Social services' use of religion tests limits (tax $$$ for proselytizing)

[Bozita]

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060112/NEWS07/601120483/1009

Social services' use of religion tests limits

U.S. found lacking in effort to watch the groups it funds

BY FRANK JAMES
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

January 12, 2006



WASHINGTON -- Faith-based groups are barred from proselytizing or engaging in other obvious religious activity when using federal money to help substance abusers or to encourage teenagers to abstain from premarital sex.

But a number of groups may have run afoul of that federal prohibition.

Lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation accuse faith-based organizations and the government of violating the constitutional separation of church and state. Meanwhile, experts say the Bush administration is doing too little to monitor religious groups that get federal money.

Critics cite the Silver Ring Thing program that advocates sexual abstinence to teens. It's known for pulsing, high-tech, multimedia shows at which teenagers can buy silver rings to symbolize their pledges to avoid sex until marriage.

more...

Found at the same link:

Flint facility at center of Michigan case

After Joseph Hanas pleaded guilty to marijuana possession, a Genesee County Circuit Court judge gave the 23-year-old Grand Blanc man a choice: Agree to live for a year at Inner City Christian Outreach, a faith-based residential facility in Flint, or go to jail.

Hanas chose Inner City, which is run by a Pentecostal church, and spent seven weeks there in 2003.

Hanas said staff members there told him his Catholic faith was witchcraft and prevented his priest from visiting him. And instead of getting substance-abuse treatment, Hanas said he was forced to read the Bible several hours each day, attend five hours of church on Sundays and told the only way he would successfully complete the program was to convert to the Pentecostal faith.

After three months, Judge Robert Ransom responded to Hanas' complaints by removing him and sending him to jail.

more...

[pinerow]

1. Dang...Damned if you do and damned if you don't...

:wtf:

[DBoon]

2. When are Catholics going to figure out

that all these "faith based" programs are going to be used against them

[Bridget Burke]

3. I've found one of the "Faith Based" texts!

www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0071/0071_01.asp

Many more available here!

[zann725]

4. George Bernard Shaw wrote "Major Barbara" re: religious force-feeding

those in need.

Which is EXACTLY WHY "social programs" belong OUT OF THE CHURCH, and part of government-based, non-religious-based aid.

Being disabled, or losing your job happens to "religious" people too...and is NOT bad fortune based on lack of said religion. The cure is government/social-based programs...NOT the Church getting ensnared in it (for the Church's own greedy non-profit Profit benefit).

[superconnected]

5. link to the 2nd artical listed on the original message

http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060112/NEWS07/601120483/1009

[central scrutinizer]

6. related problem

These faith-based social service agencies do not have to comply to federal hiring laws so they can openly discriminate against gays, people of other religions, etc. So not only are our tax dollars supporting proselytizing but also bigotry.

[MountainLaurel]

8. Additionally

They are not required to abide by requirements for certification and professionalism. So, a treatment center run by a state agency would require that all counselors have at least a master's degree in counseling, psychology, or substance abuse treatment, while the "faith-based" center that replaces it (and let's not kid ourselves: it's been shown that for every dollar going to faith-based institutions, the budget for the existing social services is cut) can hire Slappy the Fire and Brimstone preacher as their "counselor" and it's perfectly OK.

[central scrutinizer]

7. this is why so many Irish came to America

During the potato famine, British social service agencies were only helping those who renounced Catholicism. Three choices: convert, starve, or emigrate.

[HockeyMom]

9. West Point Foundry

This is what I discovered in my genealogical search for my family. When they started up the Foundry, they could not get Americans to work there: too dangerous. So the Foundry founders, went to Belfast and promised skilled workers free passage to America and schooling for their children if they would work the Foundry. The majority of them were Roman Catholics living in Protestant Northern Ireland who wanted to escape the religious intolerance and find a better life in America. The Foundry not only built a schoolhouse for the children, but a church, and houses for them to live in. They were basically "smuggled" into the USA at an upstate NY port.

From what I gathered, my great-great-grandfather was one of them. My great-grandfather was schooled until he was 16 in the Foundry Schoolhouse (for poor Irish unheard of at that time), about which time, the Civil War started and he enlisted at the age of 16.

[sarcasmo]

10. Get arrested and choose from jail or forced Christianity. Welcome to

the new Amerika.