Some of my friends and professional acquaintances who are secularists complain that religious social agencies will not provide primary services to persons who do not share the faith commitments of the agency’s sponsors. They imagine a soup line that includes an armed and perhaps leisure-suit-wearing Southern Baptist deacon guarding the food and asking, “Do you subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message? No? Then no soup for you!” This explains, perhaps, why so many social agencies include statements of non-discrimination in their published materials.
As one such person told me, the government must supplant religious organizations in the service of the poor: religious fundamentalism says who can and cannot receive basic services such as food, shelter, clothing, and even job training. This person was making the errant assumption that because a social agency might hire only members of their sect or faith segment that they might likewise discriminate in their services. They may have a point when we move to other services such as adoption, but they have set up a straw man for basic services based on a false analogy.
Advocacy on behalf of the poor is a basic tenet of Christianity and it always has been a distinctive of true Christians. Relief to those in need has always been offered freely. Just ask the folks in the Northeast about those Southern Baptists, who wear yellow windbreakers and not leisure suits, as well as the other religious groups that have flooded the region with volunteers who are pushing back the tide of hunger, cold, and loss.
Against this background comes the word that New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg has decided that they must outlaw food donations to the poor because the materials cannot be assessed for falling within the guidelines for salt and fat. Apparently he has misread Luke 11:11 in the King James, “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone?” I have read that stones can fill hungry bellies with a false sense of satiety, and I suppose that stones are the ultimate in low-salt / low-fat material, at least as long as they aren’t halite. Unfortunately, stones are not very nutritious. Neither is the gift of nothing, like the Marie Antoinette-ish admonition, “They have no bread? Let them eat arugula with low-fat dressing!”
This, then, is where we are. We now not only say, “You can’t serve the poor because of your religious beliefs,” we even tell the poor, “You can’t be served because of our secular beliefs.” And it’s the radical secular fundamentalists who are the new Taliban, destroying religious artwork and, apparently, turning into soup kitchen Nazis. This makes perfect sense, after all, because we now live in an era where “up” is “down,” “hot” is “cold,” and “right” is “wrong.” Too bad “hunger” can’t become “satiety” through the mere wave of a bureaucratic hand.
November 9th, 2012 | 5:17 pm
Do they really have a point with regard to adoptions? Accepting a request for adoption is very different from handing out food. An adoption agency has not just the right but also the serious responsibility to thoroughly vet any potential adopters. Certainly moral factors come into play — I don’t think, for example, anyone would have a problem refusing adoption to alcoholics. I wonder if a couple that engaged in “polyamory” or produced pornography has a right to adoption?
November 9th, 2012 | 5:31 pm
Ironically, it was the emperor Julian, all the way back in 361, who complained that the Christian Church helped all the poor, Christian and pagan alike, and this was making paganism look bad! So it so strange to read that secularists believe this nonsense when the contrary has been true since the inception of Christianity.
Islamic law, on the other hand, does explicitly forbid the giving of alms to non-Muslims. Seems like secularists have the wrong target.
November 9th, 2012 | 7:21 pm
Another irony is that it is one of secularism’s high priestesses, Kathleen Sibelius, who will force religious charities to turn away anyone who is not a co-religionist. This is one of the hateful requirements of the HHS mandate—-the charities must employ and serve only co-religionists in order to get an exemption.
I find it hard to believe that secularists believe that Christian charities only serve Christians. I guess it is willful ignorance—they believe it because they want to. It must feel good to hate us.
Also, I think it should be “tenet”, not “tenant”.
November 9th, 2012 | 8:06 pm
Peg: stupid autocorrect on that line! Yes, “tenet,” not “tenant”! I am grateful and the word stands corrected.
November 9th, 2012 | 8:32 pm
I figured the autocorrect did that—I have seen it “correct” that particular word several times. The lack of capitalization of my name is also an autocorrection (and I have surrendered to it).
November 10th, 2012 | 1:48 am
Too bad “hunger” can’t become “satiety” through the mere wave of a bureaucratic hand.
Is there any reason to believe that those who come to city-operated homeless shelters aren’t being adequately fed there?
Against this background comes the word that New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg has decided that they must outlaw food donations to the poor because the materials cannot be assessed for falling within the guidelines for salt and fat.
