Bush Created the Faith-based Initiative and Kerry Opposed It

[usregimechange]

Just one post in a series of why Kerry is 97 percent better than our current President.

[lcordero]

1. that's inaccurate

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/urban/

Invest in Faith-based Solutions. John Kerry believes that a strategy for enhancing our common life in our cities should include room for faith-based solutions. While making certain to honor the Constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state, Kerry's faith-based initiatives will make communities and families stronger. Kerry will provide new funding and support for faith-based charities or centers that provide social services for our children, families, seniors, as well as HIV/AIDS education, shelter, and programs for ex-offenders, drug prevention and job training.

[slinkerwink]

2. ahhh.....good post.

[usregimechange]

3. First I have heard of that.

:-( Ok, 96% better than Bush. Taking the foot out of my mouth and writing the Kerry campaign.

[slinkerwink]

5. that's why it's important to have delegates to the convention

to help write the Dem agenda for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008....

[sandnsea]

6. My town has no daycare

If the Lutheran Church decides to open one, should they be denied federal lunch monies?

[slinkerwink]

7. yes, because it goes against separation of church and government

[PurityOfEssence]

10. this may well be the first time I've ever agreed with you

Damn straight; it's wrong AND against the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

Watch it, though; the monarchists are going to use religion as a wedge issue this election, and our candidates will probably have to dodge them. Much as that depresses me, it's necessary for survival.

This is a very weird country; we don't just have a higher percentage of believers than any other industrialized nation, we have A MUCH higher percentage. Deee-pressing.

[slinkerwink]

11. it's time like these that I wish we didn't place so much of our

political stock in churches like England and Canada does. They're more secular countries than we are.

[LincolnMcGrath]

8. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

I'm sure none of us would be against a little lunch money, or gubmint cheese. This fight is about more.

Government-funded social service programs surrounded by or connected to religious messages or activities, however subtle or indirect, threaten to entangle a religious message with the provision of social services. The proposed regulation requires grantees to reassure beneficiaries that failure to participate in religious services will not affect the services they receive. It strains credulity to believe that individuals in need, particularly in the most dire personal circumstances, will always be in a condition to make a thoughtful and well-considered decision whether or not to participate in worship or similar activities offered by a religious social service provider. At the very least, additional safeguards should be included in the regulations, such as the requirement that religious activities be offered separately in time and location, and that the individuals actually providing government-funded social services not be involved in “offering” such religious activity to program recipients. In addition, the rule should make clear that, as provided in the Supreme Court’s decision in Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589 (1988) pervasively sectarian organizations should not receive direct funding. We also recommend that the rules include provisions to make clear that beneficiaries should have the right to receive services from a different or non-religious provider, in a manner at least as robust as in proposed SAMHSA rules.

Proposed 45 CFR Chapter X, Sec. 1050.3 (f) would require religious organizations to segregate their government funds from other funds, in part to properly insulate the religious group’s privately raised funds from unwarranted government audits. The problem, however, is that even segregation of funds is not sufficient to guarantee that government is not funding pervasively sectarian organizations such as churches. Particularly absent a requirement that any government funds supplement and not supplant church funds, the government grant frees church funds for other, religious missions. Conversely, government grants could lead to a decline in private contributions by parishioners of churches receiving funds, on the rationale that the government is picking up the slack, so that individuals can reduce their contributions. Again, to ensure that the program complies with the constitutional limits of the Establishment Clause as discussed in the proposed regulation, the final rule should make clear that pervasively sectarian organizations should not receive direct funding.

[lcordero]

13. YES YES YES YES

[jsw_81]

9. Kerry's position is different than Bush's

Bush wants to allow the various "faith-based" groups to be able to discriminate against gays and non-believers; Kerry does not and is a strong supporter of church/state separation 98 percent of the time.

[lcordero]

12. I do not support faith based solutions and I will not support it

in anyway that it is packaged. NO means NO.
I support church being COMPLETELY separated from my tax dollars.

[usregimechange]

4. faith based kerry?

"The voluntary character of the private choice to prefer a parochial education over an education in the public school system seems to me quite irrelevant to the question whether the government’s choice to pay for religious indoctrination is constitutionally permissible." Justice Stevens dissenting, ZELMAN V. SIMMONS-HARRIS (00-1751) 234 F.3d 945, reversed.