Can Bush Fund Faith-Base Conferences?

Supreme Court To Hear First Amendment Case Challenging The White House's First Initiative

(CBS)  One of the first initiatives George W. Bush pushed as president will be challenged next week in the Supreme Court. As CBS News correspondent Thalia Assuras reports, the high court will hear arguments on Wednesday in the first First Amendment case directly related to Mr. Bush's faith-based programs.

Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor don't seem like much of a threat, but if they have their way, faith-based conferences – like the one the president hosted in Washington on March of 2006 – could disappear.

"I appreciate your attendance," Mr. Bush said at the second White House National Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. "I take this conference very seriously."

The conferences, one component of Mr. Bush's faith-based initiative, are designed to help religious groups get access to federal funding. Eleven cabinet offices have centers for faith-based programs, which operate in many states to help those in need.

In 2006, a lower court said the Freedom from Religion Foundation, headed by Gaylor and Barker, had legal standing as taxpayers to challenge the White House practice of spending money on the conferences. The administration appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

"We're challenging the creation of the faith-based offices at the White House and cabinet levels," Gaylor said. "And their faith based bureaucracy, what they've set up, with multi-million dollars."

Their argument: that the funding of the conferences violates the separation between church and state and is unconstitutional. The president has insisted the programs are on the correct side of that wall and that they work.

"If you're addicted to alcohol, if a faith program is able to get you off alcohol, we ought to say hallelujah and thanks at the federal level," Mr. Bush said at the 2006 conference.

"I understand people saying I don't like my money going to that particular process, but, you know what, you and I both pay taxes, and there are things the government funds that I don't like," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. "But that's part of the deal, part of being American. You can't simply object because your portion of your tax dollars is going to something you really don't like. It's just not the way the system works.

Sekulow's group has filed a friend of the court brief supporting the administration in the upcoming case.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation has brought successful challenges to faith-based programs in the past, including "MentorKids" – a program that had its funding suspended in 2005 after the foundation sued claiming the group accepted only church-going mentors.

If this week's court case challenging the conferences is decided against them, Gaylor and Barker say they won't give up.

"We can still challenge individual applications. We can still go after the MentorKids. We can still go after specific allocations if we do see violations of church-state separation," Barker said. "So that wouldn't stop."

[josephinew-2009]

I know firsthand that this FAITH BASED INITIATIVE DOES NOT SUPPORT RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES!!! If any one of you would attend the conference, you will see that one CANNOT use the money to promote or teach religion with that money. I personally have looked into this only to find out that our "religious" organization who have been taking abandoned children out of the government's FOSTER CARE SYSTEM and getting them adopted into stable homes for FREE (as we raise the money to pay for the adoptions ourselves)cannot qualify for "government" money because we adopt to Christians. So, for all you atheists spectators out there, do your homework before you clutter the courts with your wild accusations!

I don't know why this would be called faith-based except for the fact that the government will not discriminate against Ta-paying Americans who are Christians.

As for all the other unnecessary comments on Christians, all I can say is that this life on earth is not your own and one day you will know the truth. May the Lord have mercy on you!

[r22037]

ask.com and type in virgin, menses, stools, urine and you will find that allah creates such type virgins for his male slaves. If you are going to have a faith-based program for Christians you have to sack the 1st Amendment and have one for all religions such as Rev. 22 where Christ threatens to kill Jezebel for her fornication. I'm simply saying: Sack faith-based tax dollars not the 1st Amendment. Richard Grimes [e-mail]

[randalds]

-Hey RandalDS, Your hatred is astronomical, your lies are neverending, your insults and ridicule against all those who actually stand up for Christ instead of "pacifying" are continuous, and your continuous rejection of the Truth speaks just like the likes of an atheist.

Posted by singinrick at 09:58 PM : Feb 25, 2007

Well I'm compulsively honest, so the lying is not true and I don't hate god, because he/she/it doesn't exist. However as for the rest of it, thanks.

[scott4261]

The influence of Jerry Falwell in the early days of the Ronald Reagan's first term set the tone for the religious right-wing takeover of that is now rotting the Republican Party from the inside.

[scott4261]

The influence of Jerry Falwell in the early days of the Ronald Reagan's first term set the tone for the religious right-wing takeover of that is now rotting the Republican Party from the inside today.

[scott4261]

I firmly believe that government and religion are each best served without influencing the other. The Southern Baptist Convention strongly supported the separation of church and State until the 1980s. Until then, even the devoutly religious held to the belief that every American has the right to believe or not to believe as he or she sees fit. That is my belief. And in my opinion, to see it any other way is, well, un-American!

