Comments on: Religious Earmarks Take Away Nearly $30,000,000 of Federal Money

By: julie marie

julie marie — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:29:50 +0000

kudos to Tom Antonsen. Turning the light on in a roomful of secrets is the first step–we can’t address what we don’t know about.

By: Aj

Aj — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:42:14 +0000

bullet,

While the group is also called (or used to be, it’s hard to tell) the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy, “an organization whose mission is to promote and preserve Jewish culture on the Lower East Side,” the preservation of history is a worthy cause and I don’t think it belongs on that list. The history of NYC includes an awful lot of Jewish immigrants and ghettos. It would be hard to argue that their mission is the promotion of religion rather than promotion of ethnic history.

I support the funding of projects if people want to be educated about the Jewish culture, but not to “promote” or “preserve” it. I think such language indicates that something isn’t right about the project.

By: bullet

bullet — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:18:09 +0000

“$200,000 to the Lower East Side Conservancy, a group that works to restore and preserve living synagogues (Maloney, D-NY). ”

While the group is also called (or used to be, it’s hard to tell) the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy, “an organization whose mission is to promote and preserve Jewish culture on the Lower East Side,” the preservation of history is a worthy cause and I don’t think it belongs on that list. The history of NYC includes an awful lot of Jewish immigrants and ghettos. It would be hard to argue that their mission is the promotion of religion rather than promotion of ethnic history.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 20:10:18 +0000

I’m not sure churches’ tax exempt status has anything to do with the separation of church and state. I thought it was based on the church being one of many types of non-profits that aren’t taxed. No definitive reasons turn up in my searches, though.

By: Kate

Kate — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:59:03 +0000

numbers don’t lie.

No, but you can sure as hell twist them. Or forget to covary certain things (like funding, etc.) and them people draw faulty conclusions.

By: TXatheist

TXatheist — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:44:09 +0000

Take the Salvation Army, for instance. They accept money from the goverment for many of the endeavors.

They shouldn’t be allowed to get funding since they violate the equal hiring requirements. The SA can deny someone employment because they are atheist or gay if they choose to. I thought that was a major reason United Way stopped portioning money to SA.

By: Karen

Karen — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:21:25 +0000

C.E., the study you linked to is not about at-risk youth. It’s about whether people who already identify themselves as Chrstians do better in inpatient mental health treatment if a Christian treatment protocol is used, as opposed to a non-religious protocol. The study isn’t even definitive. It only concludes that Christians MIGHT do better if their religious beliefs are taken into account during therapy.

That seems like a no-brainer to me, and not supportive of the assertion that you initially made.

I haven’t studied at-risk youth, but I did do a fair amount of research on religious programs for inmates. And from what I saw, there was NO correlation between recidivism rates and participation in religious treatment programs in jail. Large majorities in both groups consistently committed additional crimes after being released.

By: Aj

Aj — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:51:41 +0000

Would religious people stop working on these projects if the organisations who got the money had to be secular in nature? Religious people with religious motivations can do secular good in secular organisations. It would say a lot about the religious people if they did not, and what the money is actually being used for.

Government money being used for promotion of religious nonsense is like government money being used for an expedition to Ireland to find leprechauns.

By: C.E. Moore

C.E. Moore — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:29:09 +0000

No, I haven’t changed m mind. Because, religious groups can do things for underlying religious reasons without having to proselytize. Why yank the money if the SA is feeding and housing the homeless, but not preaching with words? Should they be penalized and people remain homeless and hungry because of the SA’s motivations? They aren’t allowed to preach to those who stay in their homes (unless asked directly) and they can’t force people to attend meetings they hold. I think the government understands that a vaccum will be created if funding is pulled from worthwhile religious organizations. Not all are worthwhile, I’ll give you that. Hence, pork barrel.

Furthermore, just because someone reports their own numbers does not mean it is biased. Many here are biased against any religiously mediated change. What’s the difference? I hesitate to say this, but numbers don’t lie.

By: Epistaxis

Epistaxis — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:07:51 +0000

CE Moore:

So, they accept NO money from the government for those particular endeavor, choosing instead to funnel all the money from the SA Thrift Stores directly into those ministries.

So you’ve changed your mind and now you agree all the religious groups listed in the SCA report should have their federal funding yanked? Or are you saying that respecting the Constitution is the job of private charities, not Congress?