Atheists sue to stop Christian mentoring

WorldNetDaily ^ | 11/27/04 | WorldNetDaily

[wagglebee]

The Wisconsin-based atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing to cut off federal funding to a Christian child-mentoring program that helps troubled kids.

Last year, the federal government awarded a $225,000 contract, part of $9 million awarded to 52 Arizona groups, to Phoenix-based MentorKids USA, according to the Madison, Wisc.-based Capital Times.

The lawsuit, presided over by U.S. Judge John Shabaz, is demanding a summary judgment that federal funding of the program cease until the government "has a demonstrated plan in place to comply with its constitutional obligations," reports the Wisconsin paper.

Citing the First Amendment, the atheist foundation said, "Mentoring to convert is not a suitable social service to be provided by the government," said the report.

MentorKids USA was launched in 1997 by Orville Krieger, in partnership with Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship, "to address the needs of at-risk youth in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area by matching caring Christian adults with youth ages 8-17 who showed warning signs of becoming criminal offenders," says the Christian organization's website.

Originally called Phoenix MatchPoint, the group changed its name last January to MentorKids USA. It has a long and successful track record in mentoring children in trouble with the law, who have dysfunctional family backgrounds, have been physically or sexually abused or who are involved with drug or alcohol abuse. To date, MentorKids USA has helped over 500 kids.

In the program, mentors commit time each week to be a friend and role model for an at-risk youth. The mentors "offer concrete expressions of unconditional love and support to the mentee," says the group's website, "and the two participate in activities designed to build friendship, trust, and constructive values."

Some of the Freedom From Religion Foundation's "legal accomplishments," according to its website, include:

Winning the first federal lawsuit challenging direct funding by the government of a faith-based agency

Overturning a state Good Friday holiday

Winning a lawsuit barring direct taxpayer subsidy of religious schools

Removing Ten Commandments monuments and crosses from public land

Halting the Post Office from issuing religious cancellations

Ending 51 years years of illegal bible instruction in public schools

According to its website, the non-profit foundation was incorporated in Wisconsin in 1978 and is "a national membership association of freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree."

Why is it concerned with what it calls "state/church entanglement?"

"First Amendment violations are accelerating," says the group's website. "The religious right is campaigning to raid the public till and advance religion at taxpayer expense, attacking our secular public schools, the rights of nonbelievers, and the Establishment Clause.

"The Foundation recognizes that the United States was first among nations to adopt a secular Constitution. The founders who wrote the U.S. Constitution wanted citizens to be free to support the church of their choice, or no religion at all. Our Constitution was very purposefully written to be a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary.

"It is vital to buttress the Jeffersonian 'wall of separation between church and state' which has served our nation so well."

But William Rehnquist, current chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, says this view put forth by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the ACLU and similar groups is a fiction and mockery of the true meaning of the First Amendment.

The Establishment Clause, explained Rehnquist in a 1985 opinion, "forbade establishment of a national religion, and forbade preference among religious sects or denominations. … The Establishment Clause did not require government neutrality between religion and irreligion nor did it prohibit the Federal Government from providing nondiscriminatory aid to religion. There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the 'wall of separation' [between church and state]."

[gitmo]

I actually agree with them, but not on the First Amendment debate. The Feds shouldn't fund any program like this, the states however, should have that right.

There is no enumerated power for the federal government to fund any social program.

[SheLion]

Is it my imagination, or has the discrimination and harassment of Christian organizations stepped up in the last 36 months?"

On Fox News just awhile ago, a woman and man were arguing about schools teaching Evolution starting in 9th grade science.  ~sigh~

[ActionNewsBill]

I found it, and I didn't want to come back.

Where?

[Colosis]

Evil is as evil does.

[DoughtyOne]

Let me guess.

Homosexual mentoring no problem. Christian mentoring bad.

Whatever happened to the no prejudice stance regarding sex, race or religion? Weren't the leftists the ones that always screamed from the high heavens this was the highest of ideals?

So much for their credibility, but then what credibility?

[VOA]

"Atheists sue to stop Christian mentoring"

Gosh, students might actually listen to their Christian mentors...
(horror and shock at the ACLU)

[Tealc]

The Wisconsin-based atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation

Holy politics, Batman! At least they don't pretend to be anything other than peddlers of freedom from religion. However, they can shove it. :)

[Mark17]

Where?

In my honey's home country. Tagaytay, in Cavite province, overlooking the Taal volcano. I just jope it doesn't blow one of these days, like Pinatubo did.

[wagglebee]

The left's idea of mentoring goes something like this:
1. There is no God, you should pay homage to the government.
2. Sex is nature's gift to people, people should start at a young age and should experiment with members of the same sex.
3. Marriage is wrong unless it is to a person of the same sex.
4. Abortion is the most effective form of birth control.
5. The only way Republicans win elections is by cheating.
6. America is evil and deserves to be destroyed.

[anniegetyourgun]

And the verdict is?

[Doe Eyes]

I'm sure we would all support a federally funded atheist mentoring program.

[Nodoginit]

Don't you people know??? It takes a village of atheist wackos to raise a child!!!

[wagglebee]

Discrimination against Christianity has stepped up and I think there are two reasons:
1. The left has sought to make Bush synonymous with the "Christian Right" and any effort to discredit Christianity could be used against Bush.
2. The left has long looked for a way to destroy America's superpower status. Communism was seen as the best hope of this for over seventy years, but it collapsed and America became more powerful than ever. After 9/11, the left was convinced that Islam could destroy America's prominence; however, to accomplish this, the left needs to convince everyone that Islam is "peaceful" and terrorism is merely a response to Western imperialistic domination. Therefore, the past three years have seen a surge in anti-Christian rhetoric ("The Passion of the Christ" will cause anti-Semitic violence, "The Da Vinci Code" is more accurate than the Bible, Christianity is harming homosexuals, the media frenzy over the Catholic priest sex scandals, etc.), while at the same time we have been told that Islam is a "great religion of peace" and deserves our understanding (in fact many schools that will not allow "Jingle Bells" to be sung because of "insensitivity", will spend weeks teaching about Islam).

[crazyhorse691]

Our Constitution was very purposefully written to be a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary.
_______________________________________________________________

Sounds like a lawyer statement. Not true. The preamble contains many traces of religion. Harder to pick out religion in the rest of the Constitution as it lays out the framework for building the government.

[joesnuffy]

They shopped for their favorite judge

imo

[risk]

At least it's not faith based muslim mentoring.

[risk]

Careful. You're dashing his illusions.

[Semi Civil Servant]

Our Constitution was very purposefully written to be a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary.

Article. VII.
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven ...

 

Maybe these folks should look into this "our LORD" fellow. It couldn't be a non-exclusionary reference to religion, could it?

[crazyhorse691]

secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
_______________________________________________________________

I think that statement is religious in intent. Not nearly as overt as in the Articles of Confederation or the Declaration of Independence. I am just trying to undercut one aspect of the Atheists arguement.