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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
-- First Amendment, The Constitution of the United States
Sensible Americans have for a while now put up with the government's escalating efforts at turning the country into a Christian nation. They have resisted ignorant Christians' attempts at rewriting history, such as pretending the founding fathers were Christian. (Many of them were Deists and some others Freemasons.)
Many Americans oppose their government's slow Chrisianization of America, through such means as grants given to faith-based initiatives and the President's approval to introduce drivel like Intelligent Design into schools. The constitution expresses in no uncertain terms that the state and religion are to be kept separate. Yet the current fundamentalist government has taken steps to undermine the constitution itself.

During the crisis in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, secular charities were omitted from the list put together by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), whilst only faith-based organisations made the cut:
Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash - The Nation, September 7, 2005

With the Bush Administration's approval, Robertson's $66 million relief organization, Operation Blessing, has been prominently featured on FEMA's list of charitable groups accepting donations for hurricane relief. Dozens of media outlets, including the New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press, duly reprinted FEMA's list, unwittingly acting as agents soliciting cash for Robertson. "How in the heck did that happen?" Richard Walden, president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, asked of Operation Blessing's inclusion on FEMA's list. "That gives Pat Robertson millions of extra dollars."

Though Operation USA has conducted disaster relief for more than twenty-five years on five continents, like scores of other secular relief groups currently helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, it was omitted from FEMA's list. In fact, only two non-"faith-based" organizations were included. (One of them, the American Red Cross, is being blocked from entering New Orleans by FEMA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.) FEMA, meanwhile, has reportedly turned away Wal-Mart trucks carrying food and water to the stricken city, teams of firemen from Maryland and Texas, volunteer morticians and a convoy of 1,000 boat owners offering to help rescue stranded flood victims. While relief efforts falter in the face of colossal bureaucratic incompetence, the Bush Administration's promotion of Operation Blessing has ensured that the floodwaters swallowing New Orleans will be a rising tide lifting Robertson's boat.
As a result, faith-based 'charity' organisations were given all the advertising exposure, forcing Katrina victims to put up with their dubious aid, making them lose out on getting helped by actual non-religious relief organisations that provided aid without the usual Christian extortion.
Now, the government is forging links with faith groups to operate emergency services, including the reconstruction of communities severely affected by Katrina's havoc.
No sooner had Hurricane Katrina dissipated than the Bush White House began trying to capitalize on the haphazard response of government departments including the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
From: New Hurricane Season, record push for faith-based emergency programs, funding for religious groups, which has more

More on government support and funding of faith-based "welfare" projects:
Return of the Salvation Army, by Christopher Hitchens

In the election just past, one major party proposed that care of the poor and the homeless be subcontracted to "faith-based organizations." As it happens, that was the Republican Party. But the idea-of piety and charity replacing the obligations of society and government—had been sedulously nurtured by the supporters of President Clinton's "welfare reform." And the deputy on the Democratic ticket in 2000 had loudly and repeatedly misread the Constitution so as to make a false distinction between "freedom of" religion (good) and "freedom from" (bad). I don't need to weary the readers of this journal with Joseph Lieberman's sinister illiteracy on this point. But I am astonished at how few people have noticed the outright negation of the Constitution that is contained in the latest welfare proposals.

These plans vary from state to state, but they involve an abdication by government and an emphasis on - sounds good- "voluntary" efforts. (The "faith-based" is sometimes down-played but never absent.) If sufficiently organized, these efforts will receive some version of subsidy, or matching funds, or other official patronage.
...
You notice, possibly, what this has in common with prayer in schools. For some reason, which I believe I can guess, the churches want control of people when or while they are most vulnerable or suggestible. If they can't get them in school, then they can get them when they are hungry, or frightened, or ill, or homeless, or unemployed. Same difference. Here's your gruel, and here's a tract. Yes, we can help you with the form-filling. But did we see your sister in the congregation last week? Already, in several Southern states, there have been complaints of hell-fire sermonizing and godly coercion down at the old biscuit-and-blanket center.

See also: Intelligent Design

Global Evangelical project to hit the UK and Europe too!

