Staver Palaver: Falwell Law School’s Mean Dean Defames Americans United
Church Politicking, Faith-Based Initiatives, Jerry Falwell Sr, Jonathan Falwell, Religious Right Research
Is Staver really saying that Christianity will disappear if it doesn’t get a subsidy from the Illinois state legislature?!
Is Americans United for Separation of Church and State “one of the most dangerous organizations in America”?
Mat Staver seems to think so.
Staver, dean of the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University Law School and president of Liberty Counsel, went on a tiresome tirade about AU in today’s edition of One News Now, the wacky Wildmon family’s “news service.”
What could have provoked Staver’s ire?
Americans United recently wrote to the Illinois state government and demanded that $40 million in legislative earmarks for 97 “faith-based” groups be spent in accordance with the Constitution. Under the clear provisions of the U.S. and Illinois state constitutions, none of that money may be spent on religion.
Asking the government to protect the right of taxpayers to support only the faith of their choice and the right of the disadvantaged to get help from their government without undue religious coercion apparently doesn’t sit well with agents of the Falwell empire.
“Barry Lynn and his ilk at Americans United don’t care about the people who need help,” Staver blustered. “They don’t care about the people who are freezing out in the streets in the city of Chicago who are not able to have their daily meals, who need medical care. They’re only concerned with literally erasing Christianity from the planet. They have absolutely no concern for the well-being of individuals. This organization, I think, is one of the most dangerous organizations in America.”
What a bubbling crock of sauerkraut!
We at Americans United care deeply about the dignity and well-being of all people. That’s why we do the work we do.
The grants in question are earmarked to a wide variety of churches, church schools, temples and other “faith-based” organizations with no controls on how the money is going to be spent. Some of the grants may go to help poor people, but others may also go to a variety of construction and indoctrination projects that have nothing to do with assisting the disadvantaged.
Who knows what Christ the King Jesuit College Preparatory School or the Holy Temple of Islam or Telshe Yeshiva Chicago or Great True Vine Baptist Church plan to do with their legislative windfall? The bill that assigned the tax funds doesn’t say.
Perhaps some of the earmarks will actually make it to charities that assist the poor. I hope so. But unless there are clear rules and regulations, the grants may go to ministries that coerce the disadvantaged to conform to their religious perspective in order to get help. Americans should never be forced to engage in worship they don’t believe in as the price of getting help from their government.
And as for Staver’s allegation that AU is trying to erase Christianity “from the planet” – how absurd! Church-state separation ensures the right of all faiths, including Christianity to freely practice. Is Staver really saying that Christianity will disappear if it doesn’t get a subsidy from the Illinois state legislature and other governmental bodies?!
Jerry Falwell Sr. is gone, but his religious-political operation in Lynchburg, Va., is still humming along quite prosperously. According to a profile in the September 2009 Christianity Today, Jerry Falwell Jr. and his brother Jonathan Falwell are rolling in donor dough at Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church.
Too bad. That means Staver will have a platform to spew his vitriol for the foreseeable future.
As for Americans United being dangerous, Brother Mat, yes we are. We’re dangerous to the theocratic agenda of you and other Religious Right honchos who are plotting to tear down the wall of separation between church and state.
Count on it.