One party is for religious discrimination, and the other is not

May 5, 2007

Guest Post by Morbo

There are many reasons to loath Ralph Nader. One of the reasons I loath him is that Nader persists in claiming that the two parties are the same.

What rubbish. The two parties are poles apart on numerous issues. This was dramatically illustrated this week in a House of Representatives vote you might have missed.

Head Start is up for reauthorization. Republicans tried to add an obnoxious “faith-based” amendment to the bill. This measure would have allowed Head Start providers to discriminate on the basis of religion when hiring staff or approving volunteers.

Here’s why this is so appalling: Head Start is in no way, shape or form a religious program. It can’t be. Head Start provides a variety of services to low-income children and their families. It is taxpayer funded. The only connection it has with houses of worship is that it sometimes rents space from them. This is purely a matter of convenience. The church provides space, but it does not run the program.

Republicans pushed this measure, but Democrats stopped it. On a procedural vote called a motion to recommit, the amendment went down 222-195.

Had the Republicans prevailed and this measure became law, a church that rented space to a Head Start program could have told a Jewish parent volunteer, “We’re sorry, this is a Christian Head Start. And even though your child is enrolled here, we don’t want your services. There is the door.”

That’s the Republican understanding of “religious freedom.”

The Democrats’ view is this: “faith-based” groups are welcome to participate, but they have to play by the same rules as everyone else. We don’t discriminate against people based on what they believe (or do not believe) about God in a public program.

Those two concepts sound quite different, don’t they?

The most satisfying thing about the Head Start vote is that it may signal a new era in how Congress deals with “faith-based” initiatives across the board. Under the GOP, discriminatory amendments like this sailed through the House time and time again. They never got through the Senate, but they were tearing through the House.

It looks like the Democrats aren’t interested in furthering religious discrimination in a taxpayer-supported, secular program. Gee, Ralph, maybe there are some differences between the two parties after all.

There isn’t anything in the public sphere that Republicans aren’t dead-set to destroy. It’s a pathology.

  • Nader seems to have gone a bit “Sithish” on us in recent years, with a philosophy of “you’re with me, or you’re my enemy.” One can only wonder if he’s somehow tapped into the same water supply that turned McCaca into the outlandish trainwreck that the Straight talk Express is today….

  • Did the thugs try to push this through when they had the votes to make it happen?

  • This is how these pukes operate…legislation by ambush. Always trying to sneak things into legislation which destroys the whole point of the legislation.

    The difference between a lab rat and a republican?
    There’s somethings you can’t get a lab rat to do.

  • Actually, it’s “loathe” and yes, Nader is indeed someone to loathe, but the ones I loathe worse are the halfwitted morons who believe him.

  • If only there was some evidence that Head Start actually worked. Well, aside from making people more self-satisfied and malleable — not qualities that strike me as good for America.

  • It never fails. Every once in a while someone dumps on Nader and Democrats, ashamed by their inability to change things, pile on.

    This Congress has the opportunity to prove Nader wrong. I’ll apologize for my 2000 vote AFTER they have done so, but not before.

  • Got a hint for you dude … don’t complain about anybody’s ‘inability to change things’ from the position of a Nader voter.

    PS – Save your apologies. The damage is done.

  • “Gee, Ralph, maybe there are some differences between the two parties after all.”

    Yes, Ralph was a little simplistic when he said that there was *NO* difference between the parties, but I also think that Mr. Gisleson is on the money when he says that “It never fails. Every once in a while someone dumps on Nader and Democrats, ashamed by their inability to change things, pile on.”

    The Democrats WON the popular vote in 2000. The election was stolen by the machinations of the Republicans, and not through the few million votes given to Nader and the Greens. This was a fact in 2000 and it is still a fact in 2007. The Democrats could and should have challenged the 2000 election and manual demanded a recount for the entire state of Florida, and yet they didn’t. Perhaps it was a misguided sense of propriety that lead the Democrats to hand the election to the Republicans who stole it. Similarly, after promising he would do no such thing, Kerry immediately conceded to Bush in 2004, in spite of evidence of voter fraud in the big swing state of Ohio. The inability of the Democrats to grow a pair and demand a functioning democracy is what caused them to have their asses handed to them in 2000 and in 2004. The inability of the average voter to discern how voting Democrat versus Republican will help them in their daily lives, when both parties obviously suck at the same corporate teats is what continues to operate against the Democrats. So what’s with the continued attacks on Nader?

    The Democrats have had seven years to demonstrate that they are SUBSTANTIVELY different from the Republicans. And what have they done? Rubber stamp every Republican initiative from the USA PATRIOT Act to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The continued presence of American troops in Iraq, something that neither the majority of Americans nor Iraqis want, is indicative of either impotence or apathy on the part of Democrats. I’m still waiting to see

    If Democrats have been so concerned about the encroaching theocratic tendencies of many on the right, then why did they rubber-stamp the appointment of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court?

    I won’t apologize for voting for Nader in 1996 and 2000, nor do I feel that I need to apologize. If anything, the two parties need to apologize to the American people for playing partisan political games at the expense of average Americans.

    Impeaching Cheney and Bush would be nice. Impeaching the two-party system is indispensable.

  • I agree with Ralph Nader when he said “the only difference betwen Democrats and Republicans is the velocity upon which their knees hit the floor when corporations come knockin at their doors”

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