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Getting Religion Out of the Workplace
Will Barack Obama's expansion of George Bush's faith-based initiative end discriminatory hiring based on religion?
Though I care tremendously about the separation of church and state, Barack Obama's pledge to expand the sort of faith-based initiatives begun by George Bush never bothered me much. In part, that's simply because Democrats are better stewards of public resources than Republicans.
Bush used the programme as a slush fund for the religious right and a sponsor of destructive and mendacious abstinence-only campaigns, while I expected Obama to channel money to religious charities that are more concerned with ameliorating suffering than making converts and waging kulterkampf.
But there was a more principled reason as well. Obama promised to reverse the most constitutionally subversive aspect of Bush's programme, the one that allowed religious groups to get public money to run social services while only hiring those of their own creeds. In practice, this meant that some government-funded jobs were suddenly being limited to those who professed the right kind of Christianity.
Obama made it clear that he was going to change that. "If you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytise to the people you help, and you can't discriminate against them or against the people you hire on the basis of their religion," Obama said in July. Now he's backing away from his stance.
Today, Obama signed an executive order creating a White House office for faith-based and neighbourhood partnerships, his version of Bush's faith-based initiative. He's also establishing a 25-member council, which includes a mix of liberal and conservative clergy along with academics and social entrepreneurs, to advise him.
Both of these moves were expected, and on their own, neither need trouble civil libertarians. What is disturbing, though, is that, in his quest for ecumenical comity, Obama is suggesting he may capitulate on hiring rights. That's the very thing that might have made his faith-based programme a profound improvement over Bush's.
"The most contentious issue surrounding a revamped White House office on faith-based and neighbourhood partnerships - potential restrictions on the hiring practices of religious groups that receive taxpayer dollars - will undergo a thorough legal review before President Barack Obama makes a decision on hiring guidelines," the AP reported today. Other reports suggest that the justice department will decide who gets to discriminate on a case-by-case basis.
The president's new position is being framed as a compromise, since it pleases neither the religious right, which doesn't want any oversight at all, nor the secular left, which wants a clear prohibition on religious tests. But splitting the difference doesn't always result in justice, and if Obama allows government-financed discrimination to continue, it will be both a mistake and a betrayal.
It's important to be clear about this - nobody is suggesting that mosques be forced to hire Jews or synagogues to employ Catholics. But when religious bodies start administering government-funded programmes, they should have to stick to the same rules as everyone else. An example from my book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism illustrates the point. For years, the Salvation Army has received tens of millions of dollars in public money to operate foster care, HIV counselling, group homes and other services in New York. Its social services division was separate from the Salvation Army's religious wing and had a cosmopolitan staff that reflected the city it served.
That changed under Bush. Freed from earlier constraints, the Salvation Army sent in a consultant to essentially Christianise the agency, at one point badgering human resources staffers to identify gay and non-Christian employees. Workers were ordered to fill out forms listing the churches they'd attended over the previous 10 years and the names of their ministers. People who had worked there for decades were driven out. The Bush administration justified this sort of thing with the Orwellian argument that protecting civil liberties meant defending "religious hiring rights".
Many of us hoped that Obama's election augured the end of an era when our leaders used religion to marginalise great swaths of the country. To be sure, our new president has jettisoned Bush's aggressively messianic language. No more is corrupt sectarianism deforming the federal bureaucracy.
But as Obama expands both social services and the role of religious groups in providing them, the number of employees and job-seekers needing protection is going to grow. Their rights cannot and should not be left to the good faith of the president's advisers and legal staffers, no matter how well intentioned they may be.
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26 Comments so far
Show All"....potential restrictions on the hiring practices of religious groups that receive taxpayer dollars - will undergo a thorough legal review before President Barack Obama makes a decision on hiring guidelines"
Religious groups that receive taxpayer dollars? WTF?
In their thorough review I hope they make it to this little legal nugget: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
Sioux Rose
These megachurches also pay NO property taxes, and many encourage congregants in who to vote for, and which policies to endorse. In Gainesville, Florida, a land once rich in forests, there is a church on every block. The amount of land these institutions have laid claim to is substantial. When YOUR property tax goes up, think about all the acreage given to churches who you are ultimately subsidizing! And then think about what they preach for a double whammy of spiritual indigestion.
A lot of those folks in the churches are probably the same ones denying that global warming exists even as it's already happening. Church folks can indeed be way too materialistic to the point of total destruction.
