{"id":125,"date":"2009-02-09T20:12:50","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T20:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/02\/senate-doesnt-buy-fear-tactics.html"},"modified":"2009-02-09T20:12:50","modified_gmt":"2009-02-09T20:12:50","slug":"senate-doesnt-buy-fear-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/02\/senate-doesnt-buy-fear-tactics.html","title":{"rendered":"SENATE DOESN’T BUY FEAR TACTICS; PRESIDENT MIGHT"},"content":{"rendered":"

In spite of your best efforts, Jay, the United States Senate soundly rejected the argument that the stimulus package contained some terrible provision which would interfere with religious student groups meeting in buildings that might be funded by a few tax dollars.  As Media Matters pointed out so well<\/a>, the effort spearheaded by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina was based on a large amount of misinformation.  The provision of the law that you and DeMint were complaining about has been in statutes since the Reagan Administration and no student group has ever had any trouble meeting.  It simply prohibits federal construction funds to be used for college buildings that are mainly for religious purposes.  This rule is consistent with at least three major Supreme Court decisions<\/a>. Moreover, DeMint (not you, to your credit) actually said during the floor debate that the main reason that his colleagues should vote for his amendment to delete the provision was because the ACLU did not want it deleted. Now there’s a brilliant debating point!<\/p>\n

On a sour note, however, the same day that the Senate defeated the DeMint amendment, President Obama decided to expand<\/a> the Bush “faith based initiative”.  We’ll be discussing this in more detail, I’m sure.  But in a nutshell, he kept in place five executive orders which permit job discrimination based on religion in federally funded programs.  In addition, he created a Council of (mainly) religious leaders to oversee this and other “faith” initiatives.  Since when does the United States have any official religious advisors?<\/p>\n

This decision has not gone over well with womens’ groups<\/a>, editorial writers<\/a>, and (of course) yours truly. My concern is that the President may have bought in to some “fear tactics” of some evangelical churches that requiring fundamental fairness in hiring will somehow corrupt the integrity of their ministries.  Those that share such viewponts should just shun the federal dollars and everybody would be happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In spite of your best efforts, Jay, the United States Senate soundly rejected the argument that the stimulus package contained some terrible provision which would interfere with religious student groups meeting in buildings that might be funded by a few tax dollars.  As Media Matters pointed out so well, the effort spearheaded by Senator Jim DeMint…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-faith-based-initiatives"],"yoast_head":"\nSENATE DOESN'T BUY FEAR TACTICS; PRESIDENT MIGHT - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/02\/senate-doesnt-buy-fear-tactics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SENATE DOESN'T BUY FEAR TACTICS; PRESIDENT MIGHT - Lynn v. 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Barry W. Lynn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/02\/senate-doesnt-buy-fear-tactics.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/02\/senate-doesnt-buy-fear-tactics.html","name":"SENATE DOESN'T BUY FEAR TACTICS; PRESIDENT MIGHT - Lynn v. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}