Of course Mayor Bloomberg did not “outlaw food donations to the poor.” He has said that homeless shelters will not accept donated food. It could be that donation of goods, particularly perishables, puts a burden on those who are in charge of providing meals in the shelters. If they rely on donated food, what if it doesn’t show up? And when food is donated, how are they supposed to deal with it? The New York Public Library does not accept book donations. The last person I spoke with it was very apologetic, but she pointed out that they simply don’t have the budget and the personnel to go through donated books, choose the ones they consider worth keeping, and dispose of the rest.
November 10th, 2012 | 7:42 am
Just another example of what happens when you take God out of the equation and no longer believe that man does not live on bread alone.
November 10th, 2012 | 4:35 pm
They imagine a soup line that includes an armed and perhaps leisure-suit-wearing Southern Baptist deacon guarding the food and asking, “Do you subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message? No? Then no soup for you!” This explains, perhaps, why so many social agencies include statements of non-discrimination in their published materials.
Well another reason is simple abuse of public funds. I can imagine a cult declaring itself a ‘soup kitchen’ but the ‘kitchen’ is located inside their private building which you can only get in if you’re a subscribing member of the group basically using the taxpayer to pay their food bill rather than working. IMO this is akin to fundamentalist Mormon groups where a man will father children with multiple wives but then turn around and have those wives get welfare as ‘single mothers’.
As one such person told me, the government must supplant religious organizations in the service of the poor: religious fundamentalism says who can and cannot receive basic services such as food, shelter, clothing, and even job training….
At certain points in conversations like this it’s a useful exercise to stop and ask to be slapped in the face. Or if that’s not acceptable to you, try to stop and ask how does this relate to real life.
Some big cities have government run homeless shelters. That’s about it. There’s food stamps but that’s more of a maintaince program, it doesn’t address you fast enough if you’re starving on the street. There’s some emergancy housing programs but they are pretty small in the big scheme of things. Likewise ‘job training’? Serious schooling does have some gov’t help but not all that much. If you need $10,000 to learn automotive repair, or get a 2 year associates degree….you’re probably going to be doing it yourself directly or indirectly with loans.
Long story short, all this stuff is private sector charity. Some religious, some non-religious. And whichever one you’re running, government grants are probably few and far between and probably make up only a portion of your revenue.
It’s a myth that anything but a trivial portion of gov’t spending goes for this sort of thing. Most spending falls under entitlement spending which may help the poor (say in the case of Medicaid…but even there a good chunck of Medicaid is going to pay for nursing homes for middle class and upper-class patients who have strategically depleted their funds) which is only partially targetted to direct poverty fighting.
November 10th, 2012 | 4:40 pm
David,
Good point, the mayor did not ‘outlaw donations to the poor’, his edict only applies to city run homeless shelters which, as you point out, do have to set down some regularity in their incoming food supplies.
Nothing is stopping private agencies from using donated food for the poor or, probably even more importantly, nothing is stopping individuals themselves from buying someone a meal or a store owner giving some food to a homeless person they know in the neighborhood….or these days perhaps a family whose home is unliveable due to Hurricane Sandy…
November 10th, 2012 | 5:30 pm
Here’s an example of what happens when well meaning people decide to donate what they believe the authorities in charge need:
November 10th, 2012 | 8:20 pm
Having worked the soup kitchens before, and helping with one now, I can tell you that it is more uncommon than anything that a soup kitchen would get an unwanted donation.
Mind you, we can’t always use what people give us. We need enough so that we aren’t serving a bunch of different meals (mainly because it causes tension). But, if we see a family with kids, they’ll get an extra bag of goodies later. Or, if we get enough, we let people take what they need for themselves (often we get toiletries, and other miscellany, which isn’t really soup kitchen suitable, but appreciated, none the less).
November 10th, 2012 | 10:03 pm
“IMO this is akin to fundamentalist Mormon groups where a man will father children with multiple wives but then turn around and have those wives get welfare as ‘single mothers’.”
Happens in the inner city all the time. Except the “father” is a gangsta. But that’s politically correct sexual vice and not to tied a “religion.” So, it’s just a “lifestyle choice.”
November 11th, 2012 | 5:56 am
Just curious: if a person walked into a homeless shelter and distributed a bagel to each person there, would they be infringing any laws?
What if this person stood at the door and gave a bagel to each shelter user as he or she walked in or out?
November 11th, 2012 | 6:27 am
Another interesting characteristic of liberal secular fundamentalism is not who they deny their services to, but who they favor their resources with.
