Mimes?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the KoC basically the Catholic version of the Masons? (I’ll ask my dad about degrees and such-he’s a member, although not an active one anymore.)
The Knights are sort of a counter-movement to Masonry. At one time American Catholics were prohibited from becoming Masons. The KoC were formed to give good Catholic men a similar fraternal society.
The two groups are no longer mutually exclusive and are not antagonistic.
One of those issues, apparently, is shouting “four more years” at the top of their lungs. Most of the media covering the event said that it was pretty darn hard to distinguish this from a political rally or an endorsement, whatever the leadership called it.
His discussion of this issue, from the clips I heard, were as deceptively phrased as I’ve ever heard them, not making it clear the distinction between federal grants to religiously owned and run services, and services whose content involves considerable amounts of religious preaching, worship, faith healing, and so on.
There was a small but vocal group at the front of the assembly yelling “Four more years.” It was by no means the entire gathering that was shouting that.
Mr. Bush referred explicitly to his having signed an executive order permitting faith-based organizations to fairly compete for government grants to provide social services … (“because I got tired of waiting for Congress.”)
He appeared to be referring to the December 2002 order entitled “Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-based and Community Organizations”.
His comments didn’t sound deceptive to me, and I am quite familiar with the executive order in question.
What, specifically, do you contend was decpetive about his comments?
- Rick
The fundamental premise is deceptive, implying as it does that the Gov its going to open up its purse and dole out money to worthy religious services to support their excellent programs.
It is a crock, it is smoke and mirrors. It appeals to the unthinking, people who will glow with the presumption that “faith-based” enterprises will have the support of the government. “Mainstream” churches, one may assume…
Ah, but there’s the rub, no? Surely there is not an infinite amount of funding availabe, decisions will necessarily be made. So who is to decide which religious bodies have “worthy” programs, and which have not? I have Pentecostal cousins who are thrilled about all this, because they think he’s talking about them. But are they going to be equally thrilled if/when money is doled out to the Nation of Islam? The Unitarians? The fiendish Methodists, the conniving Episcopalians? The “Moonies”?
Aren’t the Scientologists currently recognized as a “religion”? Wouldn’t they have equal standing with the Church of Christ? The Hare Krishna?
Ain’t gonna happen. Gestures will be made, speeches intoned, and, in the end, they will be cursing and bewailing that, once again, the Liberals have thwarted God’s Will, it appears that controlling all the levers of power is insufficient to overcome the dastardly and devilish Liberals. Vote for us just one more time! - and this time, we’ll come through. Honest. Scout’s honor.
[don mcclean]
Did you read the encyclical written by the Pope?
It says, folks with private property ain’t got no hope
The rich ain’t welcome in the heavenly Palladium
The Knights of Columbus own Yankee Stadium
Now, I ain’t sayin’ that the Pope was wrong
But he can easily afford to sing that song
If you want to call him up when you need some dough
His number’s Et Cum Spiri-220
[/don mcclean]
That argument needs to hook up with Dorothy, the Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion.
The purpose of the executive order was to permit faith-based organizations equal access to government grants for the purpose of providing social services. As long as they are providing needed social services, why would I care if they are Islamic, Unitarian, or Moonies?
Any organization that can do needed work in the delivery of social services should be eligible for federal grant money. Mr. Bush’s order attempts to ensure that faith-based organizations are not subject to invidious discrimination in this arena.
- Rick
Oh, I’ve no doubt of your bona fides, Bricker, you misunderstand. It is only that not everybody of religious persuasion is as open minded and ecumenical as you and I. I personally know, and suspect you do as well, people who would go totally ballistic at the notion of handing over some money to the Moonies, or the Nation of Islam, or the Scientologists.
Mr. Bush has the habit of salting his speech with gestures and codes that signal to the evangelical/fundamentalist sector that he is sympathetic to thier views, he is “one of them”. This carefully skirts the fact that evangelicals and fundamentalists are not one and the same critter. Jerry Falwell is a Baptist, so is Jimmy Carter, but they are not co-religionists in any meaningful way. Technically, Bill Clinton is as well, yes? Though he’s one of the sort of “Unitarian” Baptists.
He is offering something that he cannot deliver, and most probably already knows he cannot deliver, without inciting conflict. Mr. Bush wins as long as everybody thinks he’s on thier side, he loses as soon as he must choose.
So he won’t.
I used to be pretty skeptical of this whole Faith-Based Initiative too, but as it happens, my wife is a government grant writer for a well known religious organization which provides a number of social services. Mrs. Dio is pretty much an expert on this subject as she deals with it every day and she is well paid to understand the nuances.
After much carping and talking out the ass by yours truly, my wife has managed to half-way inform me about the subject and I am forced to concede that this Faith-Based thing is not turned out to be as insidious as I had feared or as GWB had no doubt intended.
Essentially, the Initiative adds more welcoming language to NOFAs and other federal grant policies which invite faith-based, non-profit organizations to compete for federal grants.
Now there’s a couple of important things to note here. One thing is that the grant proposals are evaluated on purely on the strength of the program without regard to any particular church or faith-based group which sponsors the program. Programs are also pretty strictly prohibited from proselytizing any recipients of these services.
Mrs. Dio assures me (after much, much badgering) that if the Church of Satan or the Temple of Ishtar can prove that its program is solid and is supported by scientific research it can get the money.
