Just saw this in my feeds today…

Many people realized early on that George W. Bush’s so-called faith-based initiative suffered from two serious flaws. First, it would likely violate the Constitution. Second, it would create a means for the Republican Party to reward Christian Right supporters – churches and non-denomination organizations – with huge government contracts and monetary awards. Both have come true.

Apparently “true believers” thought that giving government funding to faith-based groups would guarantee there would be no corruption. So much for that idea.

I’ll go even further and suggest that the President’s budget shouldn’t be funding any groups or charities. Our budget deficit is big enough as it is! Why are we donating money we don’t have? It is very irrational to donate borrowed dollars.

I have a few quotes from my collection I think are extremely relevant to this topic:

• “Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.” -Eric Hoffer
• “The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a persons standing in the political community. Government can run afoul of that prohibition in two principal ways. . . . . The second and more direct infringement is government endorsement or disapproval of religion. Endorsement sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” Justice O’Connor
• “Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.” -Samuel James Ervin

• “A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.” -Aristotle (over 2000 years ago! When will we learn?)