01/26/01 06:42 PM: George W. God? When is

George W. God?

When is the president going to step out of the church and into the White House? Bush seems to be learning well from Clinton’s mistakes. Clinton spent eight years in office without building much of a legacy. He attempted to squeeze one out in the eleventh hour with all his calls to Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat. He fell rather short of his goal. But Bush appears to be wasting no time starting on his legacy. It’s too early to draw definite conclusions, but he sure is laying the religous rhetoric on thick. The wall between church and state is pretty thick, but Bush is peppering it with hairline fractures. He declared—no, he proclaimed the day after his inauguration a “National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving.” Excuse me? The Center for Christian Statesmanship, Intercessors for America, and other fundamentalist christian groups are calling for Bush’s declaration to become 100 days of prayer. For more on that see this WorkingForChange article. Further blurring the line between government and religion, Bush is proposing to dole out federal funds to private and religious charities. I have nothing against religious charities. There are a lot of fine institutions out there. But they have no right to be funded by the federal government. I oppose this for much the same reason that I oppose school vouchers. Many of the same arguments apply. Bush says, “A compassionate society is one which recognizes the great power of faith.” He added, ”. . . We must welcome faith-based programs.” They are certainly welcome, but they are not welcome to government money. He says that he will unleash “armies of compassion” by letting private and religious charities compete for federal funds. Puh-lease. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has already filed a suit in federal court arguing that the program should not go forward because it promotes christianity over other religions. George, if you wanted to be a pastor/reverend/minister/priest/pope, why didn’t you just ask Dad for that instead of the presidency?

Kevin Peliusczak