FBI
I am really concerned about religious freedom in America with President George W. Bush’s faith-based programs. I can see a dangerous entanglement of the state in religious matters. Do you have an article on this? Isn’t it time to investigate and sound the alarm on this proposal—allowing the American people to protest before this one get passed and further erodes the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution?
DARRELL K. WHITEFIELD, e-mail
(See the article “A Good Idea?” in this issue.)
Tax Credit Proposal
Twice in the article “Charitable Choice” (January/February 2001) writer Steven G. Gey refers to government benefits with the word “entitled”: “— as a condition of receiving the government benefits to which they are entitled,” and “while simply attempting to obtain benefits to which they are entitled under federal law.” The word “entitlement” presupposes that someone else is entitled to take money that lawfully belongs to me and use it for his own purposes, through government force. Gey fails to recognize that our charitible money properly goes to the church to begin with; it is not proper to funnel it through government first and back to the churches. It is a violation of the separation of church and state for the government even to be in the charity business; that is a proper function of religion, and when the government steps in, it interferes with the separation of church and state.
I have proposed that rather than having “charitable choice” programs, the government should give a 100 percent tax credit for every dollar that an individual donates directly to a church or charity. This is the only viewpoint fully consistent with our First Amendment rights. In accepting the myth that government has a right and duty to perform charity, Gey has missed the essence of the issue. People are not entitled to tax money taken by force. The sooner we recognize that, the better.
PAT GOLTZ, e-mail
Correction to “Tolerating”
The otherwise very interesting article “Tolerating the Intolerant” (March/April, 2001) by Derek H. Davis and Susan Kelley-Claybrook, contains a factual error. In discussing the 1999 controversy over the House chaplain, the authors report that one of the three finalists was a Lutheran minister. Actually, the third candidate was Robert Dvorak, a minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church and superintendent of the Covenant’s East Coast Conference. Just thought you would like to know.
BOB SMIETANA
Associate Editor
The Covenant Companion
www.covchurch.org
Separation
Landed on your Web site (www.libertymagazine.org) and read your statement regarding “hostile” views of “church leaders” against “separation of church and state.” I put “separation” in quotes as a popular phrase only. As a historian and social studies/government teacher, I know only too well this popular quote is a modern construct implemented by our courts and not our Founding Fathers or Constitution, preamble, Declaration of Independence, The Federalist Papers, etc.
THOMAS J. DRAPER, e-mail
The author of this e-mail may have actually been responding to an article he read in another publication, but the point he raises is of concern to us. The wall of separation as a figure of speech certainly goes back to Jefferson. However, the full implementation of this concept has indeed been of a more recent vintage. In spite of the oft-stated intentions of the founders to keep the state out of church business, it remained for more recent court decisions to uphold the principle. We are seeing a call from various church leaders for increased state funding and use of political power to “rechristianize” the nation. This is a trend that would clearly have troubled the framers of the Constitution. Editor.
The Liberty editors reserve the right to edit, abbreviate, or excerpt any letter to the editor as needed.
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