directly into his brain about imaginary victories.
Those brutal hammering headaches of yours are either doing some serious damage, or instilling the Dunning-Kruger effect (but that latter might be years of being steeped in Repiglickin’ propaganda, I ain’t sure).
KA
I have never met a group of more ignorant and obscene atheists than those that frequent Pharyngula. If it is the face of the “new atheism” we are in huge trouble. The mere mention of the fact that electrons are not “real” but rather a model to describe and predict measurements sent 90% of PZ’s acolytes into a Torette’s-Syndrome-laced tizzy. That is some unbelievable ignorance!
Ellen Johnson, where are you!?
I guess you’ll have to link me, because I have no idea where that is.
My point being, is that you’re moderated @ this blog, & ragingly unpopular @ that blog, well, maybe your approach needs some polish.
However, on the surface, it does sound like some sort of Buddhist woo.
So what you are saying is that I should modify my “approach” so that I can be popular with high school dropout posers? I have no intention of returning to Pharnygula. The education level of the acolytes appears to be that of high school children while their emotional maturity appears to be that of grade schoolers. But if you enjoy that sort of thing …
No, what I’m suggesting, is that maybe you need to reconsider your approach.
Still waiting for that link, BTW, where you announced that electrons aren’t real.
Well that’s a mature, well thought-out conclusion… Hmmm, and since you’ve opened that can of worms, then I believe it would be appropriate for me to reasonably conclude that your obvious cognitive impairments are a direct result of all the damage you inflicted on your brain by crankin’ all that meth for God knows how long…
You know what they say about pay-backs and livin’ in glass houses…
…yeah, and look where you ended up after all those years of being steeped in meth…
I don’t have any obvious cognitive impairments – I’m not religious.
ahem, …Dunning-Kruger effect, anyone?
—As a matter of practice, I just delete my own (and anyone else’s) posts that show that I am…
Still getting it wrong, I see.
My guess obama will break his word.He is a politican afterall.The wars in afghanistan/iraq will consume his admin just like it did bush.And the bailouts and stimulus just postponed the day of reckoning in the economy.
Reason,
Don’t misunderstand, because I think you are an amoeba, but that post was actually relevent. What you say is true. You can bail out the banks, and you extend unemployment benefits, but, if you don’t address the real problem, all you are doing is delaying the inevitable. The jobs of the middle class have been sent overseas, and now there is no one to buy the cars, or the jet skis or the snowmobiles. And the assholes at the top think that American innovation will prevail, pathetic. It might, for a second, until it is exported to Singapore to be manufactured. The government can go as deep in debt as the Chinese allow, but, the jobs of the middle class are the hinge pin of this economy. And as soon as the Chinese credit line is cut off, thats when America is OFFICIALLY over. It’s not if, it’s when.
NeoWolfe
Oh come on! Is your understanding of economics real so bad that you truly think that a government-based stimulus in such a deep recession has the sole consequence of postponing a day of reckoning?
Actually, Whutthole, my understanding of econonics is deep enough to understand that even the enormous spending the government has been engaged in is just a drop in the bucket compared to the losses in the GNP. And one can live for a while on his credit card, but, until he has a job, he’s headed for inevitable bankrupcy.
And the implications of the averaging of the global standard of living due to free trade are inescapable. Our grandparents and our parents built a standard of living based on our ingenuity, but, freetrade has taken our jobs, our tools and dyes overseas so that third world workers can do it with no worker’s comp, no OSHA, no labor unions, no EPA standards, no unemployment insurance, no social security, no medicare, and no unfair labor laws. Who win’s. Global corporations to the tune of billions. Who loses? Americans, and we are just now starting to feel the pain. When the stimulus bandage runs out, thats when all hell breaks loose, and the Chinese will be looking to collect the debt, not extend the credit line.
Maybe you should read a book, Whutthole. Maybe watch a documentary or two. Then maybe someday we could have an intelligent conversation. Until then, maybe “shut the fuck up” might be a good policy to adopt.
NeoWolfe
That was a lot of name calling but no defense of the claim that the federal stimulus was simply kicking the can down the road. Please make sense … just once.
Obama is a politician. He goes with the flow of popular opinion. He found a lot of flak was coming his way as a result of his mention of non-believers that he has abandoned us. Every thing he is doing indicates this. From expanded faith initiatives to his numerous religious events.
He believes in whatever it takes to get elected.
As do ALL politicians no matter the party. It’s one of the many downsides to democracy which has only a single upside, the fact that all the alternatives are worse.
The best way to live is not to expect any government to solve your personal problems. The less is expected of government, the less power it has leaving the individual with the most personal freedom he can expect in a civil society.
I feel that it’s a pretty clear cut issue with faith-based organizations and discrimination. I mean, it really just comes down to the first amendment. The government can’t make laws or give money to promote religious causes. If the money is spent solely on charity, then fine, but if its used for proselytizing or these organizations discriminate based on religion, then they shouldn’t get this money. These faith based organizations already have a social structure in place to efficiently give aid so there is a good reason to use them, but they need to be watched.
Praise for president Obama he took a good step on improving relations with Russia regarding AMD now if he will follow up with prime minister Putin’s suggestion on technology transfers and WTO a solid foundation will be laid.
I think the larger issue is not whether Obama should modify these requirements for these charities, but rather whether charities should receive government funding at all. Unemployment, welfare, etc. Are all forms of charity. Providing charity is not a government role. If people want to waste their money by donating to private charities, then that’s their business. However, supporting the weaker, less successful people in our society only weakens our society as a whole, therefore, the government is only contributing to the destruction of our culture by supporting any form of safety net for those who are not adaptable and talented enough to support themselves. Charity is counterproductive to the progression of the human race.