Uncle Sam Doling Out to Churches

Now that evangelical voter's values are in ascendancy, we are discovering that free market principles are fine for families of workers whose jobs have been outsourced overseas but not for religious institutions. As it cuts funding to assist elderly and disabled people and reduces temporary assistance for needy families, congress is finding heaps of new money for elderly, decaying and needy churches.

For the past 215 years Americans have thought that church and state should be separate because genuine faith could sustain itself in the free marketplace of ideas. That, however, was when faith was strong and vibrant. Today it is weak and puny and needs the help of government to renovate and restore its decaying edifices.

Thankfully, organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State still believe that faith needs to have the vitality to sustain itself. They are filing a lawsuit challenging those who would let lazy religious institutions depend on handouts from the government.

Sanitizing Civil Rights

Now that the Religious Right have taken over the government they are working to force every institution and agency of the government to promote their "worldview."

One battlefront in the culture wars is the National Park Service. The Religious Right wants the history of struggles for civil rights "sanitized." Lou Sheldon and the Traditional Values Coalition are especially unhappy with a tourist video that shows Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, and marches for women's rights, homosexual rights, and reproductive freedom. They want a "more balanced" presentation that highlights the role of white men.

If we turn the clock back to 1950 I think they will be satisfied.