I can remember last year when the bible thumping fundies would spew pro-Paling bullshit even in El Paso such as "God says America has to drill drill drill so it's time for those damn liberals to put their enviro-wacko talk aside and open up the land for Jesus to enter and give us more oil !" These social fundies can be toxic bulldozers and will do almost anything to "defend" the worst of corporatism. I'm pretty sure it gets worse once you go further up north in Texas.
By the way, whoever flagged your comment is probably a social rightwing Satanic fundie.
JWVerez - sometimes we flag our own messages by hitting the wrong thing. I sometimes Google my user name and found two of my messages here flagged, and the question of did I want them flagged. I unflagged them there.
Sioux Rose, I am a PK (Preacher's Kid). My dad led a small liberal congregation. You are correct, they did not have to pay property tax or sales tax when we bought a stove for the kitchen. If they had to pay property taxes they no doubt would have had to sell the church, since what had been a dirt road intersection in the 40's became a mega-suburb in the 70's and the church was on a great corner lot.
My Dad is a guy who walked the walk not just talked the talk. He gave back ten percent of his salary to the church. I wonder if any of these megachurch pastors do that? Though he's officially retired, Dad still preaches today and one of his latest efforts has been to get the church to be more "open and affirming", a euphemism for accepting the GLBT community. Even with liberals, that's a tough one.
So when I read the article about regulating the hiring practices of the churches who receive taxpayer money the whole entire concept just seemed ABSURD. (Hence my What The F*ck? reaction) I mean, read that sentence again and see if any of it makes any sense with what we know is in the Constitution and what we know is in the Bible. If they weren't doing the f*cked-up act of giving churches money then they wouldn't have to worry about whom they hire.
Back when Bush sucked up to People of Faith he was really just identifying a bunch of people who would "believe without proof." He and his Gang knew that these were the people who would believe and repeat their lies. He gleefully abandoned the job of government to take care of its neediest by pumping up the faith based charities idea, just another way the Gang abdicated their responsibilities to their citizens. I promised myself I would never again give a dollar to any church or charity. I believe that my taxes should pay for social services. What a concept.
Now the gov't has a grip on (some) churches by giving them taxpayer money. And everybody seems to be okay with that, despite being constitutional lawyers. Again I say WTF? The problem should be as plain as the big red nose on a clown's face, but here we are talking about it like it's business as usual, and that it's normal to start overseeing the hiring of church workers. Just the phrase "Churches who recieve taxpayer money" - doesn't that send up a red flag for anybody?
On a personal note, I don't attend church any more.
Even from those that don't necesssarily subscribe to churchISM...or religiousity....
you and your dad are to be commended, indeed. there are good people IN and OUT of churches. believers and non-believers alike.
and you apparently , with your dad, are wonderful examples of TRUE humanity, Elainem.
Thank you for your kind words, Teddy. I only WISH I was as good a person as my dad. (Not even close!) I hope that through our many discussions I have helped him even a fraction of the amount he has helped me.
One of the greatest gifts he gave me was confidence; he always told me I could be anything I wanted. We'd drive by my elementary school, and he'd say, "There's Friendship School, home of the first woman president of the U.S.," then he'd say my name. After I turned 35 (youngest age to be president) he acted like, well? any time now, you're old enough. High expectations!
By the way, my mom rocks, too!
I agree with your comments but might add that sometimes churchism and religiosity actually get in the way of doing and being good.
Sioux Rose
Is your father an Aquarian (or Sagittarian? Although Ann Coulter is the WORST kind of Sag, the type that wants to control religious thought.)
Sioux Rose
ELAINEM: Taking into account your comment to EZE on another thread, you have ultimately come close to the holy initiating smoke, no doubt?
What does your father make of the Falwell types who use their religious pulpits to SELL war and demonize our darker skinned brothers and sisters?
I LOVE what Jesus taught, I think Moses had some good ideas, I don't know enough about Mohammed to make any educated statement, and I really resonate with The Buddha. I also have learned from shamanism, and the mystics of various ages. If we were meant to know all the answers, we would not have taken on the ADVENTURE of occupying bodies. Any religious institution that PURPORTS to be an authority for GOD speaks hubris, and grants false witness, a sin. This life is about seeking answers and feeling awestruck in the FACE of the great mysteries.
What bothers me most, as a woman, about most patriarchal religions is the second-class SPIRITUAL status relegated to women. How about the word NUN = NONE, as in NO representation. How about women sitting in a separate part of a congregation, or women being forced to cover themselves, or women being seen as property, or unclean, or possessed of a portion of a male's soul. ETC. The prejudice is deadly and has played a significant role in women having a lesser status in world politics, economics, academe, etc.
