U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman
and Diane Cohen, co-director
of Partners for Sacred Places,
at the Omega Seventh-day Adventist
Church on Winthrop Avenue in New Haven
Monday. Mia M. Malafronte/Register
Posted on 12/18/2001 8:44:21 AM PST by the
U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman
and Diane Cohen, co-director
of Partners for Sacred Places,
at the Omega Seventh-day Adventist
Church on Winthrop Avenue in New Haven
Monday. Mia M. Malafronte/Register
Why not?
We're spemding millions dropping cakes out of airplanes in Afghanistan to celebrate Ramadan, aren't we?
http://hotx.com/missions/info.html
How the National Park Service runs ANY active church is beyond me. I must have been sick the day my Constitutional Law professor covered how the 1st Amendment forbids local schools from even allowing prayer, while allowing the U.S. Government to maintain and operate churches.
"We can't tell American history . . . without talking about the history of our sacred places"It is far more important, IMHO, to talk about the religious component of American (especially immigrant) culture.
Firstly, it is a historical fact that Europe was "Christendom" at the time of the immigration of our Founding Fathers (or their ancestors).The First Amendment is an artifact of the variety of Christian denominations in America which were strong enough to wield an effective veto over any federal established church--or federally established atheism, which now seems much more possible than the framers would then have believed.Secondly, the map of percentage of various ethnic groups correlates with the percentages of corresponding religious affiliations.
Amen
Creech acknowledged he's concerned about the strings that governmental agencies might attach to such aid.He added a program could work as long as churches could continue to infuse their work with nondenominational spirituality.
</sarcasm>
</tinfoil>
Do you think they remembered to use "all-vegetable" shortening?
1. First Amendment violation
2. 10th Amendment violation
3. Tax benefits provided to non-taxpayers
4. Sets exceedingly horrible precedent (taxpayers funding construction of churches)
"…to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards…"
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
Raising money for the construcion of churches must always be a voluntary venture. NEVER must the metaphorical tax agent come to your door and say, "We're building/fixing a church. It doesn't matter if you share its religious convictions. PAY UP OR ELSE."
Some may call that 'winning the hearts and minds' of the locals in a matter of national security.
But even if it isn't right, even if it isn't constitutional, it in no way justifies another wrong.
And how!
The land of Yale, the Alan Gutmacher Institute, Christopher Dodd, etc., etc., ad nauseaum.
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