It’s gotten to the point where even attempting to blog on the weekends is an exercise in frustration, so I’ve pretty much stopped trying anymore. Had I been blogging, or even reading blogs this weekend, I would definitely have covered this New York Times article on tax-payer funding proselytizing by evangelical Christians; in this case, quite literally, to a captive audience.
Life was different in Unit E at the state prison outside Newton, Iowa.
The toilets and sinks — white porcelain ones, like at home — were in a separate bathroom with partitions for privacy. In many Iowa prisons, metal toilet-and-sink combinations squat beside the bunks, to be used without privacy, a few feet from cellmates.
The cells in Unit E had real wooden doors and doorknobs, with locks. More books and computers were available, and inmates were kept busy with classes, chores, music practice and discussions. There were occasional movies and events with live bands and real-world food, like pizza or sandwiches from Subway. Best of all, there were opportunities to see loved ones in an environment quieter and more intimate than the typical visiting rooms.
But the only way an inmate could qualify for this kinder mutation of prison life was to enter an intensely religious rehabilitation program and satisfy the evangelical Christians running it that he was making acceptable spiritual progress. The program — which grew from a project started in 1997 at a Texas prison with the support of George W. Bush, who was governor at the time — says on its Web site that it seeks “to ‘cure’ prisoners by identifying sin as the root of their problems” and showing inmates “how God can heal them permanently, if they turn from their sinful past.”
This is the same faith-based and tax-payer funded Prison Fellowship program that I blogged about earlier, which is supported by ex-Watergate felon Charles Colson (who is, by the way a hero of David Kuo’s, whose book, Tempting Faith, I reviewed earlier) and is one of many such programs proliferating across the country. The Times article is one of a series (also covered earlier) on what I think will be one of the enduring legacies of the Bush administration: undermining separation of church and state by weakening regulations designed to keep the government out of the business of endorsing or underwriting one particular faith. (Or a particular version of one faith, given that the IRS has taken notice of political activity in progressive churches after years of ignoring the same in conservative churches, and on a much larger scale.)
In this case, it’s the government handing out tax dollars to religious organizations who then use it to proselytize for their particular version of Christianity and/or to discriminate against those who don’t share their religious beliefs and practices, as the 95%-government-funded Salvation Army does. And while the government isn’t necessarily giving them funding specifically for those purposes, the combination of a lack of oversight in the administration’s faith-based initiatives program, and Congress actively weakening regulations intended to prohibit just such a use of government funding (and making it more difficult to fight for church/state separation in the courts) seem to have produced that result.
And given the political aims of the movement, explicitly stated by Colson, it’s not hard to believe that the outcome — if not intended — is at least welcomed by the White House and the Republican party. Because it represents, I think, a nearly permanent union between the American government and a specific branch of American Christianity that policy makers will find difficult to dismantle, if indeed they have the political will to do so at all.
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