Many men figure we vote now, have birth control, drive ourselves to work, so what's the bother all about? It's the same with Blacks. Because certain measures today seem to address equal access the presumption is that CENTURIES of unequal representation suddenly have disappeared, quite a convenient fiction. My goddess how many lies we mortals live by!
In any case, I am saying "hello," and acknowledging you in the forum. Religion COULD bring out the best in people if it didn't take the sports approach and appoint team memberships and have congregants competing against others to supposedly curry the great One's favor. Strange, what people believe in; but I have experienced a few in THIS progressive forum who would have thrown the first match to burn me again as a witch for my beliefs in the profoundly sacred and eternally esoteric. An open mind frequently favors a youthful body & spirit. Learn on!
Holy smoke! Indeed. Isn't it ironic that one single plant, which grows enthusiastically almost anywhere, that can feed our minds, bodies and fuel tanks, is, well, illegal. Doesn't this almost define our government's plan for its people? If it's free, natural and good for the environment, let's replace it with something chemical, costly and non-renewable that we can control and make a profit on. People who don't like this plan will be arrested and prosecuted.
As for the Falwells, Bakkers, Swaggarts, etc., the "con men" of God, it was hard to see the membership in their churches rising, but Dad never wavered from scholarly, well-thought-out, organized sermons that challenged one to THINK, not just blindly believe.
Your take on the subjugation of women by religious traditions is right on. Along with those you mention let me add my favorite: the only good woman is a virgin. From what I have observed, men spend a great deal of their time plotting and planning and persuading women to have sex with them. Once they have achieved their goal the woman is then worthless.
I think this virgin thing was an early contributor to my skepticism about religion. Around about the age of 12-13, having had biology and sex ed in school, I suddenly realized that all this time I had been innocently singing ("round yon virgin mother and child") about God's mom's nether parts. Holy crap! Up till then I had thought it was some kind of curtain or something!
Too bad women's sexuality cannot be percieved as being as important and yet as insignificant as men's. Why should we care whether or with whom a woman fornicates? Why does this have an effect on the woman's worth? It's all about control and those who have it are reluctant to let go. I still saw this in the church in the unwillingness to consider a woman pastor, or to acknowledge that the women's group need no longer be in charge of the kitchen. It is also frustrating to know that for thousands of years we have thrown away half of our greatest resource in disregarding and disallowing the contributions of women, all due to the twisted convolutions of men who seek ultimate power.
I have noticed that there are two types of Christians: those who put emphasis on the living Jesus, as an example of how to behave with one another, and those who dwell on the death of Jesus (how dreadful to view the gruesomely detailed dead Jesus on the cross) as a way to absolve themseslves of guilt and sin. This "born again" philosophy is dangerous. I'm sure I don't have to point out (but I will) that both GWBush and Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater, profess to be born again Christians. What a great back door exit from the house of responsibility.
Anyway, as I walked away from the church I shed a lot of the heavy garments of contradiction and propaganda. I changed my definition of "God" to include the entire universe, all time and space, present and future, known and unknown, every speck of every being that ever was or ever will be. I realized that the carbon molecules I breathed in today could have been dinosaur shit hundreds of thousands of years ago, or maybe cow farts from three days ago. Yes, it really is all connected.
I realized that the moment we try to limit "God" we deviate from the truth.
On this path of distillation I got things pretty well stripped down to the most important part, and whaddaya know, just like Jesus said, it's all about loving God and treating your neighbor as yourself.
It sounds like you gravitate towards the Wiccan philosophy, which I particularly like due to its emphasis on balance within nature and in our lives. I like the idea that we are OF the world, as opposed to the Judeo-Christian concept of humans having "dominion" over the earth. The idea that we can control/abuse nature to our own ends is obviously self destructive.
I don't believe in magic or miracles, but I am exploring the idea that there is some kind of free flowing good energy that we can perhaps grasp and use for our own improvement. Maybe this was why people got naked and danced in the moonlight, and why we still get together to pray in churches and temples and mosques today.