[gunownerdan]

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"
-- James Madison, "Memorial and Remonstrance," 1785
www.AU.org

[scott4261]

OK, rick. And even though you didn't bring this up, I did mention my LTR in the civil unions threads.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear you are a product of Exodus' ex-gay ministries. You are truly obsessed. Good luck in winning converts to "conversion therapy."

May the Peace of the Lord be with you, rick

Scott

[jdweymouth]

bvckvs: They already ruled on this one when the EO was issued. They ruled it constitutional.

[bvckvs-2009]

I'll be glad when the Supreme Court finally starts ruling on Bush's various crimes - civil and criminal. His on-the-clock pursuit of his hate-based, apocalyptic faith has seriously damaged our nation.

[scott4261]

Letter to rick
(1of 2)

Rick,

As I told you, my repentance is between God and me. And I have also told you that I have reconciled my sexuality and my spirituality. And since I am comfortable with my relationship with God, why should I have to explain anything else to you?

But I do want to share this, so pay attention:

As far as my salvation is concerned, I made that commitment when I was 16, rick. Since then, I have changed and gone through many different chapters in my life. My faith has sustained me through the hardest moments of my life and has been most rewarding in the best. No one can take that away from me. Not you, not anybody.

Growing up gay was not easy. It's hard to explain unless you are and I know you are not really interested, because all you have in your mind is your belief that I'm sinning. My sexuality - whether I'm celibate or in a long-term relationship or whatever - is private and, quite honestly, none of your business. Now you may say that I came out on these boards, but I only revealed that I am gay and nothing more.

[scott4261]

(2 of 2)

Now I know you understand the vast difference between Baptist and Episcopal churches. But see, I am an Episcopalian. That is my tradition of faith. My mom, my brother and his family are Roman Catholic. My dad and his wife are Methodist.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because even among Christians, we have different traditions of faith. I owe you no further explanation and I certainly do not have to justify my faith to you.

And on the point of this thread, I firmly believe that government and religion are each best served without influencing the other. The Southern Baptist Convention strongly supported the separation of church and State until the 1980s. Until then, even devoutly religious held to the belief that every American has the right to believe or not to believe as he or she sees fit. That is my belief. And in my opinion, to see it any other way is, well, un-American!

We don't have to see things in the same way, even as Christians. And I really do not want or need a reply from you. I just had to get that out.

My the peace of God be with you, rick.

Scott

[moxford0]

I just wonder how many Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto, Taoist, or Mormon faith based progams George Bush would fund. It's the same old story from President 666 himself. I never put down Christians, just the crazies;the American version of the Taleban

[j-whitman]

Rick,,, Or, how about not fixing the rapidly increasing abject poverty that's been rising since 2002,,, Wouldn't that be a sin ??

[j-whitman]

Rick,,,, Wouldn't a sin be in supporting bad policies that hurt our troops ???

[sanfelz]

The proper response to organized religious terrorists is not to become followers of a different organized religious fundamentalist sect.
Bush thinks he is talking to God when he should be talking to a psychiatrist.

[toolmangler-2009]

Don't you get it yet? "Freedom From Religion" is just as bad as "Religious Government".
I posted this before but you didn't pay attention. Please 'think'...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

Bush and congress should leave religion out of politics. Let the people make and fund their own programs. Quit 'Organizing Religion by GVMT' decree. The politictions that use religion to further their own agendas are not to be trusted. Keep religion and politics seperate. You are so busy 'back-biting or stabbing' that the real enemy will walk over your corpses because you never learn...

[scott4261]

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Government and religion are not supposed to be linked. At all. Period.

You may think I'm as nutty to the left as I think you are to the right, but I don't care. Why do you think I posted the Bill of Rights last week? It's because the George W. Bush administration has compromised the 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Amendments of the Constitution with the USAPATRIOT ACT. The faith based initiative is a violation of our 1st Amendment rights. Now this SHOULD be of concern even to a conservative like you. In fact, left or right politics should really have nothing to do with it.

I want my country back!

[scott4261]

And the rest of us a freightened that we are becoming Nazi Germany.

We are not becoming the U.S.S.A, Hawk, and no one is going to take away your guns.....

[scott4261]

...Unfortunately, I have become disillusioned with Christianity. I see it as a wealthy enterprise that is turning more radical and politically powerful every day. This is what scares me.........
It happened in Germany and it can happen here.
Posted by DawnKing2 at 07:45 PM

--------

I hear ya loud and clear! And for the record, I've been through that! It is important to note that not all Christians are on that page.

The danger of those whom I call the Flat Earth Society is that they DO buy into the same fear that is adapted from the Nazi playbook and sold through the Bush administration. Hook, line, and sinker!

They absolutely can't see that George W. Bush is an incompetent boob beholden to the oil industry and that the administration is corrupt from the top down. I rwally can't help that. And my only consolation is knowing that their number is shrinking and getting smaller. Now if we can just make it through the next two years.....