Federal Funding Of 'Bible-Based' Marriage Program

[and-justice-for-all]

Federal Funding Of 'Bible-Based' Marriage Program Violates Constitution, Says Americans United Lawsuit.

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=8529


Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Legal Action Raises Questions Over Role Of 'Faith-Based' Groups In $500-Million Bush Effort To Fund Marriage Counseling

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that seeks to block taxpayer funding of a Vancouver, Wash., program that offers "Bible-based" marriage education.

The Northwest Marriage Institute, a fundamentalist Christian organization, received two federal grants worth $97,750 in 2005. A $50,000 Compassion Capital Fund grant came from HHS and a $47,750 sub-grant came from the Institute for Youth Development, an intermediary organization that distributes "faith-based" funds for HHS.

The lawsuit against HHS, the Institute for Youth Development and the Northwest Marriage Institute has important national implications because the Bush administration is promoting massive federal funding for marriage programs.

Congress has budgeted $500 million for marriage improvement programs over the next five years, and Religious Right activists are pushing to have most of the money allocated to conservative churches and other faith-based groups.

In court documents filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Americans United charges that funding of religious instruction violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

More at link....

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[napi21]

1. I don't understand this at all!

I was born and raised Catholic, so that's the only Religion I can speak for. The Catholic Church has mandatory Pre Marriage Classes for all couples who get married in the Catholic Church. I've been married for 42 years andwe attended those classes, and my son and daughterin law attended a similar type of classes before they were married. Therewas NEVER any funding by any gov't org. This is a duty of the parish priest as part of his job! Of course the Church is funded by Donations from the parishioners during Sunday Mass, Holy Day Massed, and some special collections.

I don't know how other religions do things, but I really6 can't see why the Feds should be involved in this?????

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

2. Because the leaders of their "base" will deliver the votes if bushco

delivers the money?

[napi21]

3. So thebasis of this whole plan has nothing to do with trying to

reduce the divorce rate or improve marital relationships, and everything to do with politics!!!!!!!!!! GGRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

[Book Lover]

5. Because the Feds opened up the public purse

and these people lined up to get their unfair share.

[Jacobin]

4. Fundies have the highest divorce rate

So, even if this were not blatantly unconstitutional (which it clearly is) it would be counter productive to their stated goals.

Fucking typical

[jmowreader]

6. I actually support this. Yes, I'm still a Democrat.

Do you fine individuals know what group in the United States has the highest proportion of its members seek divorce?

Fundies. Mainly fundamentalist Baptists, but there are other fundamentalist sects in America.

It is very obvious to me that Fundamentalist Christian Religion is the greatest threat to the sanctity of marriage that has ever been devised. Fundies can't find decent partners, they can't stay married to the ones they DO find, they leave a trail of one-parent homes behind them wherever they go. It's like a fuckin' plague of locusts, man, but instead of stripped crops they leave divorce decrees.

And when they DO get divorced, what's the first thing that happens? You guessed it: the custodial parent's ass goes straight to the Food Stamps office to get an Electronic Benefits Transfer card to help feed the fruits of their God-loving loins. It's like there's a fundie magnet at the local Department of Social Services building. I'm not shitting. Go down there and count the number of people sitting in the waiting room reading the Bible instead of...well, you know, things like employment ads. It will be substantial--75 percent or more.

It is FAR cheaper to take these people, who live with one foot in divorce court and the other in the welfare office, and teach them the proper, God-fearing way to save their fragile marriages than it is to feed their children.

So...from a purely economic standpoint, and considering that no one whose Bible doesn't have at least three hand-shaped dents in the cover would ever go to one of these damn things, I feel that the only logical thing to do is to support these training programs any way we can.

[and-justice-for-all]

7. Sure, but without my money....

They have other sources for funds like the Millions that the Megachurhes bring in, they dont not need to be getting federal grants.

[jmowreader]

9. This will take less of your money than feeding them

Because you KNOW that when the fucking fundies get divorced and bring this trail of kids behind them, the Fundamentalist Megachurches aren't going to do Jack Shit to help them.

Smaller fundamentalist churches, up to around 1500 members, will feed their members for a short time--just long enough to get them into The System (where you and I have to pay for their profligacy). Fundamentalist churches are VERY proficient at filing paperwork to put their members on government assistance and in helping to distribute in-kind government assistance. My wife's family received Government Cheese when she was a kid, and reports that the distribution sites were ALWAYS fundamentalist churches.

Larger fundamentalist churches--the 10,000-member and up megachurches--tend to be all show and no blow; they spend all their money spreading the Word of Jesus Christ and none actually practicing His teachings. Satellite time was $22,000 per hour in the 1980s and 1990s when I was buying it; you know that's gone up. Electricity is expensive. Mortgage payments on a church that's big enough to be a hangar for a 767 is expensive. They had to pay for the $2500 dresses the minister's wife wears on-air somehow, and she can only wear them once because mascara dripped on the bodice of a dress from all the crying about how much you love the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't come out.

The fundamentalist churches, at least the ones who will subscribe to these fundie Marriage Enhancement Programs, are very big on marrying people off and having them breed prodigiously (cue Dr. Strangelove music), don't believe in long-term feeding of their flock. Why should they? Let me ask you: if you were going to get your fundie church in the paper (think like a TBN fundie for a second, not like a liberal), would you rather feed your own members, the ones you encouraged to produce children as fast as they possibly could, or would you buy a truckload of food and send it to Africa? Would you feed the members of ANOTHER fundie church in your area, maybe one in the low-rent district, or would you send food to India? Feeding your own members MIGHT get you three inches in the "news and notes" section of the Religion page on Sunday between two ads for other churches. Sending food to Africa or India will get you put on the front page--at least it will in Fayetteville.

