Posted on 11/27/2004 2:50:54 PM PST by wagglebee
The Wisconsin-based atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing to cut off federal funding to a Christian child-mentoring program that helps troubled kids.
Last year, the federal government awarded a $225,000 contract, part of $9 million awarded to 52 Arizona groups, to Phoenix-based MentorKids USA, according to the Madison, Wisc.-based Capital Times.
The lawsuit, presided over by U.S. Judge John Shabaz, is demanding a summary judgment that federal funding of the program cease until the government "has a demonstrated plan in place to comply with its constitutional obligations," reports the Wisconsin paper.
Citing the First Amendment, the atheist foundation said, "Mentoring to convert is not a suitable social service to be provided by the government," said the report.
MentorKids USA was launched in 1997 by Orville Krieger, in partnership with Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship, "to address the needs of at-risk youth in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area by matching caring Christian adults with youth ages 8-17 who showed warning signs of becoming criminal offenders," says the Christian organization's website.
Originally called Phoenix MatchPoint, the group changed its name last January to MentorKids USA. It has a long and successful track record in mentoring children in trouble with the law, who have dysfunctional family backgrounds, have been physically or sexually abused or who are involved with drug or alcohol abuse. To date, MentorKids USA has helped over 500 kids.
In the program, mentors commit time each week to be a friend and role model for an at-risk youth. The mentors "offer concrete expressions of unconditional love and support to the mentee," says the group's website, "and the two participate in activities designed to build friendship, trust, and constructive values."
Some of the Freedom From Religion Foundation's "legal accomplishments," according to its website, include:
Winning the first federal lawsuit challenging direct funding by the government of a faith-based agency
Overturning a state Good Friday holiday
Winning a lawsuit barring direct taxpayer subsidy of religious schools
Removing Ten Commandments monuments and crosses from public land
Halting the Post Office from issuing religious cancellations
Ending 51 years years of illegal bible instruction in public schools
According to its website, the non-profit foundation was incorporated in Wisconsin in 1978 and is "a national membership association of freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree."
Why is it concerned with what it calls "state/church entanglement?"
"First Amendment violations are accelerating," says the group's website. "The religious right is campaigning to raid the public till and advance religion at taxpayer expense, attacking our secular public schools, the rights of nonbelievers, and the Establishment Clause.
"The Foundation recognizes that the United States was first among nations to adopt a secular Constitution. The founders who wrote the U.S. Constitution wanted citizens to be free to support the church of their choice, or no religion at all. Our Constitution was very purposefully written to be a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary.
"It is vital to buttress the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation between church and state' which has served our nation so well."
But William Rehnquist, current chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, says this view put forth by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU and similar groups is a fiction and mockery of the true meaning of the First Amendment.
The Establishment Clause, explained Rehnquist in a 1985 opinion, "forbade establishment of a national religion, and forbade preference among religious sects or denominations. … The Establishment Clause did not require government neutrality between religion and irreligion nor did it prohibit the Federal Government from providing nondiscriminatory aid to religion. There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the 'wall of separation' [between church and state]."
I agree. I don't think this obstructs us from asking people what their religion is before they immigrate, but that's a separate issue.
Selective use of history
They already have reservations.
Hm, here in Indiana, it's ALWAYS been "taught" in the 9th grade. At my school, with a disclaimer by the teacher.
"from either perspective"
How well reasoned and .... moderate. It is true that the USC has been used to force Christianity on others. I can't think of any examples offhand, but I'm sure there are many. And that would certainly excuse the Christians being made into second class citizens today. < /sarcasm >
Are you suggesting there wouldn't ever arise a problem with religious oppression if our first amendment weren't in effect? The history of the Reformation should strongly suggest otherwise. Despite considering themselves protestants, the Puritans who immigrated to America built some of the most religiously oppressive communities in history. Oh no, you can't dismiss the entire reason for the first amendment with a simple sarcasm tag. These tendencies toward tyranny are inborn in every human being, just as are the rights we claim. Man's own weakness is precisely why we established checks on political power, including those who would distort religion to those ends.
You've made some very valid points, JW.
I'm afraid Zero has a hermetically sealed mind.
suing to cut off federal funding to a Christian child-mentoring program that helps troubled kids.
Just take out "Christian". Problem solved. Arrrrrggghhhhhhhh!
Yes, those puritans. Must the US carry the bag for oppression not under the USC? I think it is the USC which protects us from most religious oppression, excepting for recent problems with atheists using it to oppress Christians, as well as others who don't share their beliefs. So step off your soap box, and make a reasoned argument, your post is a meaningless rant.
