White House says Pagans don't have loving hearts and don't care for the poor

[Chewbacca]

I'd love to show this jerk just how much this pagan cares for the poor. Fringe group my ass!!!! We may be a minority of anywhere between 500,000- 10,000,000, but we ain't no freakin fringe group. What an ass full of pure religous prejudice and ignorance, this coming from James Towey, White House Deputy Assistant to the President and Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

I knew the whole faith based initiative stank, but I didn't know how much.

Link

Colby, from Centralia MO writes: Do you feel that Pagan faith based groups should be given the same considerations as any other group that seeks aid? Jim Towey I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor! Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can't be used to promote ideology, the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it.

[Larry_OHF]

The same thing happened to Mormons when we appealed to the White House and state governers for protection from the scorn of the hateful mobs. I don't expect them to help anyone unless it is in their best interest.

[ 12-01-2003, 01:33 AM: Message edited by: Larry_OHF ]

[Chewbacca]

Of course, Pagans donate

Mr. Faith-based initiative could have done a simple google search to discover Pagan charities.


Larry- I assume you are refering to the early days of your church before and during the migration west that eventually ended in Utah? Well fortunately we won't (I hope and pray) be driven out of town after town like the Mormons suffered back then. Well, I know of a recent case of harrassment at a public school and other isolated incidents against Pagans. It just sucks to hear such derision at a federal level. Hopefully a little education here and there goes along way...

[Larry_OHF]

I am hoping the best for you. You never know what a bunch of crazy people are capable of when they pack together!

By the way...how important is this man's opinion? Will many others believe his words against physical proof to the contrary? Surely one can send the uneducated a list of proofs to counter his wayward tongue, no?

[Azred]

Mr. Towey obviously hasn't done much homework and hasn't been out among the real people of this country very much. The "pagans" (for lack of any other more appropriate term) whom I have known have all been very charitable and helpful people.

I wouldn't worry too much about one uninformed person's statement. Most people don't even realize that there is a "White House Deputy Assistant to the President and Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives", but they do know that there are "pagans". [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

i'm curious, given the "separation of church and state", do government employees, when working in their "official" capacity have to abide by stricter guidelines about what's appropriate to say? or if not protected under that guise, what about freedom of religion? it just seems common sense to me that public servants should be held to a higher standard than shown here.

or does it only matter if the group being commented on is large enough to affect the vote? (sorry, ugly cynic in me rearing it's ugly head again...)

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by Azred: Mr. Towey obviously hasn't done much homework and hasn't been out among the real people of this country very much. The "pagans" (for lack of any other more appropriate term) whom I have known have all been very charitable and helpful people. I wouldn't worry too much about one uninformed person's statement. Most people don't even realize that there is a "White House Deputy Assistant to the President and Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives", but they do know that there are "pagans". [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

Good point, but if this is the guy signing the checks... I fear for any religious charities that do not fit his idea of what a religion is. What about other non-abrahamic "pagan" faiths like hindus or budhists? Are they fringe as well? He must be totally unaware of paganisn considering he assumed that we would use govt money to promote our ideaology. Prothlysizing, with or without govt cheese, is NOT the pagan way.

If you follow the link I provided, this fellow makes a speel about the great plurality that exists in the U.S.A., it seems like he has no idea how great and diverse it actually is and therefore is poorly suited for the position he holds.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

I agree that Federal employees and Administrative officials should be held to a higher standard regarding their conduct and comments. That is just part of the job. They are supposed to represent the entire country and population therein.

I also agree with Chewbacca that the comment about pagans not having "loving hearts" is a blatant example of "pure religious prejudice and ignorance". It is just as ignorant as the statement I've heard from time to time that atheists don't have any morals (since they have no Supreme Being that demands they behave in a moral fashion).

But in regards to Towey's comments about the faith based initiative itself, I found a lot of truth in what he said.

The purpose of the faith based initiative is to help religious organizations recieve federal funding for charity work. To the best of my knowledge, though, this is strictly for official charity efforts that are operated by the organization, not just supported by them. My own church supports several charity causes, some of which are specific to the Southern Baptist Association. These are supported through donations from our members, but since OUR church isn't the one that actually operates the charity, we wouldn't qualify for federal funding to help our donations. The faith based initiative isn't designed to help churches increase the amount of their donations, it is designed to help offset operating costs. In other words, if we supported a local shelter for battered women with regular contributions, that would NOT qualify for the faith based initiative. If our church OPERATED the shelter, then we would qualify for the funds.

The point of all this is that it doesn't matter how generous or caring or supportive any individual is in helping the poor or the less fortunate. The faith based initiative is designed to aid in official charity causes that are sponsered by the organization itself.

