"Charitable Choice"

During the drafting of the Welfare Reform Act in 1996, the then-Senator from Missouri, John David Ashcroft (R-MO) advanced the idea of "charitable choice." The reference-label was something of a misnomer, for the covert intention of the program was to provide a wedge for that would permit the government to fund religious groups and ministries.

Within weeks after George W. Bush swore upon two Bibles at his inauguration in 2001 to uphold the Constitution he was leading the charge in support of the "charitable choice" policy. And John Ashcroft was installed as his Attorney General. A self-proclaimed "Born Again Christian," Bush quickly sought to distribute federal tax money to ministries, ostensibly to provide social services that were already provided through secular grantees and government agencies. The policy sought to alter the existing laws in a manner that could utilize the power of the federal government to support Christian conversions--a move that is in direct opposition to the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Using tax dollars to fund churches and ministries to represent government social welfare is, in itself, unconstitutional. Add to this that "charitable choice," as attempted, intentionally avoided any protective safeguards that would prevent religious coercion and abuses. Incorporating religion into publicly funded programs had always been avoided by the government sometimes contracting separate entities of religious institutions and in that way established safeguards that protected the rights of the disadvantaged, the interests of all tax payers, and insured the integrity of the groups providing welfare.

Although charitable choice became part of the welfare law in 1996, the constitutional concerns caused democracy's representatives to hesitate in implementing the policy. Many saw it as a disguised way of forcing taxpayers to subsidize religion whether they believed in it or not--clearly a means of sabotaging the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.

But Bush like to think of himself as a god-chosen leader, and seemed hell-bent on applying charitable choice to practically every aspect of government funding. The resultant and unending hoopla made democracy tremble, alarming civil rights and civil liberties groups, educational and social communities, and even the more rationally balanced religious communities.

Providing social service can be a noble endeavor for religious groups, but the faith-based initiative as attempted is a policy that is concerned with neither democratic principles nor relgious liberty.

Example of Faith-Based Government

Freedom of speech and religious freedom implies that the errors, hatreds and hypocricy practiced in the name of some religion should be open to public examination. But in the US the pretense is that God finds it "an abomination" to question the self-serving "faiths" that promote themselves through tax-free money while seeking to deny others their personal rights.

It has been mentioned in earlier Monkeywrench notes that aggressive religious factions have risen dramatically in the US since the 1950s, and the commercialism of religion has been in direct ratio to the rise of television as a means of public communication. Televangelists compete with one another to exercise as much power over as many insecure persons as possible, and make themselves wealthy in the process.

That is bad enough, but when religious factions seek to control the seats of government and in that way attempt to instill their theocratic ideology upon the nation, they betray not only the nation that allows them such freedom but insult the higher potential that they pretend to serve.

A prime example of "faith-based" style of governing was the Military Commission Act that was imposed upon American citizens late in 2006 by the self-professed born-againer George Bush, his fundamentalists administration, and the Republican congressional choir that rubber stamped his unconstitutional abuses of power. Under this undemocratic and perverse "law" the rightwing granted themselves these horrendous indulgences---

Denial of the writ of habeas corpus (the right to challenge the legality or conditions of their detention in an independent court) to people being held in detention.

Fashioned an excessively broad category of "unlawful enemy combatant," a status that is not recognized in US law or international law, but which does allow the President to pick and choose who will be detained under that label.

Permits whoever they term "unlawful enemey combatants" to be tried by military commisssion, which would provide no guarantee whatever of fair trial rights: this is clearly in contempt of mandated US and international law.

Permits the President the freedom to interpret the Geneva Conventions as he chooses--meaning that he can disregard their prohibitions of abuse and torture of prisoners.

Grants military commisssions the right to use evidence that is obtained through cruel and degrading treatment (torture) of those being held in detention.

Allows for imprisoned persons to be held indefinitely without charges, and has establshed arbitrary and discriminatory means for prosecuting those detained.

These are the means used by all theocratic forms of "governing" throughout history--always with horrible consequence.