LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Judge Halts Grants Over Religion

By THE ASSOICATED PRESS


ADISON, Wis., Jan. 15 (AP) - A judge has blocked the Bush administration from providing future grants to an Arizona mentoring group that injected religion into its publicly financed programs.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ordos45)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/01/13/MNGATAPKNF1.DTL&type=printable

A Virginia Missionary group providing relief is moving 300 Muslim orphans to a Christian Children's Home in the capital of Indonesia. Also there are plans to raise money for building a Christian orphanage.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article talks about certain evangelical groups using their aid as an opportunity to prosetylize and try to convert people who were hit by the tsunami.

Philadelphia — As Western humanitarian organizations unleash an armada of relief supplies and workers into Asia's crisis zone, some evangelical Christian groups aim to bring the Gospel to the victims, as well.

Religious groups promise to be a major presence in the massive relief and reconstruction effort. InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based nongovernment organizations, reports that of its 55 member agencies providing tsunami aid, 22 are faith-based.

Most of the religious players, including the Red Cross, the American Jewish World Service, and Lutheran World Relief, have rules against proselytizing, or attempting to convert one to a religion.

But some evangelical groups active in Asia, including the Southern Baptists' International Mission Board, Gospel for Asia, and the Christian and Missionary Alliance, say the Bible always impels them to create converts to the faith.

"This (disaster) is one of the greatest opportunities God has given us to share his love with people," said K.P. Yohannan, president of the Texas-based Gospel for Asia. In an interview, Yohannan said his 14,500 "native missionaries" in India, Sri Lanka and the Andaman Islands are giving survivors Bibles and booklets about "how to find hope in this time through the word of God."

***

Yohannan said Sri Lankan officials are "extremely angry" with Christian missionary work and want to outlaw proselytizing. Some states in southern India have anti-conversion laws that bar "fraudulent manipulation," he said, adding: "I cannot tell you there is a hell awaiting you because it can be interpreted as a fear tactic."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY rialian)

"These people need tough love," Robinson said. "I don't feel comfortable with it. God don't get no pleasure punishing us. But he does it. Jesus would have done the same thing."

===The good reverend says this as he is booting out a 21 year-old pregnant woman and her three children of the shelter he runs.

===I think this does show the difference between compasion-based faith and rules-based faith.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The Fly Trap has an interesting post about the attempts of a "child evangelism project" to get "Good News Clubs" established in every elementary school in the US.

The fur, of course, is flying...

The conservatives' agenda to stack the federal courts with religious extremists is paying off for them. Yes, I said it. They’re winning, and you should be very, very afraid for the future of the separation of church and state. And unless you want to have proselytizers tugging on your kids' sleeves in the hallways of their public elementary school, it's time for progressives to get serious about three things: opposing Bush's judicial nominees, funding more progressive legal groups to challenge state-imposed religion, and educating the public about the real meaning of the separation of church and state. Because the religious extremists are way ahead of us on all three counts.

Here's just one example, which alone should be enough to get progressives busy. In 2001, the United States Supreme Court, in a split decision, decided a First Amendment case that has fired up religious conservatives to bring a proselytizing bible club to every elementary school in the country. In Good News Club v. Milford Central School District, the Court, in an opinion written by Clarence Thomas, held that a New York elementary school violated the free speech rights of a proselytizing bible club when it barred it from using school property for its meetings, when the school allowed other, non-religious clubs to use the property.

If the shoe had been on the other foot, religious conservatives would have been screaming their heads off about "activist judges." But when Clarence Thomas distorts Supreme Court precedent to serve a political agenda, it’s a "clear and well reasoned" opinion that "honors our traditions of religious freedom and pluralism."

Good News Clubs are sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship. In the Supreme Court case, one of these clubs challenged an upstate New York elementary school that barred the club from using school facilities for its after-school meetings, because the school had a policy of not allowing religious activities on its property. The Good News Club sued on the ground that the school’s exclusion of it constituted "viewpoint discrimination." This legal strategy fit nicely with the agenda of conservative Christian extremists who like to portray themselves as victims of discrimination by church-state-separating-secularists. And, as if answering their prayers, Justice Thomas handed them the legal precedent they were looking for.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY blueboy2000)

As I mentioned before, I find myself in an odd position--a black man who opposes a memorial to slaves near the Lincoln Memorial. Actually, it's not the memorial itself I oppose. It's the guys behind it--Morning Star International.