According to Health Department data from 2009, there are over 64,000 Medicaid recipients with HIV for whom Medicaid paid $2.36 BILLION, with 70% percent of that going to pharmacy, inpatient, and long-term care.
And who leads the way in spreading HIV and AIDS? Men who have sex with men, of course. Who are repeatedly told by libsec fundies that there is nothing wrong with their “homosexuality,” ergo, they just pursue it in any way they see fit.
November 11th, 2012 | 11:28 am
Heather: I believe it would be against the law. Somehow, passing out free samples at stores is ok, but distributing food to the homeless, which seems to fall under city review, would not be ok.
Where I am, we can serve donated food (and we often do, esp. with cakes, pastries). The city requires that all workers follow health department ordinances and training otherwise — which is fine by me. Everyone should know and maintain basic food safety.
It’s a crazy world. There may be a way around it for a one-time occasion, but in the long term, I think you could be cited. I don’t think the cops would bother, unless there were a complaint. Cops don’t usually go around trying to harass samaritans, unless it causes problems or complaints.
November 11th, 2012 | 1:44 pm
“I can imagine a cult declaring itself a ‘soup kitchen’ but the ‘kitchen’ is located inside their private building which you can only get in if you’re a subscribing member of the group basically using the taxpayer to pay their food bill rather than working.”
Well, I guess if you can imagine it, it must be a very real problem. By the way, isn’t this whole discussion the result of Gene Fant’s observation that some of his secularist acquaintances can “imagine” such scenarios? I doubt that reasserting such an imaginary scenario without any evidence to back it up is going to persuade him—or any of the rest of us, for that matter—that it’s true.
November 11th, 2012 | 2:51 pm
Thomas Aquinas
Happens in the inner city all the time. Except the “father” is a gangsta. But that’s politically correct sexual vice and not to tied a “religion.” So, it’s just a “lifestyle choice.”
Really? I’ve never meet anyone who said it’s ok for a ‘gangsta’ to father lots of children and not take care of them. Perhaps you should be more selecting in your personal choice of friends, people do judge you by the company you keep.
Heather
Just curious: if a person walked into a homeless shelter and distributed a bagel to each person there, would they be infringing any laws?
No they wouldn’t.
Another interesting characteristic of liberal secular fundamentalism is not who they deny their services to, but who they favor their resources with….
According to Health Department data from 2009, there are over 64,000 Medicaid recipients with HIV for whom Medicaid paid $2.36 BILLION, with 70% percent of that going to pharmacy, inpatient, and long-term care.
And who leads the way in spreading HIV and AIDS? Men who have sex with men, of course…
Your absolutely right, if you’re a man just have sex with another man and call up your local Demcratic Party and you’ll get your free health insurance card!
Actually more seriously Medicaid primarily covers children, pregnant women, those with serious disabilities and the very old. A gay man with HIV is unlikely to get automatic Medicaid coverage unless he is already very sick and unable to work. Your compassion is inspiring, though.
November 11th, 2012 | 4:34 pm
• It is not true that “Mayor Bloomberg has decided that they must outlaw food donations to the poor.” The issue at hand is unsolicited donations to the 15 city-operated homeless shelters, which already employ people to feed the shelter occupants. There has been no suggestion that shelter occupants are inadequately fed and require extra, donated food.
• There are two huge charities in New York City (and numerous smaller ones) that accept and distribute food donations: City Harvest, and Food Bank for New York City. If city-run homeless shelters don’t want donated food, there are other excellent organizations who will take it.
• No one has said, “You can’t serve the poor because of your religious beliefs,” we even tell the poor, “You can’t be served because of our secular beliefs.” Religious belief has nothing to do with this issue. The city is not forbidding religious organizations from donating food to shelters but allowing secular organizations to donate food. Looking at this issue in terms of religion versus secularism is totally bogus. Even granting that the Bloomberg administration may be acting as “nannies” in attempting to micromanage the nutritional content of food provided to the homeless, that is not a “secular” value in conflict with religious values. Suppose a priest or a bishop was running a program to feed the hungry, and he was obsessively concerned with providing the most nutritionally well balanced meals. Would he be accused of operating by “secular” values?
• This makes no sense to me. Perhaps someone can explain it:
What artwork is being destroyed? Why should the decision not to accept food donations to homeless shelters evoke references to the Taliban and the Nazis? It seems to me this is an effort to invoke “religious” values to foment hatred. If the Bloomberg administration’s policy of not accepting donated food is resulting in occupants of homeless shelters going hungry, then by all means, let’s make sure the problem is corrected. But it seems to me this whole issue is just an excuse to sneer at Mayor Bloomberg and try to score points in the culture war between secularity and religion when there is really no secular/religious angle to the story at all.
