while i feel bad for what happened and that you and your sister are both frightened, to pin this on bush is fucking insane

while i feel bad for what happened and that you and your sister are both frightened, to pin this on bush is fucking insane

what i am pinning on bush is his not so subtle encouragement of the people who do these sorts of things.

mail fraud is a serious crime...but apparantly not in this person's eyes. all she knows is that

1) she is spreading the word of God
and
2) that the president agrees with her.

yeah, i'm sure this Delores chick was christian way before she even heard of Bush. that's just crazy. And though i agree you shouldn't be affraid living where you live when you have an alternative sexual orientation than most of the people around you, sadly you should kinda know what you are getting into when you live in Kentucky.

while i feel bad for what happened and that you and your sister are both frightened, to pin this on bush is fucking insane

the fact that you read into everything bush does to imply he is asking people to do this sorta thing is astounding

At least I know who you are now at the fuge.

they have lived in KY for a decade...my sister in law is from tennessee. their trouble started with this adminsitration.

bernadette has been approached by several of her neighbors and told that she is "an abomination in the eyes of the Lord". they have been harrassed at home. she has closeted herself at work (i think she's back out because her book outs her) and she is a professor at Morehead College...one would think that it would be safe to be gay in a college environment, but it was so bad when Bush got elected that she decided to hide her sexuality from her collegues and students.

go ahead and delude yourselves. pretty soon i'll be saying wacky things like: the religious right wants to take over the public schools and start to teach the bible as science...

oh wait. that is already happening.

Bush's openly fundamentalist beliefs and sneaky new laws that blur the lines between church and state

Could you give some examples of this? I'm trying to find a link to your statement that religious non-profits have more ability to discriminate, but no luck so far.

House Vote Allowing Religious Discrimination In Head Start Hiring Is Shameful, Says Americans United
Thursday, September 22, 2005

Church-State Watchdog Group Calls On Senate To Reject 'Faith-Based' Job Bias In Publicly Funded Program

The House of Representatives today voted 220-196 to allow religious discrimination in hiring for Head Start programs, a move Americans United for Separation of Church and State calls a serious blow to religious liberty and civil rights.

“This is a shameful vote,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Publicly funded programs ought to hire the best qualified applicant. I am outraged that House members have inserted religious discrimination into a program like Head Start.”

Aimed at academically disadvantaged youngsters and their families, Head Start is a federally funded pre-school program that operates nationwide. Although sometimes sponsored by religious groups, Head Start is a secular program open to children of all faith backgrounds.

Lynn said he is confident the Senate will not permit discriminatory language to remain in the bill.

“The vote in the House was quite close,” Lynn said, “and momentum is clearly building against taxpayer-funded job bias.”

Under the amendment approved today, religious groups that sponsor Head Start programs would be able to restrict hiring to members of their own faith. Such a move, Americans United contends, is completely unnecessary.

“Under this amendment, Americans could be denied Head Start jobs solely on the basis of religious belief,” Lynn said. “Why on earth would we encourage discrimination in a tax-funded program? It’s simply unacceptable.”

Lynn pointed out that since Head Start does not teach religion, there is no need for religious groups to engage in discriminatory hiring practices. Head Start staff, he said, should be chosen on their ability to work successfully with disadvantaged children.

Non-Christians need not apply


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Archive
By ROBYN E. BLUMNER, Times Perspective Columnist
Published August 13, 2006

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Thanks to President Bush and his plan to Christianize the nation's provision of social services, one's relationship with Jesus Christ has become a real resume booster. As author Michelle Goldberg reports in her new book, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, Bush has ushered in affirmative action for the born- again.

In 2005 alone, more than $2-billion in federal tax money went to faith-based programs for such services as job placement programs, addiction treatment and child mentoring. Overwhelmingly, this money went to groups affiliated with Christian religions.

This reallocation of social service money from secular agencies to religiously affiliated programs has also resulted in shifting employment opportunities. But some of these new employers have a shocking job requirement - only Christians need apply.

