Faith-based organizations face suits (proselytizing with fed $$$)

[Bozita]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601020231jan02,1,3891845.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Faith-based organizations face suits
Groups using federal funds are accused of proselytizing

By Frank James
Washington Bureau
Published January 2, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Faith-based groups are barred from proselytizing or engaging in other obvious religious activity when using federal funds to encourage teenagers to abstain from premarital sex or help substance abusers fight addictions.

But some groups may have run afoul of that federal prohibition. Lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation accuse the faith-based organizations and the government of violating the constitutional separation of church and state. Meanwhile, experts say the Bush administration is doing too little to monitor religious groups receiving federal money.

Critics cite the Silver Ring Thing program that preaches sexual abstinence to teens. It is known for pulsing, high-tech, multimedia shows at which teenagers can buy silver rings to symbolize their pledge to avoid sex until marriage.

In the past year, the Health and Human Services Department suspended a grant of more than $1 million to Silver Ring Thing after the ACLU of Massachusetts sued the department, accusing it of mixing religion with the sexual abstinence message. At the shows, Silver Ring Thing openly urged teenagers to commit their lives to Jesus Christ, and the rings it sold were inscribed with a New Testament verse.

more...

[Why Syzygy]

1. well freakin' DUH!!

This criminal escapade was doomed from the beginning. GWB is just trying to pay off the fundies as he does his elite base.

Another snafu in the legacy of the traitor of all things Constitutional, George W. Bush

[BOSSHOG]

2. bush admin doing too little to monitor religious groups

receiving federal funds. What a hoot. The bush administration is a cash cow for christian extremists and well connected lobbyists.

I recall reading an article last year about the silver ring idea. As a side note, many of those who "vowed" to remain virgins (fine young christians) were engaging in every sex known to mankind (unsafe sex) except vaginal intercourse, then looking mommy and daddy and the preacher in the eye and telling them they were virgins. A fine crop of young republicans on the way.

[ecoalex]

3. Shelters and other poor services were spiked with religion too.

They are getting away with using tax $$ for religion. How did they think they would spend the $$$ DUH?

They should have to pay the $$$ back, and lose tax exempt status for 5 years.

[Why Syzygy]

16. And don't forget

the hurricane relief. At least one of Pat Robertson's subsidiaries received funds for THAT?
What on god's green planet can P.R. do for those poor, sad, destroyed people? My guess-zero.

[msongs]

4. these christians have become the romans nt

[fasttense]

12. When do we build the temple to Athena with tax dollars? I can't wait.

[NNguyenMD]

5. from the Frontline program "The Jesus Factor" I do believe that not ONE

muslim, jewish, or any other non-christian group has succeeded in obtaining faith-based funds, despite many of them having applied for faith-based funding but denied on ground that weren't really specified. I may be wrong but I do recall hearing that pretty clearly.

Maybe someone can look into that.

[Hekate]

18. I happen to have this handy article in my files from one month back

Sorry, Doc, but from the time Bush gave tacit permission to fundamentalists to preach within government facilities and on the public dime, they have run with it.

Groups like Catholic Charities have applied for and taken federal money for their programs for decades, but they have long practice in keeping their religious mission separate from what tax money pays for. It can be done, and they have done it. And by the way, they hire real social workers, too -- my college roomie was one.

Read on for what can happen when religiously sincere but otherwise untrained groups get into the act.

Hekate

##############################
Faith-based rehab program calls Catholic man’s religion "witchcraft," seizes his rosary, prayer book
ACLU goes to court for him
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/METRO/512060440

ACLU sues over faith-based rehab: Catholic man forced into Pentecostal program

By Norman Sinclair / The Detroit News
December 6, 2005

DETROIT - In a lawsuit filed on his behalf by the civil rights group, a 23-year-old Catholic man from Genesee County is asking a federal judge to set aside a drug conviction, saying he was punished for not completing a Pentecostal rehabilitation program.

Joseph Hanas was 19 when he pleaded guilty to a marijuana possession charge in February 2001 in Genesee Circuit Court and was placed in a diversion program for young, non-violent offenders. Upon the recommendation of a probation officer, Judge Robert Ransom sentenced Hanas to the state-sponsored rehabilitation program - the Inner City Christian Outreach Residential Program, run by a Pentecostal church.

Hanas said the program did not offer drug treatment or counseling, nor did it have any organized program other than reading the Bible and attending Pentecostal services....He said his rosary and prayer book was taken from him and his religion was denounced as "witchcraft." Hanas said he was told his only chance of avoiding prison and a felony record was to convert to the Pentecostal faith.

After seven weeks, his mother and lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union in Flint succeeded in getting Hanas back to court....The lawsuit...claims Ransom acknowledged the failings of the center but ruled that Hanas did not satisfactorily complete the program and sentenced him to three months in jail, three months in a boot camp, and placed him on a tether for three months. Ransom also placed Hanas on four years probation, which he continues to serve.

"This man was punished for insisting on the right to practice Catholicism and refusing conversion to the Pentecostal faith," said Kary Moss, director of the Michigan ACLU."
<snip>
#########################

[NMMNG]

29. Catholic Charities doesn't keep their religion completely seperate from

their work. They will not allow their single developmentally disabled clients be sexually active or use birth control, nor will they allow their health insurance to cover birth control for employees regardless of what it is prescribed for.

[Hekate]

22. Apologies, Doc, I read your post too hurriedly!

You made my point for me and I read it as opposite. :blush:
I try not to do that -- and I'll try not to do it some more.

