[lbo-talk] The Military, the Church, and the Police

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Feb 25 15:56:31 PST 2005



>Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
>> > The Bush solution is to give the churches government money to run
>>> their "moral" church-based welfare services as he cuts back
>>> traditional gov't services.
>>> Marta
>>
>>However, Mark Chaves' study of religious congregations shows that it is
>>liberal and progressive congregations, not the conservative ones that are
>>more likely to pursue government funding of their programs.
> >http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?Section=ByAuthor&NavMenuID=63&template=/Ta
> >ggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=6446
>
>Esther Kaplan also writes in her book, With God On Their Side, that
>the Xian right doesn't care whether their services work - feed the
>hungry, prevent unwanted pregnancy. They're just interested in
>harvesting souls. Amazingly, even though the data show that
>abstinence programs don't work, they pursue them anyway, because
>they're the godly thing to do. Esther talked to women whose
>daughters got pregnant despite the abstinence program, and they all
>said they would do it again anyway. To bend to data or actual
>experience would be too reality-based.
>
>Doug

Wojtek was, however, speaking of which kind of congregation is most likely to apply for government funding for religious charities:

Mark Chaves writes:

<blockquote> First, very large congregations express willingness to take advantage of charitable choice opportunities. Second, informants from 64 percent of predominantly African-American congregations expressed willingness to apply for government funds, compared with only 28 percent from predominantly white congregations. Controlling for other characteristics, predominantly black congregations are five times more likely than other congregations to seek public support for social service activities.

Third, Catholic and theologically liberal or moderate Protestant congregations are significantly more likely to apply for government funds in support of social service activities than are theologically conservative congregations. Forty-one percent of congregations in liberal or moderate Protestant denominations said they are willing to apply for government funds, compared with 40 percent of Catholic congregations and only 28 percent of congregations in conservative denominations. Furthermore, congregations described by their leaders as theologically and politically conservative are significantly less likely to express willingness to apply for government funds even after controlling for denominational affiliation and other characteristics. ("Congregations' Social Service Activities," December 1, 1999, <http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=309275>)</blockquote>

While religious conservatives advocated for government funding for religious charities, conservative religious congregations, in practice, have applied for it much less often than liberal ones have. That is probably because conservative religious congregations dislike government regulations that come with funding.

As for abstinence-only sex programs, blame Bill Clinton's Welfare Reform for them: "The federal appropriation -- which balloons to $437.5 million when combined with matching state funds -- is the result of a little-publicized and never-debated provision of Public Law 104-193, the welfare reform law signed into law by President Clinton in August 1996" (Priscilla Pardini, "Federal Law Mandates 'Abstinence-Only' Sex Ed," <http://www.rethinkingschools.org/sex/sexmain.shtml>). -- Yoshie

* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>



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