"Vatican officials have labeled Europe a "Pagan country." The comment was prompted by a statistic from Austria that 43,632 Austrians formally renounced their Roman Catholic affiliation in 1999, whereas only 3,387 joined the Church.
Link (in response to how the Church always protects paedophile priests and not the victims).
See also: Religion takes a back seat in Western Europe - USA Today, October 8, 2005

This has got the Churches so worried, they're fighting back. Like the increase in non-adherence to religion in general, it has also prompted the zealous evangelical Churches to want to re-convert Europe to Christianity. And not to the more toned-down Catholicism or Protestantism that everyone's been used to. No, they see an opening to bring in their ludicrous and recently invented, Born-Again, Bible-thumping, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so" variety!
Doubtless a few characters here and there might get sucked in by accident. However, it is unlikely that the rest of Europe - having passed through violent conversion in its early history, surviving the Inquisition, Reformation and finally attaining the periods of Enlightenment and post-Fascism - might be foolhardy to go through all the nonsense again. The Bible-Belt in the US may have a short memory (or be taught the fanciful "Intelligent Design" instead of actual history), but the rest of the sane world doesn't.
Austria, having been rigidly Catholic throughout the Dark and Middle Ages, isn't about to convert into the unhistoric and irrational Born-Again denominations. Austrians regard the late fashions in American Christianity as peculiar oddities and, correctly, as being unsupported by historical and Biblical foundations. After all, all Protestant (including Evangelical Christian) sects as well as their traditions originated as reforms from the western Christian (Catholic) denomination as opposed to the eastern one (Orthodox Christian) or the exterminated heretical branches.

Nevertheless, the fundies across the pond are bent on trying to snag others into their delusion, as outlined in the Joshua Project. They seem to want everyone. They have pages devoted not just to all kinds of ethnic minorities and 'unsaved' people of other countries, but even have exclusive pages to target western Europe (see Joshua Project's satellite site Tell Europe) and the UK. They already have a team for converting Scots. And the Welsh won't be left in peace either.

Religion in England & the UK documents the Christian lobbying group in the UK, Faith schools and how Fundamentalist Christianity is increasing within the Church of England and amongst liberal Churches. Unpleasant things to look forward to indeed.

Christian undertakings against gay people

Christian reprogramming camps

The fundies now even have Christian camp-like program to turn gay people straight. Christian Nazi Germany had camps for homosexuals too: concentration camps, used to imprison and exterminate thousands of gay people. See Nazi Germany imprisoned between 5,000 and 10,000 homosexual men in concentration camps.

Today's Christian 'ex-gay' camps make a lot of money out of their deception too, even preying on young people:

For LIA [Love in Action (LIA), Refuge], homosexuality is not an orientation but a set of behaviors that lies at the root of all dysfunction. And homosexual desires can supposedly be reprogrammed, through Refuge, at a cost of $2,000 for two weeks, or $4,000 for six weeks.
...
Peterson Toscano spent 17 years and $30,000 to get straight as an adult, but nothing worked.
"'Ex-gay' programs use the term 'gay lifestyle,' which to them includes unsafe sex [and] emotionally dependent relationships," Toscano said. "They know they can't really turn anyone straight, but they can make them not live the 'gay lifestyle.' They are purposely deceiving people."
From: Youth's blog stirs uproar over 'ex-gay' camp - June 16, 2005 at CAFETY (Community Alliance for the Fair and Ethical Treatment of Youth)

Confusing Christian paedophilia with homosexuality: Catholics plan to 'out' gay clergy

Catholic group threatens to 'out' homosexual priests - Sunday Herald, September, 10 2006
Edinburgh-based Catholic Truth, whose newsletter is edited by Patricia McKeever, says it will name and shame homosexual clergy as part of its "heavenly witness protection programme".
... It also alleges a link between being gay and child molestation. ...McKeever told the Sunday Herald: "The key objective behind naming homosexual priests and bishops is to raise awareness of the problem within the Scottish Church; ultimately to ensure the safety of others in the Church. Not just the physical safety of children, important though that is, but also the spiritual safety of people and congregations entrusted to the care of a homosexual priest or bishop."
It seems these pious Catholics have forgotten how some early Popes raped nuns, and how today Catholic priests in over 23 countries in the world have been raping nuns too. They have also conveniently ignored how a great many of the paedophilic priests today exclusively molest young girls, and how some nuns have also been exposed recently for raping and abusing deaf children (boys and sometimes girls).
And this does not just occur among Catholics eithers: Graham Capill, the devout leader of the Christian Heritage Party in New Zealand, an arch-hypocrite who had "railed against child sex abuse, pornography, homosexuality and hypocrisy" turned out to have raped little girls for decades.

Clergy and pious Christians often consist of paedophiles and rapists, and as we can see, they are not all gay. Hypocritical Christians are therefore wrongly equating paedophilia with homosexuality when it is quite frequent amongst their straight clergy and laity as well. Since paedophilia and a tendency to rape is apparently rampant amongst all clergy, the implication is that the problem lies with Christianity itself and not with the clergy's or lay Christian's sexual orientation.
See also: books on the history of sexual abuse in the Church.