Yes, you heard the Frontline program correctly. Bush policies are heavily biased toward fundamentalist/evangelical Christians.

Hekate

[TroglodyteScholar]

6. It's hard to believe they couldn't do things the legal way...

...but I guess the deck is really stacked against them in the first place. :eyes:

[PurityOfEssence]

7. Hey, when religion's everything, everything's religion

Some people are so addicted they can't breathe without invoking the supernatural.

What's amazing about all this is that it took so long for the obvious to be obvious. Junior himself said he couldn't have stopped drinking (yeah, right) without the acceptance of Jesus, so how can he expect a religious anti-addiction program to take out the active ingredient in their tonic?

[MetaTrope]

8. And I'll bet Franklin Graham's still got cash pouring into his mouth

from the federal spigot, even after trying to convert Catholic earthquake victims to evangelism in Central America.

[HuffleClaw]

9. well, double duh.

it was a payoff. a blatant payoff to their base. to BUY votes.

[me b zola]

19. Faith based initiative $$$ = illegal campaign contributions

If anyone ever investigates, they would crack this puppy wide-open.

[Zhade]

10. K/R

NT!

[killbotfactory]

11. Who would have thought this would happen?

Golly!

[SoCalDem]

13. When the "All Jesus, all the time Chapel"

has used $10K of their own funds for charity work, and they get to preach to the people they help, it's no biggie, but when they ask for and receive $10K of federal money, and they don;t start spending $20K for charity, and quit preaching to at least 1/2 of the people they help, they are breaking the law..

It's like a person who spends $100 a day on drugs..if it's THEIR money that's one thing, but if you give them $100 a day and they buy drugs with it, YOU are enabling them, by freeing up "their" $100 for drugs while they "use" your money for rent & food..or maybe just more drugs :shrug:

This is why DiIulio quit ..He saw the hypocrisy in the plan..

[sakabatou]

14. "I never new this law existed. I was... ignorant of the law!"

"Yeah, yeah, ignorant of the law. Now put your hands behind your back."

:evilgrin:

[AzDar]

15. One just cannot put lipsick on this pig...BAD POLICY....period!!!

[Mabus]

17. Hallelujah and amen!

About time!

[BikeWriter]

20. * has never done anything right!

[CornField]

21. Well...

It's about damn time!!!

Thanks, I think I'll be re-upping my membership to the ACLU after all. :)

As a side note, I'd love to know which groups have received the lion's share of the faith-based funds. Unfortunately, there is no main place one can go to obtain such information. The grants are handed out under the umbrellas of the various departments and not from the faith-based office (or whatever it's called) in the White House. The departments (and each of their subdivisions) report figure X... the White House provides figure Y... and the Faith-Based Office says it was Z. I wonder if anyone really knows how much money has gone and to whom it was given.

[Hello_Kitty]

23. Do they honestly expect faith based orgs. NOT to prosletyze?

That's why the whole thing is such a sham to me. It's a way to funnel our tax dollars into (mostly) fundie brainwashing programs. :grr:

[greiner3]

24. We need to start a 'faith based' group;

It would be the faith of reason and truth. Any teen who entered the group would be proselytized into immersion therapy with science and how to write engaging LTTEs.

[Lerkfish]

25. there should be an ABSOLUTE separation of church and state.

no exceptions, no "faith based" crap.
and I say that as a progressive christian.

this has to stop, somehow. I'm even supportive of eliminating existing tax exemptions for religious organizations, even though it benefits some very good causes, it also has protected some meglomaniacal contagions beyond reason.

[Missy Vixen]

26. Uh, hello?

>teenagers can buy silver rings to symbolize their pledge to avoid sex until marriage<

Did I miss something?
Why does one require a "silver ring"? If the commitment to abstinence is that strong, why does one require an outward symbol? Wouldn't the best indicator of that commitment be refusal to participate in the behavior?

I'm also wondering if the "silver ring" is a great locating device...Yes, I realize this makes me terminally cynical.

Ridiculous.
Julie

[WinkyDink]

27. It was all of a piece, of the BFEE's continued looting of the Treasury.

A ruse to siphon of $$ to Pat Robertson and also the Moonies.

[Bushies gotta go]

28. Religious Right: America's very own Taliban

[NMMNG]

30. "Faith Based" charities should not receive one penny of public funds

They have proven time and time again that they are incapable of providing services without their religious beliefs seeping into the service paradigm, be it direct prostelytising or rules/regulations based on their religious principles. A person's right to receive services should not be determined based on their adherence to somebody elses dogma.

[RamboLiberal]

31. Senator Sanctimoneous(sp) Santorum gets them the money

Another reason we in PA have to get rid of him this election.

<snip>

Santorum is probably frothing at the ACLU over this development. In December 2003, when he announced a $700,000 grant of taxpayer money to Silver Ring Thing—which followed a $400,000 grant in February 2003 — the GOP senator said:

Funding for education programs which promote sexual abstinence will help Pennsylvania youth become better informed about healthy alternatives to sexual activity. I believe these important programs will also provide young people with the necessary tools to combat peer pressure, reducing the rate of STDs and teen pregnancy.
But Christ Church at Grove Farm, in the tony Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley, already had a prominent role that same year in alerting teens about alternatives to healthy sexual activity.

In May 2003, the news broke in Pittsburgh that an Episcopal priest allegedly sexed up a teen girl at Christ Church in 2001.

No big deal: The guy, a junior pastor, who was quietly let go by Christ Church in '01 and had to be tracked to Tucson to be arrested, was charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and three counts of unlawful contact or communication with minors.

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/bushbeat/archive/001201.php