Barack Obama was the first President to recognize unbelievers in his inaugural address. He is also advancing the secularization of America in his stimulus by prohibiting the use of federal funds in building projects that might touch on religion.
The Boy Scouts has been a target of the left for a while. Though non-denominational, it has a strong sectarian influence in its rules, teachings, and beliefs structure.
According to the Supreme Court, the Boy Scouts can deny employment to gays because of the private nature of the organization. Ever since that decision, the left has tried to shut the scouts out of public buildings. The Democrats in Congress have taken up the shut down the scouts.
In both the House and Senate version of the stimulus there is a provision that is tailor made for the ACLU to shut down more boy scout troops, divinity schools, etc.
As Jeff Poor notes
Both versions of the bill, the House version (H.R. 1) that passed on Jan. 28 by a 244-188 margin, without a single Republican vote, and the Senate version (S. 336), which will probably be voted on in the next few days – include language that would “prohibit” modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities:
- used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or
- in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission
Such language is regrettable and could leave some institutions of higher learning susceptible to a legal action by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) according to a spokesman from South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint’s office. . . .
The bill includes $20 billion for school “modernization, renovation or repair of facilities” – with $14 billion for elementary and secondary schools and $6 billion for higher education, which includes the secular string attached.
What exactly is “a substantial portion”? If an organization lets the scouts meet in their facility, will they no longer be able to use government money to fix their building?
Will local school systems scared of losing funding shut down Christian student groups? Will schools that have religion departments shut down those departments lest they run afoul of the provisions?
In fact, the provision is so broad, it will very potentially have a chilling effect on all religious instruction and groups that have a religious affiliation. Never mind that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
KnightsofMalta
Dan Spencer
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Dan McLaughlin
Caleb Howe
So, a college that got stimulus money...
Moe Lane (Diary) Tuesday, February 3rd at 8:48PM EST (link)…could use it to renovate a building that had a cafeteria, but not one that had a chapel.
That’s just dumb.
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what if a group like Fellowship of Christian Atheletes meets in said cafeteria?
JustLeaveMeAlone (Diary) Tuesday, February 3rd at 9:23PM EST (link)This isn’t totally new — I remember a group I belonged to in high school, a club that studied the Bible before school two days a week, being told we could no longer meet in the empty school building. We moved to an adjacent drugstore’s lunch counter, where they were happy to have our business.
“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” Thomas Jefferson
But...
PD Tuesday, February 3rd at 9:07PM EST (link)(1) This provision is standard, boilerplate language that appears in identical or similar form in a large number of other existing statutes. It does not represent some new, sinister, plot by Godless Democrats.
(2) Nothing in this language has anything to do with the right of public schools to host meetings of religious organizations. That is a fact.
(3) In any event, I can’t figure out for the life of me what any of this has to do with the Boy Scouts.
(4) Whatever your views of Obama, it makes no sense to describe his as a secularist.
Boy are you just plain stupid.
mbecker908 (Diary) Tuesday, February 3rd at 9:18PM EST (link)I won’t even bother with 1, 2 or 3. Those are like playing T-Ball.
Number 4, however, is cute. Here’s a guy who sat in a “church” for over 20 years while the “pastor” preached a gospel of hate, of black separatism, and nothing even remotely resembling the Gospel of Christ. He then uses his inauguration to bring in “ministers” who he seems to think will buy him good will with the right and then with the far left, with obviously no thought to what an invocation or benediction should be about. And you’ve got the chutzpah to think that he’s anything but a secularist.
Sheesh.
Still, it supports the notion that the GOP senate
Praying (Diary) Tuesday, February 3rd at 9:19PM EST (link)should just reject the whole dang bill. Vote Nay.
No!!!11!1!!1!1! The Bilderbergers are coming
Don't worry, Mike Pence is enamored of Obama
katesmith (Diary) Tuesday, February 3rd at 9:27PM EST (link)I just heard Pence interviewed on Sean Hannity’s radio program and was horrified. His main point was that he believes Obama will do the best for the country with the stimulus, he really will, Sean, I believe him, he stopped by to talk to us as a group and he was so pleasant and agreeable to us. Before he left, Sean, I told him that my family and I are praying for him every day. Sean, it’s really the House Democrats that are the problem, Obama really wants to do the right thing. Pence made approx. this same point twice in the radio interview. Sean was left to suggest that Obama (as any politician) may be playing Good Cop to the House’s Bad Cop, and…Pence replies: Heh Heh.Doesn’t move off his point. Says in Indiana we believe people until they give us reason not to. Mr Pence, there are plenty of reasons not to. Sean practically begged the guy to realize that it’s not a stimulus plan but a plan to change all of our lives for the worse. Pence would not relent, he was in the room with Obama and he just believes him. It was embarrassing to listen to this man. Sorry to have to post this.