Chewie - you mentioned how much you care for the poor and I think that is wonderful. But do you have an official "worship group" that you meet with...and if so...does this worship group have an official charity effort that they operate to help the poor? If not, then they probably don't qualify for the faith based initiative.

You mentioned that James Towey could easily find out how much pagans donate and give by doing a simple Google Search. Well, I did a Google Search myself. I typed in "Pagan Charity" and got a link to The Pagan Charity Network. This page listed 12 different pagan charity sites with direct links to each one. When I checked the Mission Statement of the first four, I found something interesting. The Mission of every one of these pagan charities is to promote the ideals and concepts of paganism or provide education through classes, seminars, etc. to pagans and non-pagans alike. One - the Open Hearth Foundation - listed it's Mission as trying to provide a place for pagans to gather and meet.

Now there is certainly nothing wrong with ANY of the missions of these various organizations...and they have every right to promote the ideals of their religious beliefs and to educate the public regarding these beliefs. But that is NOT what the faith based initiative is designed to support - and that is what James Towey said. In every case where a pagan organization had applied for funds, it turned out that the purpose of that organization was to promote thier particular beliefs rather than to help the poor or operate any other general charity effort. If the faith based initiative office were to give funds to one of these organizatoins, they would {in effect} be helping to "promote" the religion of paganism - which would violate the separation of church and state.

By the same token, the faith based initiative could not give federal funds to the Southern Baptist Association, because the purpose of the SBA is to establish and promote the ideals of the Southern Baptist churches. They might be able to give aid to an individual church that operated some type of charity organization...but they could not give funds to the Association itself.

I'm not trying to criticize the pagan organizations I found listed. The link you provided was a website for pagans to send details of individual contributions and donations they had made....so that the generosity of pagans COULD be made public knowledge. The authoress accurately (and sadly [img]graemlins/verysad.gif[/img] ) points out that many pagans feel they CANNOT give donations openly - because they would be shunned and their donations denied if the recipients learned of their religious beliefs. So she is providing a site where they CAN recieve credit (anonymously if desired) for their efforts. I applaud her for the efforts she is taking to increase the public's knowledge of the generosity of pagans.

I'm also not trying to downplay the gross injustice of Towey's comments. Your criticism of James Towey was correct and justly deserved. But your criticism of the faith based initiative itself was somewhat off the mark (IMHO - of course).

As with all things, don't judge the entire organization over the ignorance of one member.

[ 12-01-2003, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: Cerek the Barbaric ]

[Chewbacca]

Originally posted by sultan: i'm curious, given the "separation of church and state", do government employees, when working in their "official" capacity have to abide by stricter guidelines about what's appropriate to say? or if not protected under that guise, what about freedom of religion? it just seems common sense to me that public servants should be held to a higher standard than shown here. or does it only matter if the group being commented on is large enough to affect the vote? (sorry, ugly cynic in me rearing it's ugly head again...)

Well according to the seperaton of church and state we shouldn't have faith-based initiatives. Great if the government wants to help out charities, (though that is hardly a conservative issue..helping the poor? Bush is the fakest conservative ever!!!!) NOT great if they are going to divvy those charities up between who is secular and who is religious. Even worse if they are going to divvy up religions between those that care and those that dont based on false assumptions.

[Chewbacca]

Cerek,

Thanks for your thoughts! I had skimmed passed the Pagan Charity Network previously and didn't actually look at the activities they promoted or supported. May this is what he meant by promoting ideaology? If so, it makes more sense than implying that Pagans just don't care and would use the money to print up "pagan beleif tracts" or something.

The nature of paganism lends to small groups (covens) gathering for worship and social activities. We have no real "central" organization and it would be soley on the initiative of an individual or a coven to start and maintain a charity.

My concern with this gentleman's comments is two-fold. One, if I decided that I want to start a pagan charity to help the poor and sought to recieve help from the faith-based initiative funding to do so, I would be left out because I was part of a 'fringe' group.

Two was just the fact that he seemed to paint Pagans with a negative brush, like we didn't care or something.Many pagans I know share the belief that giving is the way of nature and is a joyful, carefree thing to do.

My coven down south had a yearly toy and can food drive and we gave what we gathered to the salvation army. We had some discussion of starting an official Pagan charity network with the sole mission to help the poor and needy, but it never materialized. If it had, would we have qualified for funds with this guy at the helm?

My critism of the F.B.I. is not that it is a "bad" thing per se, but why not just give all charities the same weight. Instead of faith based intiative, why not call it "helping the poor initiative" and give both faith-based as well as secular charities the same chance to get government funds?

[ 12-01-2003, 11:47 PM: Message edited by: Chewbacca ]