White House Aide Angers Pagans; Towey Suggests Groups Lack Concern for the Poor

Washington Post ^ | 12/8/03 | Alan Cooperman

[Jean S]

H. James Towey, director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has stirred up a pot of trouble by suggesting that pagans don't care about the poor.

Wiccans, Druids and other pagans across the country, along with the Washington-based advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are demanding an apology from Towey for his remarks in a White House-sponsored online chat Nov. 26.

According to the official transcript, Towey was asked by someone in Centralia, Mo., whether pagan groups "should be given the same considerations as any other group" that applies for government funds.

[danneskjold]

uh, oh...Towey may get a spell cast on him...

[theDentist]

"The poor ain't so bad." -History of the World, Part 1.

[Dead Corpse]

I see nothing wrong with his statement. He's right. Most of these so-called "pagans" are mush headed uber-liberals. They want someone ELSE to take care of the poor instead of going out and doing some good themselves. Particularly, they want GOVERNMENT to do something with someone ELSES money.

[kitkat]

Towey was right.

[Grut]

They want someone ELSE to take care of the poor instead of going out and doing some good themselves. Particularly, they want GOVERNMENT to do something with someone ELSES money.

Yes, but that is 'caring for the poor', isn't it? ;^)

[mcg1969]

Although pagans across the country have sent letters and e-mails to the White House calling Towey's remarks hateful and discriminatory, Cather Steincamp, a pagan author and activist in Richmond, said the furor has also led to "some self-criticism within our community about what we should be doing."

Good for him/her for saying so. If they're so damn pissed off, the best thing they can possibly do is prove him wrong.

[Semper Paratus]

Well you can kiss off 'Pagans for Bush' now.

[RonF]

After reading the article, and seeing that there are pagan groups out there that do work and contribute money for the poor, it seems pretty obvious that Towey stuck his foot in his mouth and should apologize.

[Indrid Cold]

Most pagans have a hard enough time providing for themselves and their families, much less being able to volunteer time to help anybody else. So yeah, I could see how they'd like the government to step in. It's not the solution I'd choose, but I can see why they think that way.

Someday I'll start a program to teach pagans how to be rich.

Indrid Cold
Wiccan since 1987

[mcg1969]

The people of Mississippi rank 50th on average adjusted gross income (income) but 6th in average itemized charitable deductions (giving)...

The people of Arkansas rank 47th on income but 5th in giving...

The people of South Dakota rank 45th on income but 8th in giving...

And so on...

What do they know that pagans don't?

http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org/cfp/db/generosity.php?year=2003

Some may suggest this survey is biased. It may be---but not in the way you think. From elsewhere in this website: "The Generosity Index™ (GI) was conceived in 1997 as a concise way to summarize Massachusetts' and New England's greatest problem in philanthropy: that we have the nation's largest gap between our ranks in income and our ranks in charitable giving."

In other words, the generosity index was invented by people from the very states that are the least charitable, for the express purpose of highlighting that fact!

[gcruse]

H. James Towey, director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has stirred up a pot of trouble by suggesting that pagans don't care about the poor.

What kind of cretins has Bush put in office....Ashcroft isn't an exception, is he?

[RJCogburn]

What kind of cretins has Bush put in office....Ashcroft isn't an exception, is he?

I don't know that Ashcroft is a cretin but he is certainly a sanctimonious fraud and a dangerous man.

This type of stuff was predicatable with Bush's stupid faith based thingy....just one more reason that I shall not vote for him again.

[Indrid Cold]

That's an interesting approach, but I think it's not a proper comparison. Consider other religous groups, say, the Amish or Pentecostals. I imagine their statistics would be similarly skewed if compared to a state which is made up of people of many different faiths. Further, your study only covers itemized charitable deductions, which would mean that the donor would have to have an income big enough to worry about taking the writeoff.

Pagans do a lot of volunteer work, including prison outreach, picking up litter, and whatnot, but they're not shown as being big money donors to pagan organizations because a) they don't have any, and b) there aren't that many pagan orgs that are on a size or money level to bother with filing taxes.

I dunno. I'd almost want to say they're similar to non-casino-owning reservation Indians--plenty of people helping people, not a whole lot of paperwork.

[drhogan]

there may e more to this than is apparent. when christianity first started out, before big charities existed, there was a real ethic of the christian community helping others--but i think the people being helped were largely poor christians, as opposed to e.g., poor pagans or romans or jews. this ethic still exists, indpendently of the big charitable organizations.
i don't know whether there is a communcal ethic of pagans helping the pagan poor. the pagan stuff that i have read doesn't focus on it--they seem very focused on the environment. so the real question is not about how much money is being donated to the poor, but how strongly an ethic of helping the poor is being emphasized by pagans. but pagans will have to answer this question; i don't know the answer.