• I invite Gene Fant to dissociate himself from Heather’s message of November 11th, 2012 | 6:27 am. While there is no hint of these particular sentiments in his original post, it seems to me it is the kind of unfortunate comment his remarks paved the way for.
November 11th, 2012 | 4:43 pm
After decades of of Americans dealing with natural disasters, surely there has been a learning curve. New Orleans simply proved what happens when the tasseled loafers in the suites ignore the boots on the ground who know what’s going on. While his city was drowning the mayor was literally have a nervous breakdown on a radio talk show. Civic culture rotted by government dependance. The flacid culture of community activism.
The above exchanges prove how far gone we are in this country in constantly seeking the approval of government for everything we do. It’s amazing Americans remain the most generous people on the planet — to the tune of 300 billion dollars a year prior to the Great Recession according to Arthur Brooks. ALL corporate charity is based on the political postures of the organizations petitioning them. Consequently the Boy Scouts have been banned, while the Girls Scouts, Boys and Girls Club are embraced. It is left-leaning charities and donors who fiercely profile, not the Church. Which is why Catholics now flee CCHD and other USCCB pet projects.
The whole point of the Obama Putsch is to discourage involvement, to dis-empower the 48 percent. It’s why unionized teachers want as little to do with parents as possible. Stand aside, let the professionals get on with their platinum-plated agendas. And never never ask questions. We are a more coarsened and pitiless culture than ever. When I lived in New York people would step over bodies to vilify someone wearing a fur coat. Now that is what offended the finely calibrated sensibilities of at least one book editor I knew. Bloomberg’s constituency.
November 11th, 2012 | 5:17 pm
JB in CA
Well, I guess if you can imagine it, it must be a very real problem.
You should talk about carping about imaginary problems. This post began with a complaint that gov’ts require those receiving grants to provide help to all without discriminating against religion. It then asked when has one ever encountered a soup kitchen run by Baptists kicking needy people out of line for theological unorthodoxy. Well if no one does such a thing what’s the problem prohibiting it? Look if I went around complaining that it was against the law to rape, people would look at me and say “gee, he must want to rape people”. Distrubing but sensible. If I explained, though, that I found rape so bad that I was insulted someone would even make a law against it..then I’d just be spitting at common sense and logic.
The discussion then turns to Mayor Bloomber insisting that his city run shelters be able to label the food for nutritional values has something to do with ‘secularism’…..I wasn’t aware of any major religions who oppose food nutrional labels.
David,
Isn’t it interesting that all the people here who are talking about how great private charity is, how bad liberals are making gov’t do everything etc. have absolutely no idea what charities do in NYC, seem totally unaware that the local gov’t's 15 homeless shelters are but a tiny part of NYC’s system of aid?
November 11th, 2012 | 5:26 pm
The whole point of the Obama Putsch is to discourage involvement, to dis-empower the 48 percent.
Dictionary check: Merriam-Webster Unabridged.
putsch : a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government or governing body
When I lived in New York people would step over bodies to vilify someone wearing a fur coat.
Having lived in Manhattan since 1970, I can say that I have never seen anything remotely resembling this. I have never stepped over a body, never seen anyone else step over a body, and never seen someone vilify another person for wearing a fur coat.
November 11th, 2012 | 5:54 pm
“What artwork is being destroyed?”
Removing the church steeples from depictions of city landscape on the city seal.
Removing historical displays of faith from memorial sites, whether it be the ten commandments from state houses or crosses on a veterans memorial or the Rev. in Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.
Translating books and materials to meet 21st century liberal standards.
The push to remove crosses in religious schools (yes, done by secularists posing in religious roles) and to require colleges provide crucifixation-free prayer rooms for other faiths.
The reactionary intolerance by secularist activists if you say ‘bless you’ or bless your meal or wear a cross in their view.
Guilty of their own rejection of faith, they lash out at any display that dare remind them of it.
November 11th, 2012 | 6:34 pm
Charles,
I don’t believe you answered the question of what artwork is being destroyed. The Steubenville city logo (which is apparently still in limbo) is in no way equivalent to the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
Why do some people who hate “liberals” derive such pleasure in imagining themselves as persecuted, endangered minorities—and then blame liberals for making victimhood some kind of mark of entitlement?