Well, thanks so much for your acknowledgement. I hope we can continue to discuss and learn and grow from the experience. Elaine
Sioux
ELAINE: You are a sister soul. It's very late, but I agree with everything you wrote, and my new book (I expect to finish the 3rd line-by-line edit tomorrow. It's been a HUGE effort! 190 single spaced pages) is about those women who danced under the moon! It's entitled, Moon Dance: The Feminine Dimension of Time and explains WHY the early church had to use sex to demonize women and turn people against the living passion that would allow "sex to be a straight shot to God," thus eliminating priests, a/k/a the middle men. In any case it's late, I've had a long day... but this is a conversation worth resuming. I am pleased that your father was not trapped by doctrine, but rather inspired by it. So true about the LIVING Christ. I was born a Jew, but don't resonate with any patriarchal religion... but I do HONOR Jesus and all the Masters. And obviously your father's wish to prompt others to think worked out well for you. Don't discount magic... it's all around us, and has shown me its presence on many occasions. AS one of my former boyfriends put it, "It's ALL a miracle." And when you think about it, this life thing, this consciousness that occupies the body, the way the caterpilla becomes the winged thing, MAGIC is all around us. Don't let science take the awe out of it! Even if sometimes science paints a pretty good picture of things... at times it doesn't paint with ALL the possible colors! Sweet dreams...
Great book I think you'd like is "The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It explains the transition from mystical more "pagan" times to the Christianization of Europe... including England, Wales, Scotland where the Druid cults once thrived.
Sioux Rose, thanks for taking the time to write despite the late hour.
Your book sounds fantastic and I commend your accomplishment. How many of us have a manuscript halfway done moldering in a drawer? I volunteer if you need a proofreader.
It's interesting that you commented about the magic of everyday life. When I wrote that I didn't believe in magic or miracles, I almost added "except for the ordinary, every day kind". You are right, they are the best kind.
I have been fortunate enough to be able to move to a small old farm after a lifetime of city and suburban living, and there are so many stunning natural wonders here to enjoy.
You are right about my dad being a Sagittarius. (Nov 26) What gave him away? Certainly no quality shared by the vile Ann Coulter.
Sioux Rose
Hi...
I just finished the MASSIVE 3rd revision, line by line edit. What gave your father away was his joy, his TRUE liberalism, his faith in religion, and his being magnanimous. Those are all the positive Sag qualities, and my favorite ones include Disney teaching children to believe in wonders and work with nature; Mark Twain's robust honesty in the face of political corruption, Steven Speilberg's awesome imagination, and Noam Chomsky's grand intelligence. Sag is the highest octave of fire, and fire = of the spirit.
I'll keep you in mind for a future proof-reading gig, how's that? I tend to flux between writing VERY serious time-consuming works, and fun, campy scripts... next one is for the funny bone, a remake of my stageplay, Doggone.
I am a lifelong agnostic, but I have never been one to focus too much on, or really believe in, the threat posed by religious fanatics in Western society. We are all capable of being used as useful idiots, and it seems to me that the battle to eradicate the influence of the fanatics will probably not ever really be won until the corporate oligarchs determine that it is inconvenient that some religions place a value on human life. The deluded simpleton evangelicals are not really that fearsome, but the corporatists who use them as pawns, for now, must be watched.
Sioux Rose
KIVALS: You've obviously never lived in the Bible belt. Robots, which is to say those prepared to follow "faith-based" orders, who happen to also like guns, can become a mob quite easily. You dismiss the dangers these individuals represent too easily. I seem to have retained the soul memory of the faces in the crowd that took a certain glee when women were burned as witches, church sponsored by the way, like the backyard lynching just a century (or less) ago. What the church lends cover to is so often UNCIVILIZED, and persons are instructed to believe they have impunity. Jesus made me do it, style. It's a lethal combination!
Sioux Rose knows what she is talking about. These Nazi- church cult, wackos are very dangerous,.They wrap themselves in the flag and false patriotism and then quote their interpretation of scripture to rationalize their insane behavior! If the truth were known, they would have the epiphany that the devil made me do it!
I completely agree. I think I also have some sort of soul memory, as Sioux Rose describes, only mine isn't specific. I have just had this terrible fear of fanatical christians my whole life. History is also full of how much we should fear from them.
and they'll even LIE , big time:
such as saying that "it is a MYTH that the American forefather did not found the nation on CHRISTIAN values"....
when in fact that is typical of them twisting reality and turning something on its head...such that - the case is:
Thomas Jefferson, james Madison, etc. ACTUALLY DID FEAR the power of the church and "those boston pastors" (the most vociferous during their time to insist on a "christian nation") -- that those events WERE what prompted them to Separate Church and State.
you can all read it in their correspondences to each other on how fearful and worried they were and discussed how to satisfy the pastors' demands while separating church and state.
jefferson, whatever else he was, in fact wrote in his memoirs or correspondences , somthing like this:
"AFTER LONG AND INTENSE STUDY OF RELIGIONS, PARTICULARLY THE HEBREW AND CHRISTIAN VERSIONS ...I HAVE come to the conclusion that it is all SUPERSTITIOUS NONSENSE...these people in fact do nothing but worthip DEMONS and SPIRITS...and the bible is so full of inconsistencies that one must conclude it is either the work of geniuses in storytelling....or that the "christ" was either a genius storyteller or simply crazy...".
he also added somewhere in these correspondences with his colleagues:
"the time will come when the Magical Birth of Jesus from the womb of a Virgin girl will JOIN ALONGSIDE the Myths of history -- just like the Full-Grown Springing of Minerva from the Head of Jupiter".
