I try not to make purely political statements, which is why I will not list all the problems Bush has given us.  There is one thing, though, that has been damaging to people of all faiths and those who have none.  It is absolutely an issue at the heart of all religious and nonreligious rights (I wish I didn’t have to make it so clear that it include us too, but that’s another post): bringing religion into government, where it doesn’t belong.

Does this mean religious people have no place in government?  Clearly, it does not.  Does it mean religious citizens have no right to petition the government based on their beliefs?  Of course not; the Constitution gives us all the same rights, including those with life philosophies that are not by nature religious.  We all have the right to freedom of conscience, and to lobby the government based on what we find important.

Bush went too far, violating the clear intent of the founding fathers¹.  By creating the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives², an office specifically dedicated to predominantly religious organizations, he smashed Jefferson’s “wall of separation between Church & State.”  The office gave taxpayer money to religious organizations without any real attempt to ensure that this money would be used for charity and community programs only, and not used for religious purposes such as proselytizing.

The lack of oversight was such that we still don’t know, and may never know, whether these funds were used mainly for non-religious charity work or religious uses.  Frankly, there is reason to be doubtful.  Even when doing charity work, there are numerous instances of religion-based charities requiring people to be captive audiences to proselytizing before they would actually help them.  I am not claiming that all religious charities do this.  I’m sure there are those who do separate their religious and charity work, but we simply have no assurances that most did and many reasons to believe they may not have.

The fact that religious groups got their own office should give anyone with a basic understanding of the Establishment Clause a feeling that something is not right.  Why do religious groups get special treatment such that they have their own office, when they could work with government in the exact same way secular charities do?  This is certainly not a separation of state and church, and looks scarily like giving preference or at least special privilege to religious groups.  There should have been uproar from both the religious and nonreligious communities over this.  You might see nothing wrong with your religion or denomination proselytizing using your tax dollars, but remember that it could easily be a religious denomination you don’t belong to, or one of a different religion altogether.  Would a Christian be happy to see their tax dollars funding Muslim proselytizing?  I doubt it.

Of course religious charities should be able to use tax payer funds for their charity work just as any secular group can, but they must not get special treatment and must play by the same rules.  We have no evidence so far that they have.

President-Elect Obama has pledged of overhaul the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives.  If it will still exist, I hope it is a major overhaul that will bring some actual oversight to it, assuring that our money will only go towards only charity.  Unfortunately, by its very nature, the continuing existence of the office will continue to mean that religious charities are getting special treatment.  It will still be our government telling us that these charities are more important than those which are secular, and therefore deserve their own funding.  This is absolutely not the place of our government, and will continue to be worrying.

In a couple days, the man who got us into this predicament will be gone.  For that, although it is more than a month past Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful.

References/Footnotes:

Tags: bush, Constitution, Faith Based Initiatives, Obama, Thomas Jefferson