Why Work For Something You Don't Believe In?

" if you don't believe what the group believes, why join it? "

If you don't wish to adhere to federal hiring/firing laws, then why take their money?

During the previous administration, I worked for the federal contractor that provided technical support for the faith-based initiative known as the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF). Much was made about the Bush Administration’s innovativeness in providing public dollars to support the work of faith-based organizations. This was inaccurate. Government support through a network of grants and contracts has been provided to religious organizations for non-sectarian social services for the past 50 years.

What was new was allowing federal funds to be used to support religious and quasi-religious activities under the guise of social services. This happened with a wink and a nod through the Capital Compassion Fund and related faith-based initiatives. This cannot be allowed to continue in the Obama Administration.

Additionally, I witnessed first hand, technical assistance training on how CCF grantees could legally discriminate against people they didn’t want to hire based on religious predilections. As an American, I was and continue to be offended that taxpayer dollars would be used to exclude any group of people. This, as well, cannot be allowed to continue.

Yet, beyond these challenges, there is the wider, Constitutional issue of the separation of church and state. The previous administration – certainly not the most respectful of the Constitution in general – somehow believed that the separation clause was up for grabs. It is not.

We are all diminished when government can use its substantial weight to assault the Constitution by funding the peculiarities of religious entities. Let’s hope that President Obama, as a constitutional scholar, will safeguard these vital protections by curtailing the ability of any organizations – faith-based or otherwise – from using taxpayer dollars to discriminate against anyone.

I have written more on this issue on my blog: http://www.501cweb.com

Then why should my tax dollars go to something I don't believe in?

The whole point of the program is that the money doesn't go to anything religious, it's just for charity work which happens to be performed by a religious group. Why can't an evangelical organization hire a homosexual to hand out soup? No one is saying they need to hire a homosexual pastor. If the federal money is paying for a pastor or converting people to the religion, the church is already breaking the law.

This is one of the many reasons why federal funds to faith-based organizations is a horrible idea. The main reason it's a bad idea is that it gives the Federal government control over churches, because they can now threaten to withhold funding for unacceptable speech or hiring or (potentially) not supporting the correct politicians.

The wall is there to protect the churches from government just as much as it is to protect the people from the church. Violating the wall is a horrible idea for both sides.