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Church and state

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There’s been a lot of huffing and puffing in the comments here and elsewhere about the governor’s pledge of $1 million in state money to help rebuild the fire-destroyed school and administration building of Pilgrim Baptist Church.

I dealt with the big picture in today’s Capitol Fax, but most of the people who are complaining about separation of church and state don’t know much about the way the state operates.

The Tribune fills us in.

Pilgrim Baptist itself–along with a school that was renting space from the church–has received more than $2 million in state funds since 2001 for providing child care and teen outreach programs, according to the state comptroller’s office.

And all sorts of places of worship, which often serve as community centers in neighborhoods and towns around the state, have been the beneficiaries of state funds for decades.

In the last few years, Concordia Lutheran Church on Chicago’s North Side received a $2 million state grant for the construction of a campus in Avondale for infant, after-school and teen programs, while Holy Cross Immaculate Heart of Mary received a $50,000 grant to expand the parish’s social center.

Blagojevich pointed out that the state recently gave $2 million to the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago to deal with “homeland security issues.”

Not to mention the billions of dollars in Medicaid money that is given annually to Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and the Jewish Federation for their hospitals, clinics and social service programs.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 5:39 am

Comments

There is a lot of HYPOCRICY in the church and state stuff. But direct grants to churches to rebuild could be considered a violation. Usually the services by JUF or Catholic Charities are not supposed to be specific to religion but a specific service. There is no way social services in this country could operate without religion and religiously based or inspired non for profits. Rod is a hypocrite and it is not his money.

Comment by Hypocricy Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 7:20 am
My memory may be a bit rusty, but I am fairly sure some of the Illinois First funds went to churches and other religious insitutions, usually for the school or social services elements of the institutions.

If Rod gives the $ and it goes into a general rebuilding effort, then it is constitutionally suspect. However, if it goes for services/education, it will likely pass muster.

I am unsure how the state polices where the money goes after the checks are cut. Do they ask for records to ensure the money was spent as promised and was kept out of general operations?

Comment by Navin Johnson Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 8:21 am
Rich et al -

Here’s the link to the 8/2001 White House report on the “unlevel playing field” faced by faith-based social service organizations (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/unlevelfield.html). The general office website can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/fbci/.

Comment by Defensor Pacis Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 8:25 am
ok, convinced me. Now, will the Left layoff Bush and religion please then.

Comment by Bill Baar Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 9:59 am
This whole issue is due to the amateurs working for the governor. Who ever is giving Blagojevich advice needs to be fired.

First screw up: state funding is already politicized, so you have to be careful not to make it a hot topic. Blagojevich did this the first day he was in office. So he set the tone. He didn’t think about how to get out of it? What we seem to be seeing is a guy pretending to be surprised by his administration’s “success”, whereby letting him give some public groups money. He is acting like the kid who found a quarter under the couch, instead of a leader who steered Illinois through financial hard times.

Second screw up: don’t start your re-election before you let voters know that your solution to the budget debacle has worked and funding is again available.

Third screw up: don’t go around the state like Santa, when for three years you told everyone that we were broke. When you do this, you look like a political hack buying votes and rewarding one group over another.

Blagojevich set himself up with his amateur moves. Now, whenever he gives funding to any group on his re-election tour, it looks like he is playing politics with money we don’t have.

That why folks are up in arms over this church. Whether it is legal or not, isn’t the issue. The issue is a governor who hasn’t thought out how he is to run for re-election playing Santa after he overplayed his performance as Scrooge.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 10:45 am
It never ceases to amaze me that Republicans like Bill are so willing to accept words at face value but are so incurious about actions and/or results. As Jon Stewart put it once, mocking the Bush administration’s constant black-is-white, up-is-down spinning, “Words speak louder than actions!”

There is copious evidence that public funds have gone to religious institutions that do discriminate and proselytize, as a result of Bush’s policies. This outcome expressly contradicts Bush’s statement from the website suggested by Defensor that “The delivery of social services…should value the bedrock principles of pluralism, nondiscrimination, evenhandedness, and neutrality.”

Why anyone believes a word the president or anyone in his administration utters any more is beyond me. As Bush himself said, “…[F]ool me once, shame on â€” shame on you. Fool me â€” you can’t get fooled again.”

There SHOULD be an unlevel playing field for those churches and synagogues unwilling to play by the rules. Period.

Comment by insider Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 10:55 am
Bill, There’s a huge difference between a grant to a church to rebuild a school or community center which can be non-demonitional and even secular and the Bush Regime’s implementation of giving grants to religious organizations without requirements to avoid specific religious teachings.

When you’ve got conservative fundamentalist groups like the American Family Association accusing the AFL-CIO, Hispanic Bar Association and others of advocating legalized child porn or the radical right-wing Westboro Baptist Church protesting at military funerals there’s a big problem with giving our tax money to any one religious organization for the purposes of promoting a given religion (even if in the course of providing some sort of social service).