November 11th, 2012 | 7:51 pm
[...] Radical (Secular) Fundamentalism – Gene Fant, First Thoughts [...]
November 11th, 2012 | 10:50 pm
Translating books and materials to meet 21st century liberal standards.
Translations done in, say, the 5th century, of course, were not influenced in the slightest by the culture and times of the 5th century.
November 12th, 2012 | 5:30 am
It suggestion that an organization dedicated to serving a particular section of the public thereby ceases to be charitable.
Here in the UK, HM Revenue & Customs have accepted that collections for “the families of the martyrs” in various conflict zones around the world are charitable funds.
November 12th, 2012 | 5:40 am
I meant to say:
“It is an odd suggestion that an organization dedicated to serving a particular section of the public thereby ceases to be charitable.
Here in the UK, HM Revenue & Customs have accepted that collections for “the families of the martyrs” in various conflict zones around the world are charitable funds.
November 12th, 2012 | 7:41 am
Michael PS
It suggestion that an organization dedicated to serving a particular section of the public thereby ceases to be charitable.
Errr not it isn’t. The issue cited by the author on top of this thread concerned the Mayor of NYC not accepting food donations to the 15 gov’t run homeless shelters. He then went on to complain about rules that said grants to private groups for charity cannot discriminate. He alleged that no private religious group would ever do such a thing but that’s an irrelevant point.
A private group can indeed create a ‘two track’ charity system. The Baptist church can establish a soup kitchen that gets gov’t grants to feed all the needy but they can also have a more extensive system of aid only for members of their congregation that need help. The only rule is that if they are getting taxpayer dollars they use it for the first type of charity.
There are, of course, numerous charitable groups dedicated to only segments of the population, sometimes even very tiny segments (for example, scholarship funds for the children of firefighters or cops killed in the line of duty).
November 12th, 2012 | 11:47 am
Peg –
You omitted the word “some”, as in “some secularists”. Mr. Fant didn’t.
November 12th, 2012 | 1:47 pm
Actually what was really omitted was any case of a secularist who thought that Christian charities only serve Christians.
November 12th, 2012 | 3:04 pm
Another thing missing is some kind of evidence that being concerned (even excessively so) with the salt, fat, fiber, and calorie content of food amounts to “radical secular fundamentalism.” The suggestion is nonsense.
Another thing missing is the fact that this whole tempest in a teapot dates back to one incident in March in which a man’s attempted donation of “surplus” bagels was refused. I think we can all sympathize with the man who had been bringing food to city homeless shelters for years or even decades, and is suddenly (and not so politely) turned away. But the endless number of reports of this city regulation on mostly secondary web sites all spring from one incident over six months ago. Exactly how it got dug up again I don’t know.
There is one point I wouldn’t want to go too far with, because I think it is a shame how much food is wasted, and I think The Food Bank and City Harvest do great work in collecting it and distributing it to the needy. But there is something just a little disturbing about the idea of charity based on collecting what otherwise would be garbage and giving it to poor people. There is a limit to how charitable one should feel about giving the poor used clothing and leftovers that overfed people could not manage to finish off themselves.
November 12th, 2012 | 3:27 pm
“The Steubenville city logo (which is apparently still in limbo) is in no way equivalent to the Buddhas of Bamiyan.”
I doubt the quality or significance of the art was the intended basis of comparison — rather, the impulse to purification. Whether that is similar in both cases, we can each judge. It’s easy to mock the point by saying a city logo is not equivalent to an ancient monument. It might be a little harder to answer whether the impulse to remove every possible image of a Christian symbol from every possible publicly-sponsored place is so different in kind (though obviously different in extremity and degree of violence) from the impulse to smash images.
November 12th, 2012 | 4:03 pm
Medicaid, a medical assistance benefits program for those on a low income, has played a significant role in HIV care since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the USA. Today around four in ten people living with HIV and receiving care are covered by Medicaid.9 In 2008 Medicaid spending on HIV totaled $7.5 billion, making it the USA’s largest source of public financing for HIV/AIDS.
The federal budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2011 includes a total of $20.4 billion for domestic HIV and AIDS, a 4% increase from the FY 2010 funding, which totaled $19.6 billion.
