LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Talk To Action story talks about the spread of 'faith-based' initiatives and the destruction of secular services in favor of faith based ones:

The Faith-Based Initiative represents a dramatic shift in the way government funds social welfare services for our nation's most needy citizens. The design and implementation of the initiative raise serious and deeply troubling implications for the religious freedom of all Americans -- and the integrity of our nation's religious institutions.

No one knows how much money is being pumped into them. There is no accountability. We only know what programs are being slashed to hand their funding over to the religious organizations.

Bush has pushed for increased funding for religion-based groups while proposing deep cuts for many traditional anti-poverty programs. The result is that many small church- and community-based social service programs are slowly assuming the lead role in the war on poverty once held by long-established community development organizations..... Bush's 2006 budget proposed slashing public housing subsidies, food stamps, energy assistance, community development, social services and community services block grants -- programs that for decades have constituted the federal anti-poverty fight....

At the same time, Bush's budget proposal for next year contemplates adding $385 million in new religion-based programs to this year's eventual total. The federal government awarded more than $2 billion in such grants in 2004 -- nearly double the amount awarded in 2003. Funding under the president's faith- and community-based initiative has gone up despite Congress's refusal to enact legislation that would allow faith-based groups to discriminate by religion when hiring staff, something Bush says should be allowed as long as they offer their services to people of all faiths and do not use federal money to proselytize.

None of this money is going to any non-Christian group. Not a single penny- to Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, or Pagan groups. It's all Christian, and all conservative. {Source]

And funding these groups gives them permission to discriminate in their hiring practices, which groups like the Salvation Army openly do- discriminating against non-Christians, women, and single people.

They waste money- and are not effective. These Faith-based myths should be read and understood. This is all a part of the deliberate dismantling of the organs of secular government and the bankrupting of that government in favor of creating a Christian structure of government that will take over when the old secular government collapses.

Thing is: the Christian version is weaker and more corrupt than the secular. We need to understand this, and do what we can to try to preserve and reverse the deliberate corrosion and starving of our secular entities. While they are not perfect, they are accountable, and are inclusive, which cannot be said about the Christian organizations.