She also assures me that virtually all the programs which are recieving federal grants under the Faith-Based Intiative are programs which had been receiving federal money for years anyway. Some federal agencies had previously denied money to religious organizations but others had not (as long as the money was not used for religious purposes). Mrs. Dio also tells me that one facet of the FB Intitiative which hasn’t gotten much pub is that a lot of secular, community organizations are being allowed to compete for this money as well.
Mrs. Dio explains this stuff much better than I do, but the upshot seems to be that Bush’s Initiative has been more symbolic than anything and that it really just invites a few more non-profits to compete for federal grant money that they probably could have competed for anyway.
Her suspicion is that Bush originally envisioned this as being more targeted and pro-active than it has ultimately ended up being. Basically all that’s really changed is the language on the forms. Inexorable government beaurocracy seems to be a protective wall in this case. It’s hard to get the money. You have to compete with secular as well as other faith-based programs with no special advantage, and when you do get the money you damn well better not use it for any religious purpose.
my wife has convinced me that the Initiative has at least not been evil and may be a marginal good. As you can imagine, I am not exactly the most friendly audience for any argument which defends a Bush policy, so that’s no small accomplishment.
’Lucy, I almost never disagree with you on anything, but as fate would have it, I’m married to someone who knows everything about this stuff and is also smarter than me. I have to take her word on this that the FBI (they should have thought about that acronym before they named it) is mostly just empty symbolism which errs more to the good than the bad.
weeps for joy/faints
Well, it took a while but I finally broke down. I don’t know if I would have even listened to anyone else on this subject but my wife. It’s just a quirk of fate, I happen to live with a woman who is an expert on this stuff, who has an unimpeachable credibility with me personally, and who is no fan of Bush. After a couple of rounds with her it just became blindingly clear to me that I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about and she did. It’s not the first time she’s made me feel that way and it won’t be the last. 
I hereby publicly concur with Ms. Cynic in every respect as regards this subject, and declare that all my future opinions will be in complete and wholehearted concurrance. So help me Goddess.
(Hey, anything for a pal, Dio!)
I think I just said exactly what, and you apparently either missed it or are trying to avoid the issue. Bush is playing a game word game with the ambiguous “faith based” term, trying to imply that what he is doing is allowing churches to finally compete for grants to provide social services. But that’s not what he’s doing at all. Churches could ALREADY DO THAT, provided they basically play under the same rules (including non-discrimination, non-secretarian preaching to clients, etc.) that all non-profits that want to provide services do. While Mrs. Diog is correct that SO FAR all that’s happened is pretty language that’s changed little, that’s not the ultimate goal at all: that’s not what Bush has been pushing for and will continue to push for.
What he wants is the government to be able to more easily fund programs that, for instance, use secretarian prayer as part of their services. Or discriminate in their hiring. In other words, he wants to unlevel the playing field and allow precisely what Diog says can’t currently happen: government funding religious preaching to clients.
Well, the text of his executive order says, inter alia:
So I’m going to have to ask for some kind of cite from you that “what he wants” is in fact what his executive order seems to clearly gainsay.
What about the discriminatory hiring practices issue, bricker? I was under the impression that religious groups are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion; as an atheist, I’m not happy about my tax dollars going to people based on their religious beliefs.
This may tie into the issue with the Catholic hospital (?) in California that was denied state funds when they refused to offer contraception coverage to its employees, but I’m pretty vague on that case.
Daniel
The programs which receive federal grants cannot discriminate either in distribution of services or against employees hired to provide the services. If they do so, they become ineligible for the grants.
I’m not familiar with case you speak of but I know that these programs cannot impose any religious conditions for employment. The health insurance thing is a little inside baseball for me but it’s my impression that programs receiving federal funds are not allowed towithhold standard benefits for religious reasons. The program money is separate from church money. The Church cannot be forced to spend its own money to pay for contraception (or subsidize insurance plans which include contraception) but it does not have that kind of autonomy with the federal money that it recieves for the expressed purpose of funding specific programs.
Trivial.
In short: so far, we won, Bush’s side lost this battle, but Bush of course can’t admit that he’s failed so far, so he continues to confuse the issue further.
Bush’s executive order is pure boilerplate for the sake of whether the federal government can fund faith healing: he can’t order things that Congress and the Constitution control.
The whole point of his original plan was that faith-based organizations wouldn’t have to compromise on their programs in order to recieve funding. When he tried the same thing in Texas, this meant basically a lowering of regulatory standards and turning a blind eye to services that were basically glorified religious bullying.
Here’s what critics had to say, and pretty well documented, about what happened when Bush tried to play this game in Texas.
Aw, darn it. I’ve been covered up in depositions all week and just now noticed this.
Wish I’d caught it sooner, since I’d have been more than happy to buy you lunch while you were in town. Hope you at least got some good Tex-Mex and a couple Shiner Bocks while you were around.
Appreciate the offer – but the convention schedule is pretty packed, and we plan to leave relatively soon after things wind down. I wish we could have taken more time, but we drove from Virginia here (had to: we were bringing cases of Virginia wine, Virginia ham, and Virginia peanuts to serve at the Virginia hospitality suite).
I’m hoping to leave tomorrow in enough time to clear Texarkanna and sleep somewhere in Tennessee tomorrow night…