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Separating Church and State…

Erm.

March 6, 2006—By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet America’s social and community needs, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment of a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.
(a) The Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) shall establish within the Department of Homeland Security (Department) a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (Center).

Did I read that correctly? What happened to separation of church and state? How exactly does a “faith-based” center relate to homeland security? So basically, this is just a way to funnel our tax dollars into churches, in the name of “protecting our country”. Let’s back up four years to 2002, when the Department of Homeland Security was created and Bush’s own explanation of it’s purpose: “I ask the Congress to join me in creating a single permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission—securing the American homeland and protecting the American people.”

With everything on his plate right now—Katrina, the war, the ports, the borders—Bush’s priority, enough to create an Executive Order, is to give faith-based groups unlimited resources to go spread the word. I’m really at a lack for words.

There are, of course, other ways that the Department of Homeland Security and our government are “protecting the American people”:

On February 27th it was reported that the Taliban’s former spokesman is now attending Yale on a U.S. student visa. As the article states, “Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century–the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.” We can’t put military recruiters on their campus, but the Taliban is a-okay.

Earlier this month the news came out about the, now dead, deal allowing a Muslim company to control our ports. I think this falls under Homeland Securities responsibilities, since Al Qaeda could easily infiltrate the ports, gain access to manifests and cargo, get information about port operations and layouts, bring in personnel and weapons, and disrupt American military operations at the ports.

On March 6th it was reported, an envelope with a mysterious powder arrived at the department’s headquarters. The guards immediately took the hazardous envelope down a hallway, past the Secretary’s office, opened the window and shook it—without evacuating anyone.

Again, on March 6th it was reported, that a retired Texas school teacher decided to pay down some debt on their JCPenney credit card, as it’d gotten a little high. They sent in a large check for over $6,000 and later that week checked their account status to see the new balance. That’s when they found out that, not only had their balance not changed, but the Department of Homeland Security had been informed of their large payment. Not only that, but a threat alert had been put on their account. Eventually their account was unfrozen and they were found not to be promoting global terrorism.

I think you get the deal. Obviously with all of this going, you have to wonder why created a faith-based center would be such a high priority over say, getting housing for the Katrina victims or getting our soldiers out of Iraq. Yeah, priorities.

Tags: faith, religiion, government, homeland, bush

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