January 28, 2003

Politics: Separation of Church and Bush

The New York Times has been the lone national voice mentioning that the Bush administration has launched another salvo in his war on the separation of church and state. In Friday's edition, Eric Lichtblau covered the announcement that Bush would allow churches and other religious institutions to take taxpayer money to construct buildings and houses as long as they promised they didn't use the buildings for anything other than social work.

This is so transparent it makes you wonder if the Bush administration actually thinks Americans are dumb as rocks. Comments by the administration's spokesman on the issue, HUD General Counsel Richard Hauser (I know, 'Housing Counsel Hauser') illustrates the lameness of their thinking: He asks, "There's no reason you can't have a cathedral upstairs and something that would look like any other room in the basement" for counseling.

Except how would you separate the funding for a basement from the building that sits on top of the freaking basement? It's impossible. And how would you guarantee forever that the structure funded by taxpayers would not be used for religious purposes? You couldn't. And what would you do if a church violated the separation? Religious institutions don't pay taxes and, with exceptions like the Catholic Church, don't have a large financial structure, so they couldn't pay back the grants.

Exactly. The Times continued its coverage today with an excellent editorial recounting, if you can't remember, the rest of the Bush attacks on the establishment clause.

And I was just wondering if the media is so liberal, why isn't anyone else mentioning this?

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