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Who thinks this is the right decision?


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https://www.christianpost.com/news/jewish-couples-lawsuit-over-christian-foster-home-rejection-dismissed.html

If tax dollars support a service should religious discrimination be allowed? If you agree with this decision, would you support tax dollars supporting a Muslim foster home? Satanist? Atheist? 
 

If a faith based foster home receives no tax dollars or benefits, there’s a much stronger argument for them limiting who can foster/adopt, but if taxes from all religious persuasions are being provided, should such discrimination be allowed?

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  • TexasTiger changed the title to Who thinks this is the right decision?




I expect the Satanic Temple to start filing lawsuits soon. Right now they're tied up on abortion. 

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My disappointment is not with the court.  My disappointment is with the couple and, the Methodist Church. 

Anyone truly wanting to help foster children would cooperate, not litigate.  There is no reflection of God's love, only exclusion and confrontation.

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42 minutes ago, icanthearyou said:

My disappointment is not with the court.  My disappointment is with the couple and, the Methodist Church. 

Anyone truly wanting to help foster children would cooperate, not litigate.  There is no reflection of God's love, only exclusion and confrontation.

Can agree. End of day litigation seems unnecessary.

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Stepping back for a second, it seems like the point of adding faith-based adoption and foster programs and agencies to the ones already available through the state is to add what faith groups like this bring to the table, not change how they do it - with the ultimate end goal that more kids are adopted or fostered into good homes than state agencies alone could do.  So then the question becomes, if you thought they were doing a good job and wanted their help in tackling the problem, why regulate them like they're a state agency? 

And if you're an atheist or Jewish person or couple wanting to adopt or foster, why choose a Christian agency when (if what the article says is true) that there are six non-sectarian agencies out there to choose from for every one faith-based one? 

If the state believed that it could foster or adopt just as many children without these faith-based agencies' help, they wouldn't offer the reimbursement money to get them to join forces.  It seems counterproductive then to force them to make them into quasi-state run agencies like the ones that weren't enough to get the job done in the first place.

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1 hour ago, TitanTiger said:

Stepping back for a second, it seems like the point of adding faith-based adoption and foster programs and agencies to the ones already available through the state is to add what faith groups like this bring to the table, not change how they do it - with the ultimate end goal that more kids are adopted or fostered into good homes than state agencies alone could do.  So then the question becomes, if you thought they were doing a good job and wanted their help in tackling the problem, why regulate them like they're a state agency? 

And if you're an atheist or Jewish person or couple wanting to adopt or foster, why choose a Christian agency when (if what the article says is true) that there are six non-sectarian agencies out there to choose from for every one faith-based one? 

If the state believed that it could foster or adopt just as many children without these faith-based agencies' help, they wouldn't offer the reimbursement money to get them to join forces.  It seems counterproductive then to force them to make them into quasi-state run agencies like the ones that weren't enough to get the job done in the first place.

So would you take the same approach to a Muslim or secular humanist home that operated similarly?

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2 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

So would you take the same approach to a Muslim or secular humanist home that operated similarly?

I don’t see why not. As a Christian I’d use either a Christian agency or one of the state ones. It’s no skin off my nose if Muslims have a tailored agency for people who want to go that route. 

Like I say, if you want faith-based agencies’ help, it must be because they’re doing something right. Let them be who they are or do it yourself. 

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12 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I don’t see why not. As a Christian I’d use either a Christian agency or one of the state ones. It’s no skin off my nose if Muslims have a tailored agency for people who want to go that route. 

Like I say, if you want faith-based agencies’ help, it must be because they’re doing something right. Let them be who they are or do it yourself. 

But then you would also have the state paying an agency to promote Muslim rules of obedience and cultural issues. I do not want any govt money going to ensure that a female child is taught that she is worthless baby manufacturing machine. That she is the property of her nearest male relative, etc. And if a Christian org wants to help, then they help as a sectarian agency. This is a very slippery slope. If any agency "wants to help" then they do it as a sectarian organization. 

I dont see how we do it any other way. 

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5 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

But then you would also have the state paying an agency to promote Muslim rules of obedience and cultural issues. I do not want any govt money going to ensure that a female child is taught that she is worthless baby manufacturing machine. That she is the property of her nearest male relative, etc. And if a Christian org wants to help, then they help as a sectarian agency. This is a very slippery slope. If any agency "wants to help" then they do it as a sectarian organization. 

I dont see how we do it any other way. 

Not all Muslims are fundamentalists. 

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8 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

But then you would also have the state paying an agency to promote Muslim rules of obedience and cultural issues. I do not want any govt money going to ensure that a female child is taught that she is worthless baby manufacturing machine. That she is the property of her nearest male relative, etc. And if a Christian org wants to help, then they help as a sectarian agency. This is a very slippery slope. If any agency "wants to help" then they do it as a sectarian organization. 

I dont see how we do it any other way. 

