Assault on Religious Freedom in the House now on C-Span

[RainDog]

Rep. Chet Edwards of TX is on now defending the rights of Americans to maintain religious freedom and to stop the Republicans from using taxpayer money to institute "faith-tests" to determine who is worthy of federal relief, who may get a job, what religion, and in what form, Americans must follow in order to be considered an equal citizen with Bush's Talibornagains.

This is an attack on the Constitution, folks, and the House needs to hear from you. Contact your representative. contact Chet Edwards to thank him.

Contact those who are arguing for this horrible, horrible coercion.

Email everyone you know and have them contact their representatives NOW.

[G_j]

1. I gather this about the "faith based initiative"

what are they trying to decide exactly?

..no cable here

[RainDog]

3. block grant programs

which contains a provision which allows religious groups to discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring someone with taxpayer funded grants.

I hate the Talibornagains.

They are as bad as any Stalinist. They just cloak their totalitarianism in the word "faith"

They are promoting legislation which violates the separation of church and state, on of the fundamental issues in our Constitution and one of the fundamental issues which made democracy possible as an idea during the Enlightenment from which our govt is derived.

[Zero Gravitas]

2. WTF is a "faith test" ?

From Article V1, Clause 3 of the US Constitution: but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.



Receiving tax payer money should fall under the public trust part, right? Not only do the fundies not believe in the US Constitution they haven't even read or understood it.

Most fundies I have ever talked to on this issue don't believe me when I mention this part of the Constitution. They have swallowed whole the canard about the US being an explicitly Christian country when in fact the opposite is true.

[Mari333]

4. Thank goodness the Dems are showing spine

even many church groups are against this! for petes sake its pretty obvious they will use tax money to discriminate..
whats fun is if a Wiccan group gets faith based funds and then denies a christian a job...that would make the extremist fundies freak..
bad idea all around, and another way the b*sh admin wants to destroy social programs that are non faith based.

[undergroundpanther]

5. Check this link out

http://www.ombwatch.org/filemanager/fileview/29/