The lifetime treatment costs per patient on protease inhibitors (the current drug regimen of choice) range from $71,000 to $425,000, depending upon when the patient dies. For those merely infected with HIV (but who haven’t progressed to AIDS), the protease inhibitor drugs cost $14,000 per patient per year, which then increases to about $35,000 per patient per year at the onset of various AIDS-associated complications
Still another source of federal money is the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP) which “buy 20% of the HIV drugs prescribed in the U.S., enough for 92,000 people.” The other 80% have insurance or are covered by federal programs.
The Blade pointed out that 3,010 (48%) of the 6,212 AIDS cases in Virginia were covered by ADAP. In addition, ADAP enjoys a charmed existence. In 7 years, its budget has jumped from $52 million to $714 million–a 1373% increase! Name another federal program with such a growth curve!
The CDC has calculated that 800,000 to 900,000 people in the U.S. are infected with HIV, and that 385,000 of these have AIDS (CDC, HIV prevalence trends in selected populations in United States results from national sero–surveillance, 1993-1997, August 2001). Furthermore, somewhat over half of all those living with HIV or AIDS–amounting to over 400,000 of the infected and about 200,000 of those living with AIDS–are male homosexuals (Associated Press August 10, 2003) . .
If there are as many as 3 million gays, then at least one of every 15 has AIDS and one of every 8 is infected with HIV, for a total of approximately 20% of the homosexual male subpopulation.
Now, approximately 80% of MSM with AIDS or HIV are aged 25-49. A male homosexual with AIDS costs society about $35,000/year in medical costs, while one with HIV costs society about 14,000/year. This compares to the average toll in medical costs for men of the same age of about $1,700.
MSM with HIV/AIDS thus cost society about 10-20 times more in medical costs per year than non-homosexuals of the same age.
===============
I think of all the children that are being abused, all the other homeless people, and so many other victims who do not have even a penny of resources to help them – and compare that with this huge number of homosexuals stuffing themselves with incredibly expensive treatments – $14,000-35,000 is what many people and many families have to live on per year – and here is Boonton wanting no accountability for homosexuals with visibly destructive minds regarding sexuality and relationships – who spread HIV and syphilis like no one else.
Who makes the decision to abandon a homeless person in the most brutal, abject living conditions, denying them the help they need, for example, and give the money that could be used to help them to a homosexual that goes around spreading a deadly disease – an entitlement which adds up to a huge sum of money for an entire lifetime?
Resources are limited. The people controlling these resources are profoundly biased and hog large resources to distribute them in a profoundly unjust way.
To add insult to injury, no perverted homosexual is ever held accountable for spreading STDs – no matter what the cost to society. This is another example of how destructive liberal ideology is regarding sexuality and regarding homosexuality/bisexuality in particular.
November 12th, 2012 | 4:11 pm
Pentanom:
I think there is a difference between what happened with the buddhas in Bamiyan and the removal of religious simbols of some public spaces. In the first case it is the destruction of religious symbols that are not part of the dominant state-recognized religion. In the second is the removal of those symbols in public govermental spaces to assure that the state remains neutral concerning religion. If “secularists” were acting as muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan, they will be destroying all religious properties (churches, mosques, synagoges) just for being religion, not for being part of a goverment sponsored space.
November 12th, 2012 | 4:20 pm
It might be a little harder to answer whether the impulse to remove every possible image of a Christian symbol from every possible publicly-sponsored place is so different in kind (though obviously different in extremity and degree of violence) from the impulse to smash images.
pentamom,
I would say they are very different in kind. The Taliban is destroying, for its religious purposes, “false idols.” Groups like FFRF are getting their inspiration from the First Amendment. I happen to think they are misguided, but a religious group like the Taliban trying to obliterate another through force is dramatically different in scale and kind from a non-religious group using the courts to take the First Amendment to what they believe to be its logical conclusion.
Certainly you can find no moral equivalence between the Taliban and the FFRF, can you?
And in any case, what the Taliban destroying ancient Buddhist statues has to do with Mayor Bloomberg’s administration choosing not to accept donations at city-run homeless shelters is beyond me. As I said above, it makes no sense at all to classify even excessive concern with the nutritional quality of food distributed by the homeless shelters as “radical secular fundamentalism.” Gene Fant apparently can’t abide Mayor Bloomberg, but how that justifies turning the city policy on food in homeless shelters into an issue of “radical secular fundamentalism” escapes me. If Mayor Bloomberg is hostile to religious displays, explain this:
November 12th, 2012 | 4:25 pm
The claim wasn’t about a misguided ‘impulse to purification’ but a claim that ‘art was being destroyed’. Sorry changing a logo is not ‘destroying art’. The old logo still exists and to the degree it’s some masterpiece people can still enjoy it. No one is talking about burning paintings, blowing up scupltures, smashing icons etc. It’s fair to insist on honesty on people’s parts before we indulge their claims.