I think Ms. Goldberg is far too relaxed about the trend towards an unholy alliance of government social-service funds and religious organizations.
I've never come across a valid rebuttal to this criticism: regardless of whether or not a religious/charitable organization is prohibited from directly applying government-dispensed funds to proselytizing or other purely religious functions, the fact remains that government funding of a social-service program allows a religious/charitable organization to budget money that might otherwise be used for the social-service program to be used for purely religious purposes.
A simple example: a church that runs a soup kitchen might not have a big enough budget to run the kitchen AND heat the church for an additional service, or have religious pamphlets printed. So the church has to decide how much to render to Caesar, and how much to God.
But if the government picks up the tab for the soup kitchen, the church has that much more disposable income for purely religious purposes.
"Faith-based" is by no means limited to "Christian"-- but I might as well point out that Christ said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's", not "Crawl into Caesar's lap and place thy hand into his purse, and it will be a win-win outcome for Caesar AND God".
· Yr Obd't Servant
Good point. We've had quite a few examples in history , past and present, of what happens when religious organizations get too rich and powerful. None good.
Bush Baby and Co. were odious and vile [if that isn't redundant] but at least you knew where they stood. Obama? Who the hell knows where he stands or what he believes in? If January is any indication of what can be expected from his administration it is going to be one long 4 years of disappointment and political disenchantment. What an awful waste to finally have stemmed the tide of political indifference only to squander it in the name of 'non-partisaniship'. What was the phrase that GW could never articulate? Fool me once, fool on me. Fool me twice, uh ....."
STOP giving my tax dollars to religious groups it's against the Constitution which prohibits public support of such orgs. specifically! This was just one more example of the Religious rights war on the Constitution and Obama shouldn't pander to these assholes. STOP it! This isn't the CHANGE we wanted.
As someone who has learned by experience that the best reason to go to church is to listen and to apply only to oneself what Scripture actually said, I begin to despair upon reading this. Should the left hand really know what the right hand is doing? 'Freely you have received, freely give' and 'If your brother asks for clothes give him your coat as well'...
I smelled my first whiff of Kri$tofa$chism in college and it seemed as strange to me as the idea of killing other people in the name of one's conception of God has done to one of my favorite progressives.
Obstruction of justice seems to be a Judeo-Christian value.
JUNEAU - New state gift disclosures show it cost Liberty Legal Institute and the two law firms working with it $185,000 to represent six Alaska legislators in an unsuccessful lawsuit to halt their colleagues' "troopergate" investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin acted improperly in firing the state's public safety director.
The legislators listed a $25,000 gift of services from the Texas -based Liberty Legal Institute . Liberty is the legal arm of the Free Market Foundation , which is associated with evangelical leader James Dobson's Focus on the Family, and lists its guiding principles as limited government and promotion of Judeo-Christian values.
This isn't a 'tax exempt' activity, is it?
when one really examines both ideology and behavior of most followers - it indeed seems as if judeo-christianity is really second to none among beliefs of any kind in being inherently authoritarian, dictatorial.
i mean -- wonderful as the teachings of christ are in many ways -- they are NO different when they talk about compassion, goodness, and all that from all other teachings elsewhere.
but there is a VERY strong strain of "OBEY" OR ELSE!
it's basically a combination of promises by a vengeful "father" that is contradictorily also supposedly "all loving"...
it's like the M.O. of a split personality ...no wonder "christians" , especially the american version, can
be comfortable , entirely comfortable with what is called "cognitive dissonance" : the ability to hold two opposing views at teh same time and hold that they are equally valid...such AS:
death penalty - war - killing "our enemies" - while at the same time screaming about "the sanctity of the unborn"....
Religions cannot be trusted. Period. How do I know this? Because they say their holy books are the word of god, not men. Their most foundational claims are pure bullshit, upon which is heaped more and more bullshit, and then some more. Not to mention that their methods are madness (look at any theocracy). Their organizations must be kept far from our government and our tax money. Obama is going beyond pandering with this, and I find it utterly disturbing.