Separation of Church and State

"Follow the money." That's one standby in journalism. Another could be "follow the invitations."

We've seen an example, recently, of what can happen when the credentials of someone the Bush administration favors were exposed to public scrutiny. But there are an awful lot of White House cronies getting a free ride.

The Washington Post provoked a firestorm this January, when it pointed out that the Bush administration had nominated Jerry Thacker, a Christian conservative, to the president's council on HIV and AIDS.

Thacker has called AIDS the "gay plague" and homosexuality a "deathstyle." His words showed up on the World Wide Web in various places, until they were purged. The same day that the Post story ran, Thacker withdrew his nomination, which made more news.

But what was missing in all the coverage of this aborted nomination, was any word on the members who remain on Bush's council.

As the Post revealed, Thacker's a wacky guy with unscientific views about homosexuality, AIDS transmission and how to preserve the public health, but he is far from alone in the Bush administration in holding those beliefs, and he wouldn't have been alone on the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA).

Check out the list drawn up by the group, People for the American Way, and you find that PACHA's Director is Patricia Funderburk Ware, described as "a key advocate of abstinence-only sex education." Ware, like many in the administration, supports teaching kids about abstinence only, when it comes to sex, and banning any other information about what might help protect against disease.

PACHA's co-chair is Former Republican Rep. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a Religious Right leader with a 100 percent rating from the Christian Coalition. Coburn's on the board of Gary Bauer's Family Research Council which also opposes comprehensive sex education.

Another member is Dr. Joe McIlhaney, director of something called the Medical Institute in Texas. A colleague who worked with McIlhaney told the Austin Chronicle that he refuses even to talk about condoms, despite years of science showing that proper condom use saves lives.

Thacker was wrong, and now he's gone, but that's only one half of the story. The public got another half story, January 29, when the press covered a guest at the President's State of the Union address.

Writing about one of those invited to sit with the first lady, The New York Times (among others) mentioned Tonja Myles, director of an anti-drug addiction program at the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Mr. Bush talked about the Healing Place in his speech.

The religious nature of Myles' program, said the Times, "illustrates the concerns of critics who worry about the separation of church and state." Readers would have been better equipped to assess those "critics" concerns had they known that Myles testified in 2001 at the Louisiana legislature in favor of a creationist-sponsored resolution.

The resolution, which passed, over the objections of educators and scholars, declares that Darwin and evolution are racist, "Ku Klux Klan thinking." Myles' record was reported in the Lousiana Advocate.

One can hope that in the next few weeks, the media will bring us lots of in depth coverage of those nominees whom the Bush administration would see confirmed to the federal bench. But when it comes to spending public money or framing the public's policy, not only judges count.

The people whom the Bush administration embraces are the American public's business, and we rely on journalists to bring us all the picture, not just part of it.

Delay isn't exactly a politician known for plain-speaking. But in a confessional moment, recently reported by The Washington Post, Delay's remarks to a Texas Baptist church summed up his view of what's right and wrong in America -- and for America.

"Ladies and gentlemen,' Delay told the congregation, "Christianity offers the only viable, reasonable, definitive answer to the questions of 'Where did I come from?' 'Why am I here?' 'Where am I going?' 'Does life have any meaningful purpose?'

One of the earliest and most vociferous critics of President Bush's faith-based initiative is smiling all the way to the bank. In early October, Tommy Thompson's Department of Health and Human Services awarded a $500,000 Compassion Capital Fund grant to televangelist Pat Robertson's Virginia-based Operation Blessing International.



Operation Blessing was among 21 groups receiving a total of $25 million from HHS. The Associated Press reported that grants from the Compassion Capital Fund "were designed to provide technical assistance to smaller churches and others that need help applying for and running government programs." Although HHS has indicated that smaller groups dealing with homelessness, hunger, at-risk children, welfare to work, drug addicts and prisoners "should get priority for the sub-grants," in the end, the primary grantees will be making those decisions.

Perhaps you are looking for an on/off switch here, some Presidential Proclamation written in lamb's blood decreeing Christianity (Born Again Version) the official state faith.

Of course, that's not what one living in a modern state is to be alert to. Rather it is the appointments of personnel to key positions, the redirection of government funds, the statements that reveal not a pluralist leaning but a push towards a singular direction. And the justification that the righteous truth of the one real faith was indeed appreciated by the framers, who intended a country within that faith.

So tonight, we must forge a new social compact to meet the challenges of this time. As we enter a new era, we need a new set of understandings, not just with government, but even more important, with one another as Americans.

That's what I want to talk with you about tonight. I call it the New Covenant. But it's grounded in a very, very old idea -- that all Americans have not just a right, but a solid responsibility to rise as far as their God-given talents and determination can take them; and to give something back to their communities and their country in return. Opportunity and responsibility: They go hand in hand. We can't have one without the other. And our national community can't hold together without both.

Our New Covenant is a new set of understandings for how we can equip our people to meet the challenges of a new economy, how we can change the way our government works to fit a different time, and, above all, how we can repair the damaged bonds in our society and come together behind our common purpose.
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We all gain when we give, and we reap what we sow. That's at the heart of this New Covenant -- responsibility, opportunity and citizenship. More than stale chapters in some remote civics book; they're still the virtue by which we can fulfill ourselves and reach our God-given potential and be like them; and also to fulfill the eternal promise of this country -- the enduring dream from that first and most sacred covenant.

I believe every person in this country still believes that we are created equal, and given by our Creator, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is a very, very great country. And our best days are still to come.

Thank you, and God bless you all.

Don't Jews and Muslims think their faith is the one true faith?

And--as usual--you and others have ignored my question as to federal discrimination against religious groups.

I also noted that in that list of faith based organizations receiving largesse there seem to be none of the Muslim or Jewish faiths listed.

Now, if you are willing to acknowledge that evangelical christianity as presently constituted and as presently influential might POSSIBLY be a danger to separation (thus liberty), I'll go to the further trouble of researching and arguing specific cases.

Quote:

I also noted that in that list of faith based organizations receiving largesse there seem to be none of the Muslim or Jewish faiths listed.

Sorta jumps out at ya, doesn't it?

timber