This Week in God

March 18, 2006

First up from this week’s God machine is news from Georgia about the state’s constitution, religious liberty, and Gov. Sonny Perdue’s (R) initiative to break down the church-state wall a little too much.

This year, a couple of high profile measures didn’t make the cut – and with good reason. The one that has drawn the most attention is Gov. Sonny Perdue’s initiative to change the Georgia Constitution to allow state funding for religious organizations. The same proposal was unsuccessful last year. While the proposal was presented as a common-sense way to protect religious organizations that provide services to the state, it was actually a not-too-clever ruse. The effort was not really designed to make sure services religious groups provide the state could always continue. Rather, the proposed amendment’s purpose was to open up the door for school vouchers.

Georgia’s Constitution says, “No money shall ever be taken from public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of any sectarian institution.” Purdue said this prevents state government from contracting with ministries to provide secular services. The Georgia Supreme Court said Purdue is wrong. Purdue asked to change the state Constitution anyway. Fortunately, there are just enough Dems in the legislature to prevent the constitutional amendment from going through.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a great editorial, noting the ironic twist during the debate.

In remarks supporting the amendment, state Rep. Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) outlined the many wonderful programs such groups already operate on behalf of taxpayers, citing among others the 905 children served by Georgia Baptist Children’s Homes and several religiously affiliated hospitals that receive state dollars. The litany of good work already being done by religious groups with public money raised an obvious question: Why does Georgia need a constitutional amendment to permit what is already established legal practice? The answer is, it doesn’t.

Unfortunately for Purdue, it looks like the state of Georgia still won’t be able to use tax dollars to subsidize private religious academies.

The next story from the God machine is a new advocacy group that is filling a much-needed gap.

Albuquerque businessman Mikey Weinstein yesterday announced the launch of a new non-profit group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

Weinstein’s son, Curtis, attends the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Curtis Weinstein reported incidents of anti-Semitism and official bias toward evangelical forms of Christianity to his father. While investigating the matter, Mikey Weinstein uncovered troubling evidence of a too-close-for-comfort relationship between branches of the military and Religious Right-style evangelicals.

It’s a shame a group is needed to protect the rights of students at military academies, but the conditions clearly warrant it, especially given what we’ve seen at the Air Force Academy of late.

A press release from the group reads, “The Military Religious Freedom Foundation will serve as a watchdog organization — educating the public and the media on issues related to the separation of church and state within the Armed Forces, and litigating when necessary.” Good for them. With any luck, they won’t be too busy.

And finally this week, we turn to an encouraging story about Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony doing right by his community by announcing, in advance, that he won’t honor the Republican immigration law pending in Congress.

A Los Angeles cardinal is calling on parishes in his diocese to keep helping the poor, despite new legislation would require churches and social groups to screen people seeking charity.

Cardinal Roger Mahony made the Immigration Reform Act a central theme of his Ash Wednesday sermon, telling parishioners the church does not favor “unfettered” immigration, but supports global reform measures that won’t sacrifice humanitarian efforts.

“There seems to be these frightened voices that are very much anti-immigrant,” Mahoney said. “I think that’s noticeable here in California and it’s also catching fire in Los Angeles.”

Immigration “reform” is controversial enough, but the GOP measure ratchets things up a notch with language that would make it a federal crime for a ministry or any charity to offer services or assistance to illegal immigrants. If a church isn’t sure about the immigration status of someone in need, the law would presume that church officials would ask for legal documentation before providing aid.

Good for Cardinal Mahony for his unequivocal opposition to this nonsense. As Amy Sullivan recently noted, “Jesus didn’t instruct his followers to inspect the citizenship papers of the sick, the poor, the old, and the hungry.”

Politically speaking, I still believe that if the bill did become law, the moment the evening news broadcast images of a priest getting arrested for providing care to an ailing six year old, Congress would act with amazing efficiency to rewrite the legislation. Those lawmakers can act pretty quickly when they want to.

Now if Roger Cardinal Mahony would show the same courage and Christian compassion toward the 560 (known) sexually abused seminarians in his “care” — many of whom want no more than an “I’m sorry” — rather than hiding behind official secrecy and hordes of high-priced lawyers for all these years.

  • I don’t know if this is a new story, but my ex-Catholic mother is all spun up about the archdiocese of Boston getting out of the adoption business now that they aren’t allowed to discriminate against gay couples. My mother, for some reason, seems to think that children are better off with two mommies than with no mommies.

  • Having a convicted thief working next to the President is certainly to be deplored by all right thinking citizens. Having a President who is convicted (He pleaded guilty.) of a felony, committed and acknowledged while in Office, is either ignored or appalling, depending upon the ethical orientation of the citizen, situational or absolute. The Situational Ethicist’s Theory is founded in Lenin’s Revolutionary Thought. He asserted that any act, however vile or cruel or outrageous, which marginally propelled Society toward the Revolution, was ethically GOOD. Such is the status of fringe LIBERALISM today, with sheer Political POWER substituted for Lenin’s Revolution objective. The so-called NEW LEFT of the 1960s has finally attained critical mass, dominating the Old Media and Academia, Lenin’s “Transmission Belts of Indoctrination”. For an understanding of Absolute Ethical Thought begin with Moses, read THE GOSPELS, and learn to reason with THE TALMUD.