(As an off-topic aside, why is it that folks in the media continuously label groups — secular or religious alike — such as MoveOn, Democracy for America, or even Jim Wallis’ Sojourners as “liberal” but groups like the religious-based American Family Association and Westboro Baptist Church or the secular-based Heritage Foundation and CATO Institute are rarely defined as “conservative”? It’s fine to apply labels and definitions like that — might even help educate news consumers — but the inconsistencies are troubling.)

Comment by Anonymous Too Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 10:55 am
Why is this news to anyone, Democrats campaign and Churches all the time and don’t get tagged with the “church and state” cry…the only time this is an issue is when the church does something with republicans that liberals don’t like. Not that hard to figure out.

Comment by Anon 3:16 Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 11:02 am
Yes, it is great politics. But perhaps even Rod can imagine that his decisions can maybe maybe a tiny bit be about more than politics.

Of course politicians campaign in churches.

Of course government money often goes to religious groups that provide contracted state services. Not money for promoting the faith.

I support restoration of this church through private dollars. But Rod, by personal fiatm gives state money to one chruch to build….. a church, their house of worship.

The government is not permitted to use tax dollars to establish a house of worship.

Even if they were…

Why this church? There are lots of historic sanctuaries all over the state that could use help keeping the roof up?

Does the next church that has a tragedy get money also?

Which churches get the money? Those that Rod likes?

What percentage of the state’s tax money does the governor get to use for building favored churches?

Hey maybe Rod understands something about the constitution that i don’t. Maybe the Governor is allow to use state money for his personal choices of what churches he prefers? Like a King.

Obviously it is good politics. That is why they put it in the constitution. It would be hard to resist the political temptation to do craven stuff like this.

Rcih, please dont let him of the hook. Next it will be “good politics” to fund favored newspapers.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 12:21 pm
I belong to a Church that’s historic. The oldest in Kane County. So what do we have to do to get Illinois money for a new roof?

Comment by Bill Baar Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 2:17 pm
Rich, what that means is that the state, previous Governors and the current Governor have been violating the law.

It also means that the current Governor has been caught and exposed on these violations of law and as usual the one who is caught is the one who takes the heat for it.

Cheryl Jackson last night made me laugh so hard because really could find an excuse for their actions except, “it’s been done for years”. How does that excuse that it is a violation of law.

When a spokesperson for any organization responds to allegations of it’s company or organization violations of laws, it is fitting for the spokesperson to outline for the interview how the organization or company did not violate the law, not “EVERYONE ELSE HAS BEEN DOING IT SO WE DID IT TOO”.

With that concept, George Ryan was indicted along with some of his cronies, DOES THAT MEAN THAT ROD BLAGOJEVICH AND SOME OF HIS CRONIES SHOULD BE INDICTED TOO BASED UPON PAST PRECEDENT SET BY GEORGE RYAN AND DAN WALKER?

Comment by ONEMANCANMAKEADIFFERENCE Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 3:22 pm
What about Faith Based Initiatives? Let me just point out that while the argument seems to be over whether this money should help rebuild a church, which I agree should ideally be funded by private sources. On the other hand if the same church in question just so happened to offer a service such as education or health care, then there shouldn’t be a problem with this $1 million. At the same time this grant seems more like a political ploy than anything else.

Comment by Levois Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 5:54 pm
I think that the key word is RENTED. THe school did not own the property.

Comment by Anon Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 6:03 pm
If this is wrong, then would some of you Blagojevich opponents admit it was wrong for Raymond Poe to get Illinois First funds to put air-conditioning in the school buildings at St. Patrick’s parochial school in Springfield ???

Comment by Smitty Irving Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 6:41 pm
1) Doesn’t the contractor who started the fire have insurance?
2) Does the Baptist Church have insurance?
3) Shouldn’t the curch go after the contractor for damages?
4) Why is the Governor giving our tax dollars to THIS cause when the State Police FOID section was forced to downsize from 17 to 7, forcing an illegal(?) delay in FOID processing?
5) Wouldn’t the $Million be better spent finally buying some squad cars for the State Police instead of a new church-school for 80 students?

Comment by North of I-80 Wednesday, Jan 11, 06 @ 9:35 pm
It’s Bad Spending! Top to bottom. The Haircut in Florsheims will not garner any votes, the Church is still going to accountable for the hiring of the contractor and it insurance situation, and cool mil goes into the smoke. What’s the estimated cost of the damage? What’s the estimated cost to rebuild or is a restoration in the offing? Nice gesture - bad governance.

Comment by Pat Hickey Thursday, Jan 12, 06 @ 7:58 am