LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I swear, these fulminating god-botherers seem to blossom worse than mold after a flood...

Katrina was God's wrath on sinful area says Alabama senator

02:54 PM CDT on Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Associated Press

A state senator in Alabama says Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment on a sinful part of America.

State Sen. Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, wrote in a weekly column for news outlets: "New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast have always been known for gambling, sin and wickedness. It is the kind of behavior that ultimately brings the judgment of God."

Erwin, a former conservative talk-radio host and now a media consultant, wrote the column after a tour of hurricane-wrecked Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., and Bayou La Batre on the Alabama coast.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

From The Staten Island Advance

FEMA needs to change policy of blessing the dead
Government policy is a violation of the principal of church-state separation
Friday, September 30, 2005
By RABBI A. JAMES RUDIN

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's errors and blunders are by now well known, including those I personally witnessed in an early September visit to hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston's Astrodome.

But Newsweek magazine recently reported another, more hidden, problem, that FEMA requires chaplains to recite a blessing over the bodies of hurricane victims. The requirement also extends to civilian contractors involved in recovering the dead following Katrina and Rita.( Read more... )