Goldberg cited the publicly funded Firm Foundation of Bradford, Pa., as a blatant example. The group provides prison inmates with job training, something one would think any trained professional could do. Well, think again. According to Goldberg, the group posted an ad for a site manager. It said that the applicant must be "a believer in Christ and Christian Life today, sharing these ideals when the opportunity arises." Apparently, experience and qualifications are secondary.

Transforming social welfare into conversion therapy was Bush's design when he made faith-based initiatives the priority of his administration's domestic agenda. And his success has been astounding.

Before Bush upended things, religious groups had always been enlisted by government as providers of social services. They just had to wholly separate their religious mission from their government-funded services. Under Bush, there has been substantial blurring of the line.

As to hiring, the law always allowed religious groups to discriminate on religious grounds - so that the Catholic Church could hire Catholic priests, for example - but that exemption did not extend to employees hired with public funds to provide social welfare. It was a simple, clear rule. If you took public money, you hired on the basis of merit, not piety.

But Bush wiped away this calibrated distinction by issuing a series of executive orders early in his presidency approving taxpayer financed religious discrimination.

Some of the resulting collateral damage has been tragic. Just talk to Anne Lown. She worked for 24 years for the Salvation Army in New York City before resigning due to the hostility she felt toward her non-Christian beliefs. The office she ran had hundreds of employees with an annual budget of $50-million, almost all of which came from public sources. Lown oversaw foster care placements, day care services, residential services for the developmentally disabled and many other programs.

In Lown's experience, the Salvation Army had always in the past been meticulous about keeping its evangelical side from mingling with its provision of social services, but all that changed in 2003. She attributes the change directly to Bush's policies. A lawsuit filed by Lown and another 17 current and former employees of the Salvation Army alleges that religion suddenly pervaded the agency's personnel decisions.

Lown says she was handed a form that all employees were expected to complete, asking for list of churches she attended over the last 10 years and the name of her present minister. Lown says she was told that indicating "not applicable" was not an option. A lawyer for the Salvation Army says the form was modified after complaints were received.

But Lown said that atmosphere was fear-inducing for the professional staff.

She pointed to a mission statement that all employees were required to support as a condition of employment. It stated that the organization's mission "is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Margaret Geissman, who is also part of the lawsuit, claims that she was asked by a supervisor to point out gay and non-Christian employees, with the overt suggestion that there would eventually be a purge of sorts. The Salvation Army denies this.

Despite the Salvation Army's disclaimers, Goldberg cites an internal Salvation Army document describing a deal struck in 2001 with the White House. In exchange for the administration passing regulations protecting faith-based groups from state and local antidiscrimination regulations relative to gays, the Salvation Army agreed to promote the administration's faith-based agenda.

Forget the proverbial wall. Here it is, church and state working hand-in-glove, with tax money and the government-sanctioned intolerance as the prize.

Meanwhile, money is flowing into religious coffers without anyone watching. A June report from the Government Accountability Office found that few government agencies that award grants to faith-based organizations bother to monitor whether the recipient is improperly mixing religion into their programs or discriminating against clients on the basis of religion. A few organizations contacted by the GAO even admitted to praying with clients while providing government-funded services. As to kicking out non-Christians on the staff, the Bush Justice Department says that it is perfectly okay.

Just another example of how, under this president, I hardly recognize my country anymore.

Grazie.

I'm kinda torn on that one. I have a bad feeling about a religious organization being forced to take on people that differ from their belief. At the same time, they are making a conscious choice to prefer a tax preference status. Ugh.

On a larger scale, maybe it's because I live in the relatively Godless Northwest, but I've just never felt this atmosphere at all--let alone this administration fueling the fire.

isn't the interior Northwest now pretty much a part of Mormon-dom?

But how about Idaho tying Ohio for the least dominant denominations? The other Idaho shocker: although it has the second-largest percentage of LDS members in the nation (14%), the Catholics edged them out at 15%, and non-religious people make up 19%.