If you argue otherwise, you'll have a good portion of the devout fundamentalists who know their Bibles as well as anyone else who knows his religious history against you. As much as you've probably suspected already, the real problem is a culture war against all of us. It's not just Christianity these culture guerrillas aim to destroy! But it's important to know the enemy; the ACLU is just a symptom of the problem. Dividing people into "believers" and "unbelievers" is completely ineffective in dealing with the problem. It's a simplistic approach that makes the leaders of the attack laugh in our faces.
The true enemy is cultural relativism, moral equivocation, and post-structuralism. It is being taught in our schools, it's in our news and entertainment media, and it's the leading platform of our philosophers. It's even in churches. It's an all out attack on the truth. The Constitution can't help with this war because it requires people to think rationally. Imparting Christian dogma into government won't solve the problem, because it will return us to the religious civil wars of Europe's sordid past.
The Founding Fathers knew that. They struck a good balance between atheism and theocracy with the Constitution as it is written.
In an interesting inverse to the Christian right's demand that we abandon reason and logical persuasion for their own politically motivated religious reasons, the left neutralizes language altogether by twisting it around with cultural relativism and deconstruction. This is why I see both sides of that battle when it becomes legal as being two sides of a common threat to the republic. They both demand that we cease to be rational beings, one way or another.
Religious persecution is important to obstruct, but I've heard Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell exaggerate its prevalence far too many times to give them any credibility. Sure it happens, but it's more rare than they would have us believe. That suits them fine, though. They make buckets of money every time they convince the faithful that a Christian is being thrown to the lions. In the case that started this thread, I would be a lot more comfortable with the whole notion of "faith based initiative" if it didn't fund muslims and wiccans. But then how do you argue for religious balance in federal funding? What a novel idea: let's let churches fund their own activities!
Without rational dependence on language, a democratic republic cannot stand. Don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution. Religion can't be restored by government. It has to come from the people themselves.
Liberals dread teaching troubled kids the right values to help them be successful in life cause they might grow up to be good Christians. There's a hate crime right there. <shudder No wonder the ACLU sees this mentoring program as unconstitutional. If it was run by Islamists or atheists it wouldn't even be brought before a court.
Moral Absolutes Ping. It's too late for me to think. and Rehnquist's comments at the end say it all anyway.
But - isn't it crazy when the mentoring program is "bad" because religious believers are helping kids, but "Big Brothers and Sisters" is allowed to have admitted homosexuals preying on youth?
So - this is the translation. Christians and other religious believers - BAD. Homosexuals and atheists - GOOD. Government must discriminate against religious believers, thereby giving preference to atheists and non-believers, and, of course, the resident saints - homosexuals.
Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
They want all religious believers to be closeted. They probably woudn't mind so much, if prayer, worship and the like are all done at home with the doors shut.
Or at church, or to oneself while in public, or just about anywhere that doesn't involve government encouragement or finances. We're not anti-religion, just against the mixing of church and state in any form and on any level.
But doesn't the fed AND the state get their money from the same source? What difference should it make who administers the program if its financed by the same tax dollar?
It boils down to the question of whether government, state or federal, should be collecting tax dollars from non-believers to pay for the religious education or indoctrination of someone?
I think a case could be made in favor of government funding this type of program if it already pays for programs of an opposing nature in the public schools -- the quality and goals of sex educators and their perversions.
But to be fair, practical, and constitutional, we should stop funding for both types of programs and require parents to train and raise their children.
LOL, success yes, but no neice or nephew on the way. That will happen in due time. Right now, the visa is the top priority.
A nice long post. Unfortunately, I don't think it addresses the question at hand, although it does a fine jig all around it. From our short dialogue, I think it safe to say we mostly agree on this issue. However, I think we view it a bit differently. I am a Christian. I believe each person may worship God, or not, in whatever way they choose. I think the laws of the land should uphold this basic human right. I think they do.
Do I think the law should eliminate religion from the public square? No. We are engage in a war between believers and unbelievers. The unbelievers use the tools of 'cultural relativism, moral equivocation, and post-structuralism' to good advantage. But many do not buy into the message. I'm one of them.
Yes, my honey is afraid of it, and even though Taal is a very samll volcano, I imagine it could do serious damage if it blows. Pinatubo was a small one too, and look what it did, so I will probably settle in a different area. They have some very fancy, secure, gated communities there. I saw a lot of them when I was there 3 weeks ago. The Muslims, for the most part, are in Western Mindanao. Last year, I was in eastern Mindanao, and it was much safer than most American cities. It was safer than Manila. American men, for the most part, are treated like kings, more than Amwerican women are.
Thanx
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