I don't want to support fundie churches either, but if I gotta and under this administration I do, I want my money to go where it will do the most good: keeping these morans married so they can feed their own kids.

Personally? I'd pass a new law that says fundamentalists can't get married and gays can. Not all gays are interested in marriage, but the ones who are tend to stay with their partners for life. Fundamentalist men tend to haul ass when the kids stop being cute. I'll be willing to wager good money that most of the Child Support enforcement problems are fundies. Unfortunately, simple common-sense solutions to America's most vexing problems aren't welcome anymore.

[hootinholler]

10. But it's not about the money for me.

It is State Sponsored Religion. There's no way in hell I can support that, for any reason.

-Hoot

[BlueEyedSon]

15. Fuck that. Let them use their own UNTAXED money.

Maybe if they are unmarried they will procreate fewer baby fundies.

[jmowreader]

19. Now I KNOW you're kidding

I know plenty of never-married fundies, and they all seem to be trailing a kid or two behind them everywhere they go.

They obey the Biblical injunction against birth control with all their hearts, but they don't seem to like the one about not having sex if you're single. (I don't think it's actually that they are trying not to offend God by using birth control...it's just that they don't like rubbers.)

Y'all will just LOVE this one: I used to work with a 43-year-old fundie who had a four-year-old kid.. which she brought to work every day for about three months so he could play in the darkroom with all the chemicals, the razor blades scattered all over the floor, the $5/sheet stat camera film that he destroyed 400 sheets of in one day...and my dipshit boss let her do it. And she was single when she got pregnant...yes, she did arrange a quickie shotgun wedding after the rabbit died, but still. I asked her what the hell she was thinking. "Oh, my momma told me I couldn't get pregnant after 35." (Read that in the worst hick accent you can possibly imagine.) Were you still having periods? "Yeah, but my momma said those eggs wouldn't make babies." Yeah. No shit. And her fuckin' mother was ASTOUNDED that her daughter actually got pregnant after 35! (Yes, I have horror stories about this woman...)

[BlueEyedSon]

22. But.... but... sex out of wedlock is a SIN!

[YankeyMCC]

11. I don't know if you're 100% serious but

you do make a strong argument at least from a purely economic point of view.

Still for reasons of maintaining an open and free society I do not support this kind of mixing of government and religion.

And more importantly (and I apologize if you were 100% serious) your post made me grin, thx!

:)

[progressoid]

12. You make some pretty big assumptions

First: that their programs even works.

Second: that they are more efficient than a secular counseling program.

Third: that all these fundie marriages should even be saved.

Finally: the obvious - the state should NOT support a church run program no matter how noble the program pretends to be.

[jmowreader]

20. Assumptions debunked:

First: has ANYTHING George Bush been associated with worked? NCLB. Clear Skies. Healthy Forests. Iraq. His wardrobe. You name it, and if Bush has anything whatsoever to do with it, it's completely hosed. We know that.

Second: it's probably less efficient than a secular counseling program, but fundies won't listen to secular anything.

Third: Most fundie marriages should NOT be saved. Most of 'em are irreparable from the get and should be dissolved. But...WHAT ABOUT THE CHILLLLLLDREN?!?!?!? (As anyone familiar with the Childfree community knows, that's the standard reason to implement anything distasteful, like banning smoking outside or tearing down the world's most famous strip club.)

And I agree with the obvious. In fact, one of the first 100 things I will do as your president is to subpoena the Christian Coalition for the list of churches which distributed its voter guides, and revoke all of these churches' tax-exempt status.

Oh, I found my crowbar. Anyone care to help pop my tongue out of my cheek?

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Sic 'em AU !! K&R

[Solly Mack]

13. Religion ,and everything that surrounds it, can stand or fall on

it's own members willingness to tithe, donate and support their own religion...out of their own pockets. It's not the governments job to spread your message or support your beliefs. No, you don't have a right to tax dollars to promote your religion.



This includes things such as faith-based marriage counseling....if you wanna preach your ideas of marriage to people then your religious institution pays for it...not the government. And, confine your teachings to those, and only those, who want to be a part of them.

Don't pretend you're a marriage counseling service when you're really just a proselytizing trap door zealot.

[dmr]

14. There's Corporate Welfare & now Church Welfare

500 Million Dollars!

Mind boggling!

I don't even have to mention to anyone here in DU where and what that money could do to help America as a whole!

As someone mentioned upthread, to be married in the Catholic Church, Pre-Canna or marriage counseling is mandatory - financed through the Church not by anyone's tax-dollars.

Seems to me, a church benefiting from tax exempt status should be disqualified from Federal grants, especially to perform services that their minister/priest/designee can do themselves.

[YOY]

16. Jeebities!

n/t

[triguy46]

17. We've had "covenant" marriage in Oklahoma since

our good old boy Frank Keating, Catholic cum Evangelical wannabe, was governor. We still lead in unwed mothers, teen mothers, child abuse, incarceration rates of women and other indicators of what impact such pandering to the religious right brings.

[brooklynite]

18. Where can I get my share of the loot?

...because I know my marriage has failed. Yes my wife and I have been happily married for 18 years (this coming Tuesday), and yes, we've stayed together for 27 years not, but we have, by mutual agreement, no children. Clearly, we've failed our biblical imperatives to be fruitful and multiply. Maybe a $10k grant could help us see the error of our ways...

[Nikki Stone 1]

21. If you want Bible based marriage education,go to your local Catholic crch

No need for government funds