  • waumpuscat,
    Should you not condemn Bill Clinton for his failure, but forgive him and pray for him?

    If not, why?

  • 2 Manchu,

    You are not qualified to become my spiritual advisor. Seek other employment.

  • Okay, what gives you the moral authority to pass judgement on others? Did God Himself pass down to you His Judgement to dispense to others?
    And why, pray tell, am I NOT qualified to be your spiritual advisor? What are your qualifications?

    And please answer my question about Clinton, if you could be so kind. Seems pretty straight forward to me.

  • Believe it or not, there are religious groups that focus on social justice rather that divisive “moral” issues. One such organization held its introductory press conference just this week, in Columbus, Ohio…

    http://www.webelieveohio.org/

    About Us

    Since November 2005, a group of over 100 pastors, priests, rabbis, cantors, and actively committed lay leaders from Roman Catholicism, two traditions of Judaism, and over fifteen Protestant denominations have met to discuss what we as people of faith can say as one voice speaking on behalf of the poor and on behalf of those who have a wide-ranging viewpoint on the intersection of faith and public policy.

    We are racially diverse. We are men and women. We come from a wide range of theological diversity as well. We are conservative, moderate, and liberal on the spectrum of faith and public policy! We serve urban, suburban, and rural people in our houses of worship. We hold in common a deep and abiding love of the God whom we serve.

    We also share in common our strong belief that we must act and speak in public ways to support the poor, the children, and those who are voiceless and un represented in our times. We will speak with love to power as we serve God in these times.

    Our Values

    As people of faith we believe that…

    All people are created in the image of God.
    All People are both equal and equally deserving of justice.
    As Americans we believe that…

    Our governments exist for the common good of a populace that is rich with religious and cultural diversity.
    Every citizen has a responsibility to participate in the political process of democracy.
    Every citizen has the right to make political decisions freely, without coercion or threat from any individual, group, or institution.
    As American religious leaders we believe that…

    God calls us to raise a prophetic voice that directly engages the powerful.
    Our prophetic voice must sound with greatest conviction for the sake of people who are vulnerable or threatened.

  • Sonny Perdue rode to office on the wings of bigotry. His one and only platform in the previous election was preserving the Confederate battle flag as part of Georgia’s state flag. All the rednecks from south Georgia turned out to vote for him. Then he found himself trapped in a vise — he had basically promised to revert to the stars and bars, but Georgia business leaders wanted to avoid the kind of boycott that crippled South Carolina. What is Sonny to do when both his constituencies are pressuring him at cross purposes? He compromised by adopting a different Confederate flag as the state flag. During the time since that happened, signs have popped up like kudzu on trees alongside Georgia roads — a Confederate battle flag with the legend “Sonny Lied.”

    That is an awful long way to go to arrive at this observation: Sonny lost the constituency that put him over the top last time. He needs somebody else to pander to.

  • Our prophetic voice must sound with greatest conviction for the sake of people who are vulnerable or threatened.

    Just have to make it out of the womb.

  • The demagogue’s loaded term, “SOCIAL JUSTICE”, is an oxymoron, to be avoided, or opposed, by people concerned with ethics and the restraint of political power. Justice is solely concerned with the individual person, not with arbitrary sets or classes of persons, or it ceases to be justice. To expunge the rabble rousing term from the political lexicon and compel governments to do justice, whether crimes or civil controversies are involved, involving individual persons is the mark of true human liberty. Sir Henry Maine wrote, “Man’s rise to civilization is marked by the supersession of human status by contract.” Rentiers and Rent-Seekers attempting to harness the government to their ambitions frequently invoke the odious term. Psychopaths attempting to become government always invoke it. Fools and ignoramuses use the term because they believe that it sounds generous and marks them as deeply caring people.

  • I don’t think you meant to write “much-needed gap” there. The phrase is a slightly subtle way of insulting someone or something. If the gap is needed, then whatever is filling it is a bad thing. But you seem to like the MRFF, as I’d expect.

  • Waumpuscat:

    “Justice is solely concerned with the individual person, not with arbitrary sets or classes of persons, or it ceases to be justice.”

    I suppose you have little use for class-action lawsuits?

    Are you saying that American slaves, native Americans, German Jews, and Bosnian Muslims (to name a few) were not victims of collective injustice? I suppose we could think of the Holocaust as millions of individual acts of injustice, but why would we do that when they were all part of a systematic program?

  • Class action lawsuits have been perverted (I live fairly near Edwardsville, IL, which seems to be the mecca for trying the darn things… – look it up if you don’t trust me…).

    A law firm sees something, advertises and gets a whole buncha clients. They sue the big evil company, and get a settlement. The law firm makes a few million $$, and the members of the “class” that sued either get coupons, a few bucks back on their bills, or a check for $1.98 or so _if_ they fill out the paperwork to receive it. I’m sure you’ve seen it.

    Now, the concept sounds good, but sheesh… It just doesn’t work.

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