Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

The Obama Administration, despite the promises Barack Obama made during the 2008 presidential campaign, has expanded the federal government’s funding of religious programs (“faith-based initiatives” in politically correct government lingo) without instituting any reforms of the programs’ often discriminatory use of government resources. The justification for this unconstitutional mixture of church and state is that religious groups are supposed to be uniquely able to deliver community services.

That justification is belied by the content of programs developed by the Department of Health and Human Services in response to h1n1, the swine flu. Under the orders of the White House office of government religious programs, the Secretary of Health And Human Services set up a separate office for a new governmental organization called the Health and Human Services Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The premise of this government center for religious programs is that it would be specially able to work with religious groups in order to deal with health emergencies, like some said H1N1 flu would be. However, if you examine the Center’s publication, H1N1 Flu: A Guide for Community & Faith-based Organizations, you won’t find any special “faith-based” instructions or activities. There’s nothing in the guide for religious organizations to do in dealing with the flu that secular organizations wouldn’t do as well. There’s not a single thing identified in the guide that a religious organization can do just because it’s a religious organization – no way of dealing with the flu that sets religious groups apart.

There’s no need for this special Health and Human Services guide for religious groups. It’s a waste. A general publication for all community organizations, public and private, secular and religious alike, would have been just as effective, and more efficient, as a way of communicating with communities about how to deal with the flu.

What’s next? An official government guide, How Christians Can Cope With The Common Cold? A Buddhist Guide To Bunions? A Muslim Guide To Medicating Measles? A Hindu Task Force For Handling Herpes?

Last week, Congressman Steve King helped us all understand morality by explaining that only Christians feel sorry when they kill dogs. Apologizing is something only Christians do, says Representative King, and Americans often say they’re sorry. That proves that the United States is a Christian nation, argues King.

There’s a little old flaw to his argument, though. Most Americans, when they do something wrong, apologize fairly soon after the mistake – within a day, a week, a month, and certainly within a year. However, the members of the oldest Christian church in the United States, just today apologized for massacres and other violent atrocities it committed against Native Americans four centuries ago.

It seems that most Americans are doing better than this Christian standard for admitting guilt and seeking forgiveness.

Detroit could use a drink or two these days, with auto workers being laid off left and right, or downright fired in the tens of thousands. So, I thought I’d create a mixed drink just for the folks who are going through hard times in Mo-less-town these days.

I call it the Michigan chocolate scotch. Mix creme de cacao and scotch, and then add Vernors soda, to taste.

It’s not an especially tasty drink. It’s kind of reminiscent of gasoline. I thought that would be appropriate.

The Catholic Church has already received a substantial concession from the Washington D.C. City Council in the struggle over legislation that would grant marriage equality to all residents, regardless of sexual orientation. In order to placate the Catholic church’s lobbyists, the Council placed exemptions for religious organizations. If the law passes, churches won’t be required to treat people equally. They’ll be allowed to continue their policies of hateful disregard.

Oh, but that’s not enough for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington D.C. The Archdiocese is now threatening to withhold services for poor people if marriage equality legislation becomes law.

The D.C. City Council has responded with a great deal more dignity than the Catholic Church seems able to muster. Council members say that if the Catholic Church wants to stop being charitable, then the City Council will simply step forward and make up the difference itself, but it will not allow any organization’s threats to interfere with the constitutional rights of the citizens of D.C.

This is my favorite time of the year for pumpkins: not on Halloween, when the orange gourds blaze in menacing glory. I like the look of pumpkins that linger a few weeks later on. They’ve dried out and shrunk inward upon themselves a bit, adding a hint of pathos. The mouths of the formerly toothsome pumpkins curl inward, making the Jack O’ Lanterns resemble senior citizens looking out and yelling at all the kids to get off their lawn.

They’ll be compost soon, completely unrecognizable. Pumpkins make great compost material, right up there with cucumbers and spinach in their decomposing glory. But why toss ‘em right away? Let ‘em linger, just at the time when the growth of the past summer is finally petering out. My challenge each year is to leave the pumpkins out long enough to really get some character, but to get them before the bottoms rot out and they fall off the shovel and all over the place. I didn’t move them in time last year. Let’s see what happens this season.

How late do you leave out your pumpkins, and what is their final destination?

Government-appointed Chaplain Barry C. Black was at it again yesterday, preaching bizarre Christian religious prophecies from the floor of the United States Senate. This time, Chaplain Black begged his deity to unleash some kind of weird cosmic attack against the Earth.

“God of grace and glory, pour Your power on Your people!” he prayed.

I hope Black’s prayer isn’t answered. Having God’s power poured onto me sounds kind of sticky.

Yesterday, the official government-paid Chaplain of the United States Senate made special time in the legislative day for a government-established ritual of Christian prayer. The prayer was given by Timothy Keller of the Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, who begged his Christian God to “empower us, as a nation, to love all that You do command.”

You know, where I come from empowerment refers to a state in which people are able to create the means to act according to their own consciences. Empowerment as I understand it does not refer to the ability to learn to love the things that one is commanded to do. Where I come from, we call learning to love the things we are commanded to do as surrender or acquiescence or submission.

I don’t particularly appreciate some preacher being given a designated government-funded pulpit in order to preach that I should become the happy slave of his deity. In an empowered nation, there’s a separation of church and state to prevent that sort of thing.