Thursday, August 19, 2004
Scary news on the faith bases initiative front...
President Bush was condemned by a leading group 48 scholars from leading divinity schools yesterday. The link above details out the specifics of why they did what they did.
What's more important to understand is the big picture. When President Bush announced the faith based initiatives in 2001-2002, it was with the public understanding that money would be disbursed to organizations of all faiths. THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED.
Nearly all the money has gone to Christian Evangelical groups which support President Bush's radical social agenda. He as turned the federal government into an advertising arm.
What's more damning, in my opinion, is how it was done - all this was accomplished via executive order - this means that the President can act with relatively little scrutiny. President Bush has used similar techniques to overhaul and gut the nation's environmental regulations with little attention (see the article on Appalachia reprinted below).
The worst part of this is that the methods these evangelical groups espouse do not work. Case in point HIV/AIDS: Evangelical Christian groups espouse an abstinence only approach. As part of this, they talk about how condoms do not work. While it is true that there is a statistical chance that a condom will fail, they are more than 95% effective. Numerous studies have shown that 88% of teens who take an abstinence pledge break it, and more than that, most engage in unsafe sex.
President Bush, through is surrogates in the Evangelical Christian right, are putting dogma and ideology ahead of public safety.
What's more important to understand is the big picture. When President Bush announced the faith based initiatives in 2001-2002, it was with the public understanding that money would be disbursed to organizations of all faiths. THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED.
Nearly all the money has gone to Christian Evangelical groups which support President Bush's radical social agenda. He as turned the federal government into an advertising arm.
What's more damning, in my opinion, is how it was done - all this was accomplished via executive order - this means that the President can act with relatively little scrutiny. President Bush has used similar techniques to overhaul and gut the nation's environmental regulations with little attention (see the article on Appalachia reprinted below).
The worst part of this is that the methods these evangelical groups espouse do not work. Case in point HIV/AIDS: Evangelical Christian groups espouse an abstinence only approach. As part of this, they talk about how condoms do not work. While it is true that there is a statistical chance that a condom will fail, they are more than 95% effective. Numerous studies have shown that 88% of teens who take an abstinence pledge break it, and more than that, most engage in unsafe sex.
President Bush, through is surrogates in the Evangelical Christian right, are putting dogma and ideology ahead of public safety.
# posted by Will (Militant Liberal) @ 9:37 AM 