November 12th, 2012 | 4:54 pm
Heather
and here is Boonton wanting no accountability for homosexuals with visibly destructive minds regarding sexuality and relationships …
I don’t know, I think having HIV is pretty bad even if you’re not directly paying for the drugs to treat it. I know I wouldn’t be thrilled if someone told me “good news, we’re going to give you the HIV virus but don’t worry we’re going to pay for all your drugs and doctors’ appointments!”
Using your figutres, you claim Medicaid paid $7.5B. Medicaid’s total spending is about $400B so if tomorrow HIV were to magically disappear Medicaid spending would fall all of 2% or so.
I think of all the children that are being abused, all the other homeless people, and so many other victims who do not have even a penny of resources to help them ..
Cool it sister! This was raised as supposedly illustrating ‘liberal charity’ priorities. Sorry, no one sits down and says Medicaid will ‘give 2% to gay men with HIV’. You’re poor you get Medicaid, what Medicaid ends up spending money one depends on what types of illnesses people without resources have. About 2% of that is HIV, at best. The rest can be grouped into things like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and so on. I’m not sure why you think it’s ‘charitable’ to take the sick and try to assign them degrees of ‘personal responsibility’ for their illnesses and ‘punish’ them accordingly. To the degree, say, your grandmother has diabetes because she’s always indulged her sweet tooth, don’t you think diabetes is its own punishment?
Perhaps you want to make a case for government ‘death panels’ who will deny health care aid to those who, to some degree, brought their illnesses upon themselves. I suggest you remember that charity starts at home. I would suggest you write to the charities you already give money too and suggest they first institute ‘punishment panels’. For example, maybe you could lobby Catholic Charities to shut down their work caring for those with AIDS.
November 12th, 2012 | 5:02 pm
Resources are limited. The people controlling these resources are profoundly biased and hog large resources to distribute them in a profoundly unjust way.
To add insult to injury, no perverted homosexual is ever held accountable for spreading STDs – no matter what the cost to society. This is another example of how destructive liberal ideology is regarding sexuality and regarding homosexuality/bisexuality in particular.
Heather,
Your messages are profoundly offensive. More wasted resources:
November 13th, 2012 | 7:11 am
“I’m not sure why you think it’s ‘charitable’ to take the sick and try to assign them degrees of ‘personal responsibility’ for their illnesses and ‘punish’ them accordingly.”
==========
Well, let me explain. Medicaid can be given to people who are disabled, like the blind. Let us make an analogy: suppose a man gets a sexual kick of gouging out people’s eyes. According to your liberal ideology, he should be entitled to gouge out his own eyes and other people’s too with total impunity – simply because he wants to. And then the state should be responsible for paying a huge amount of money in disability support and treatment for the remainder of his life – independently of the fact that he deliberately chose to inflict harm on himself and others. Obviously this applies not only for him, but concerning everyone else he has decided to gouge the eyes of too. According to liberal ideology, he should be entitled to do this for as long as he lives with total impunity.
In real life, however, if you tried to gouge someone’s eyes, you would be sent to prison for doing harm to them.
But, curiously enough, according to liberal ideology, if people do harm because of their perverted sexuality in a variety of contexts, they should be entitled to huge sums of public money and to no accountability.
This is quite different than a person who did nothing wrong, destructive or irresponsible and went blind because of some disease they could not control.
There are millions of people with all kinds of diseases and dire needs for help who are not destructive. And they are not getting the resources or the help they need, of which Medicaid is an example. So why should sexually perverse and perverted people hog resources, when they are responsible for the destruction they cause?
Currently you sit on a torture panel. On this panel, you decide that you are going to torture millions of people by abandoning them to tremendous suffering without any aid – because resources are limited – and you are going to give resources to destructive homosexuals who spread grave diseases, by extorting a huge amount of money from the state to fund their destructive sexuality habits for the entirety of their lives.
“You’re poor you get Medicaid,”
Funny – I know of millions of people who are poor and aren’t able to get Medicaid. Not a penny.
November 13th, 2012 | 10:17 am
More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.
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