To summarize, I cannot in good conscience support my tax dollars lining the pockets of a cult--especially one that seems to condone character assasination of the worst type. But there's another reason--these guys are, to put it charitably, dreadful money managers.

Brett Fuller, pastor of Metro MorningStar Church in DC, is the driving force behind this bill. Fuller also spearheads the Youth Life Foundation, founded by Redskins legend Darrell Green. It's one of the crown jewels of Shrub's faith-based initiatives drive. According to Jim Myers, a writer in the DC area, the foundation has a $1.3 million budget and has received $3.1 million in federal grants since 2001. However, it has only one center anywhere near DC--and it serves only 38 kids. And many other learning centers serve more kids for far less money.

Read Myers' article--and think about it. This slave memorial is going to cost several million dollars. But if these guys are pissing away $3.1 million, you think they can handle several million more? I doubt it.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

Religious coercion in Michigan case shows government should be wary of faith-based programs

Interesting editorial (for "interesting," read "infuriating") focused on a case involving a nonviolent drug offender who was given the chance to receive drug rehabilitation.

As part of a progressive court program, Hanas had a chance to receive drug rehabilitation rather than go to jail. There was, unfortunately, one major problem — Joe Hanas is a practicing Catholic, and the program was operated by Pentecostals. Though the judge’s intent may not have been for Hanas to convert to the Pentecostal faith, his test for Hanas’ successful completion of the “drug court” program hinged on just that.

The coercion was extreme, and it was an elected judge who allowed it. Hanas’ rosary, his Bible and his priest were all kept from him. Staff members, none of them certified or trained drug counselors or therapists, told him that Catholicism is a form of “witchcraft.” He was not only forbidden to follow his Catholic faith, but he was also tested on his learning of Pentecostal principles.

And, he was told, his rehabilitation would not be complete until he knelt at the altar and proclaimed himself “saved.”

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY burkean)

Thank God, I found you guys!

Heard on NPR this morning that the president plans to meet James Dobson while in CO today. Did a bit of searching and found this article on the trip. And some choice sentences...

First, however, the president is scheduled to meet with James Dobson, head of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. Dobson is a leading supporter of a proposed constitutional amendment that would bar legal recognition of same-sex marriages.

The group also supports the president's faith-based initiative, a plan to allow religious organizations to compete for federal social services contracts. The proposal is popular with religious groups and Bush is pushing it ahead of the fall elections.

Dobson did not return phone calls seeking comment.

beh.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

If you are a Unitarian Universalist, or an atheist, or God forbid a Pagan of any sort, the federal government does not want to deal with you in any way, shape or form.

If you wish to gain non-profit status as a religious group, or utilize the 'faith based' funds that are available, you will be turned down. If you want to start a low power FM radio station that might cater to the alternative or diverse elements in your community, the tinest Christian church can doom your application to failure.

Even if you are Christian, if you're not the 'right' kind of faith, you will be turned away from gaining any of the funds or priveleges that certain evangelical sects can scoop up at will.

Most people are not aware of the slow, but steady takeover of positions of power and influence by people who cleave to the neoconservative religious right. They started with the school boards and city councils, and have worked their way up the chain to places like state comptrollers, and federal commissions. They have gone unopposed because of a combination of ignorance and apathy from those who could vote against them, and slid in on the power of lock-stepped blocs of carefully coached churchgoers.

Relegating the neoconservatives to the cultural sidelines or dismissing them as a lunatic fringe has enabled them to take over our country. The slow creep of their theocratic and restrictive governance has placed a stranglehold on many freedoms, and has deeply chilled the ability for anyone to criticize or protest this administration in any form, no matter how innocuous that protest might be.

Our country is being stripped of its unique heritage by the very people it was created to protect. We do still have some means to recover from this all-out assault on our freedom, but it will take a long time to remove these now-entrenched elements from power. The first step is to wake up and smell the smoke of our democracy going down in flames- and vote.

Sunfell