I just don't get it.
PD Tuesday, February 3rd at 9:48PM EST (link)Erick Erickson made some very specific claims in his post. But most of them are demonstrably wrong.
He said that the language about sectarian instruction, etc., represents Barack Obama’s effort to advance the “the secularization of America.” BUT whether or not you like the language, or think it makes sense, it is nothing new. It is boilerplate. It is standard. It is not part of any new plot, by Obama or anybody else.
Erickson also said that this language has something to do with the Boy Scouts. BUT it doesn’t.
He also said that this sort of language might lead public schools to stop allowing Christian groups to meet in their buildings. BUT the language has no such implication. Period. Besides,there’s a specific statute that’s been on the books for years that guarantees after-school religious groups the right to equal access to school facilities.
And he is concerned that private schools will shut down their religious departments. BUT schools have lived with similar provisions in federal statutes for years.
Now, I don’t fault Erick for the demonstrable errors and misstatements in his post. That sort of thing happens.
What I don’t get, really, is that nobody seems to care. It’s as if truth doesn’t matter. Frankly, it’s all very strange, and a bit depressing.
Hey PD...if it is demonstrably wrong..
Attack Mode (Diary) Wednesday, February 4th at 9:51AM EST (link)Then you should be able to link to other laws that contain this “boilerplate” language.
I will be waiting.
“Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper” Peter Griffin…Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity….or else!!!
Steel-Belted Radial Right Winger
“I’ll create 5 million jobs from out of unicorn farts and pixie dust” Justatron paraphrasing Obamessiah…yes I love it that much.
Since you ask....
PD Wednesday, February 4th at 7:38PM EST (link)Examples:
Funds appropriated under a certain higher education grant program “may not be used…for a school or department of divinity or any religious worship or sectarian activity”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode20/usc_sec_20_00001068—e000-.html
Funds appropriated under another program “may not be used…for a school or department of divinity or any religious worship or sectarian activity”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode20/usc_sec_20_00001103—e000-.html
Limitation contained in program to help historically black institutions: “No grant may be made under this chapter for any educational program, activity, or service related to sectarian instruction or religious worship, or provided by a school or department of divinity.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode20/usc_sec_20_00001062—-000-.html
Grants for work-study programs may “not involve the construction, operation, or maintenance of so much of any facility as is used or is to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00002753—-000-.html
Money used under a specific community development program subject to limitation that “no participant will be employed on projects involving political parties, or the construction, operation, or maintenance of so much of any facility as is used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00009807—-000-.html
Aid under program providing grants for volunteer service projects may not be used for ” projects involving the construction, operation, or maintenance of so much of any facility used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00005001—-000-.html
Energy resource graduate fellowships “shall be awarded under this subchapter for study at a school or department of divinity.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode30/usc_sec_30_00001325—-000-.html
Religious organizations participating in the “Community Schools Youth Services and Supervision Grant Program Act of 1994″ “shall not provide any sectarian instruction or sectarian worship in connection with an activity funded under this subchapter.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/search/display.html?terms=sectarian&url=/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00013791—-000-.html
Funds used under grant program for tribally controlled schools “shall not be used in connection with religious worship or sectarian instruction.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode25/usc_sec_25_00001803—-000-.html
Another construction program: “Participants shall not be employed under this chapter to carry out the construction, operation, or maintenance of any part of any facility that is used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship (except with respect to the maintenance of a facility that is not primarily or inherently devoted to sectarian instruction or religious worship, in a case in which the organization operating the facility is part of a program or activity providing services to participants).”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode29/usc_sec_29_00002938—-000-.html
Etc., etc., etc., etc.
PD you do realize that you changed the argument don't you???...
Attack Mode (Diary) Thursday, February 5th at 11:43AM EST (link)Erick didn’t say that this was new….he said that it “advances” the secularist goal. This is absolutely true. And linking to a bunch of Clinton era laws that contain the same language doesn’t negate in any way what Erick was saying.
