March 5, 2001
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On January 29, president Bush proudly unveiled the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to help ensure that religious groups can receive public funds for social services. "Government, of course, cannot fund and will not fund religious activities, but when people provide faith-based services, we will not discriminate against them."
Put another way, my tax dollars cannot be used to fund abortion, but my tax dollars can be given to religious groups to promote abstinence and anything else on their agenda, no matter where I stand on the issue or the organization. Interestingly, the program is coming under heavy criticism from all over, including the likes of televangelist and friend-of-W Pat Robertson. The criticism comes not because religious organizations will get federal funding, but because the wrong religious organizations may get federal funding! According to Robertson, "You know I hate to find myself on the side of the Anti-Defamation League and others, but this is, this gets to be a real problem. I mean, the Moonies have been prescribed, if I can use that, for brainwashing techniques, sleep deprivation and all the rest of it that goes along with their unusual proselytizing. The Hare Krishnas much the same thing. And it seems appalling to me that we're going to go for somebody like that, or the Church of Scientology, which was involved in an incredible campaign against the IRS." Well, if it were not for all of these religions, we probably wouldn't have the notion of separation of church and state to begin with. And like Clinton's initial debacle with "don't ask, don't tell," Bush may be learning that it's better to start with the easy issues, and then ease your way toward controversy once your footing is secure. Meantime, there are faith-based programs for just about everything. A faith-based diet plan known as the "Weigh Down Workshop" will help you to eat what you want and still lose weight. According to Weigh Down, "With God's help, you can learn to stop in the middle of a meal and have no desire to eat the second half. This is a foreign concept for most people. This program helps you come to the understanding that man was created with two empty, needing-to-be-fed holes in our body. One is the stomach, and the other is the heart. The stomach is a literal hole in the body, which is to be fed with the proper amount of food. The heart represents our innermost emotional needs. To satisfy these needs, or desires of the heart, we often turn to food, overloading our stomach with more than it needs. We are trying to feed a hurting needy heart with food (or anything on this earth). There is nothing inherently wrong with food. God did not put chocolate, lasagna or blue cheese dressing on earth to torture us. But it is wrong to become a slave to food or to let it control you. To truly fill the needy heart, turn instead to God, who can satisfy you like no food can." With two-thirds of the US population overweight, there is a lot of praying to do. God charges $103 for a 12-week seminar. For more information, visit http://www.wdworkshop.com/ A note for our faithless readers: A study released on January 11, 2001 by the US Department of Agriculture concluded that diets that reduce caloric intake result in weight loss. Our secular tax dollars hard at work... Please, DO NOT steal, scavenge or repost this work without the expressed written authorization of Swans, which will seek permission from the author. This material is copyrighted. All rights reserved. |
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Related External Links
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
American Civil Liberties Union
This Week's Internal Links
Part I: The Forms That Would Not Leave - by Deck Deckert
Part II: Congratulations, You Are Green! - by Deck Deckert
Reproductive Blackmail and the Funding of Morality - by Jan Baughman
Barbaric Silence - by Milo Clark
SAVANNA SONG - A Poem by Sandy Lulay
THE SHEEP-CHILD - A Poem by James Dickey
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Resources on the War in Yugoslavia and its Aftermath
Articles Published on Swans Regarding the War in Yugoslavia and its Aftermath