ACLU Action Alert: Legislation Would Entangle Government and Religion — a campaign to oppose Dubya’s “faith-based initiative”. Since courts have allowed religious institutions to discriminate
on the basis of their beliefs and teachings in such areas as race,
religion, sexual orientation, gender and pregnancy status, funneling an expanding slice of the existing social services pie to faith-based organizations (after all, you don’t really think there’s going to be an expansion of social needs funding, do you? It’s not even likely we’re going to maintain current levels of expenditure on our most needy!) would result in taxpayer-funded
discrimination in social services employment and service delivery. The alternative in this devil’s bargain would be increasing regulation of religious institutions and loss of traditional autonomy of religious practices. Furthermore, a proportion of the delivery of social services would inherently shift from licensed and trained professionals to those in ministry who, for example, see drug addiction as a sin rather than a mental health problem. With a single click from this site, you can fax your U.S. Senators and Representatives, as well as the President himself, to make your feelings on ths issue known.
Here‘s the entire range of ACLU civil liberties concerns facing the 107th Congress, subject to your similar one-click action.