That language does prohibit money from being used to modernize any buildings used for those purposes…so it does advance a previously existing goal.
So what is you beef?
“Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper” Peter Griffin…Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity….or else!!!
Steel-Belted Radial Right Winger
“I’ll create 5 million jobs from out of unicorn farts and pixie dust” Justatron paraphrasing Obamessiah…yes I love it that much.
This is really sophistry
PD Thursday, February 5th at 12:32PM EST (link)This is really sophistry now, pure and simple. The clear implication of Erick’s post was that Obama is trying to advance a secularist agenda by sneaking in some new, malevolent, legislative language. But I pointed out that the language is very traditional, and that similar language is routinely, and uncontroversially, included in legislation. You then challenged me: “Then you should be able to link to other laws that contain this ‘boilerplate’ language.” Clearly, you thought it made a difference whether I was right that such language was boilerplate. So I met your challenge. Now you say, in effect, never mind.
Please, please, just admit that Erick’s original post was a tempest in a teapot. You don’t have to like Obama, or Democrats. You don’t have to like these sort of provisions (though they are clearly required by James Madison’s original idea that the best way to nurture religious vitality is by, at the very least, strict financial separation between church and state). But just admit that, this one time, this one accusation was misguided and silly.
I am really appealing here to your own sense of self-respect, and Erick’s. Do you really want to appear to the world as someone so committed to attack mode that you embrace sophistry, manipulation, unreasoned stubbornness, and indifference to plain fact? Is that what our political debate has come to? (Yes, some folks on the left are equally or more guilty of sophistry, manipulation, unreasoned stubbornness, and indifference to plain fact. And shame on them too!)
PD...i am not engaging in sophistry...sorry you feel that way...
Attack Mode (Diary) Thursday, February 5th at 12:45PM EST (link)You made an assertion that Erick was wrong but provided no proof that he was wrong…and then I asked you to provide links….I read your links and found that it is the same type of language that is now in the stimulus and that that it does restrict what the money can be used on. This advances the secularist goal. Furthermore it advances the secularist goal via an economic stimulus plan. Can you really say with a clear conscience that this language belongs in an economic stimulus package?
For the record, I don’t believe in “separation of church and state” in the way that you are trying to sell it. Furthermore I don’t believe in the need for the government to be involved in education at all. Even furthermore, I don’t think modernizing building for schools has any place in an economic stimulus package.
Don’t worry about my sense of self respect btw, I sleep just fine at night.
And yes I hope Obama fails to remake our country in his image. Not because I don’t like Pres. Obama personally, rather because I believe that what he stands for is the antithesis of what the Founders stood for. Pres. Obama is no fan of the Constitution, therefore I am no fan of his.
“Land of the Free and Home of da Whopper” Peter Griffin…Family Guy
conform and celebrate diversity….or else!!!
Steel-Belted Radial Right Winger
“I’ll create 5 million jobs from out of unicorn farts and pixie dust” Justatron paraphrasing Obamessiah…yes I love it that much.
Minority Rule
bc3 Tuesday, February 3rd at 10:32PM EST (link)We have become a minority rule country.
bc3
right in line with the real sacred Liberal oath....
JLenardDetroit (Diary) Tuesday, February 3rd at 11:48PM EST (link)the line they mumble right before the “so help my God” part…..
‘I pledge to destroy the Religion I pretend for Political expedience to belong to to get me those suckers votes….’
Liberals worship Government, God is secondary if anywhere at all in their concern/thinking…. In order to pretend to be human they go to Churches but don’t ever pay attention to anything that is said/taught there…. Isn’t that what Obama has proven… He NEVER heard anything Rev. Wright (good or bad) said…. lol
O =
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saintgeorgegentile Wednesday, February 4th at 12:07AM EST (link)There is no reason that the Federal government should be funding any education in any state.
Any way we can raise Goldwater from the dead, he’s needed now more than ever.
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Will this legislation also be applied to Islamic schools in this country?
janis (Diary) Thursday, February 5th at 12:54PM EST (link)Like the one in Minnesota that is publicly funded and has all those neat footbaths and things? Because as much as I hate this kind of meddling with ” money + education= no God” then it had dam**d well better be applied across the board. Wanna get rid of the Boy Scouts? Okay, then it’s also time to get rid of every last bit of public funding for construction/improvements/modernizing for ANY school or building that is used for Islamic worship of any kind.