You either value what the faith based org does and how they do it or you don’t. If you don’t agree with how they do it, do it without them.  That’s the other way. 

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For me, at the end of the day, I ask several questions, "are state funds being used for wholly secular purpose?" if yes it weighs in favor of constitutionality, "Is the funded NGO open to all to use regardless of religious preference?" if yes it weighs in favor of constitutionality, and "Does the NGO promote/further religion by placing requirements of non-religious persons that are not placed up  religious persons?" if yes it weighs against constitutionality.   Then balance the weight of the answers against the State's interest in funding the religious NGO for the wholly secular purpose.

And no, the above is not legal precedent, its my personal re-work of Lemon

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11 hours ago, AUDub said:

Not all Muslims are fundamentalists. 

That was not my point. All don’t have to be fundies for govt money to go to finance some fundies

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14 hours ago, Didba said:

For me, at the end of the day, I ask several questions, "are state funds being used for wholly secular purpose?" if yes it weighs in favor of constitutionality, "Is the funded NGO open to all to use regardless of religious preference?" if yes it weighs in favor of constitutionality, and "Does the NGO promote/further religion by placing requirements of non-religious persons that are not placed up  religious persons?" if yes it weighs against constitutionality.   Then balance the weight of the answers against the State's interest in funding the religious NGO for the wholly secular purpose.

And no, the above is not legal precedent, its my personal re-work of Lemon

I guess what it comes down to for me is this:  The state needs to decide what it wants.  If it wants what faith-based organizations bring to the table in these efforts (and wants to save money by not having to stand up a similar sized agency of its own that it has to foot the bill for staffing, facilities, etc), then it can do so - but they need to let the agency do things the way they do them.  If they don't like how they do it, then bite the bullet and fund more of your own agencies.  But you don't get to take advantage of the savings of just providing reimbursements for adoptions/foster care AND dictate to them how their beliefs can be part of how they do it.  Pick one.

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This is just silly.  The article, the legal action, the discussion are the perfect reflection of the worst elements of religion.

The love of Jesus is lost in the politics. 


We will take government money but,,, we will not take Jews?   Deeply disappointing.  Even worse, some of the zealots will send money to Israel in order to fund settlers displacing Palestinians.   Particularly disappointing for the Methodist Church.  It is as though they never heard of John Wesley.

The problem with "Christianity" is internal.  "Christianity" has lost Jesus.

 

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7 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

I guess what it comes down to for me is this:  The state needs to decide what it wants.  If it wants what faith-based organizations bring to the table in these efforts (and wants to save money by not having to stand up a similar sized agency of its own that it has to foot the bill for staffing, facilities, etc), then it can do so - but they need to let the agency do things the way they do them.  If they don't like how they do it, then bite the bullet and fund more of your own agencies.  But you don't get to take advantage of the savings of just providing reimbursements for adoptions/foster care AND dictate to them how their beliefs can be part of how they do it.  Pick one.

If the agency is discriminating based upon religion/race then the government has the power to step in and say no you cannot do that.

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1 hour ago, Didba said:

If the agency is discriminating based upon religion/race then the government has the power to step in and say no you cannot do that.

If the government wants that power, they can just do it themselves. 

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4 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

If the government wants that power, they can just do it themselves. 

Oof. Let's repeal the civil rights act of 1964 then. 

Edited by AUDub
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2 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Oof. Let's repeal the civil rights act of 1964 then. 

All I’m saying is, you either value what a faith based organization does or you don’t.  If they’re doing a good job, it makes no sense to change them. If they aren’t doing a good job, why work with them?  And if you don’t like how they do it, go fully fund your own agency and run it how your want. These aren’t difficult choices. But what you shouldn’t get to do is have your cake and eat it too. You don’t get to use them to save time and money and tell them to stop doing it they way they’ve done it with good success. 

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19 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

All I’m saying is, you either value what a faith based organization does or you don’t.  If they’re doing a good job, it makes no sense to change them. If they aren’t doing a good job, why work with them?  And if you don’t like how they do it, go fully fund your own agency and run it how your want. These aren’t difficult choices. But what you shouldn’t get to do is have your cake and eat it too. You don’t get to use them to save time and money and tell them to stop doing it they way they’ve done it with good success. 

You can make exceptions for good intentions all you want. What I spelled out holds true.

Saying the government should provide a suitable substitute because certain organizations should be allowed to discriminate is heinous. You didn't have to live through the 60s to know why. 

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10 minutes ago, AUDub said:

You can make exceptions for good intentions all you want. What I spelled out holds true.

Saying the government should provide a suitable substitute because certain organizations should be allowed to discriminate is heinous. You didn't have to live through the 60s to know why. 

The government already provides suitable substitutes. And these private faith based agencies were doing their thing. At some point govt looked at them and liked their results and thought it might save taxpayers some money to just pay these faith based orgs reimbursement for the placements without having to pay for staffing, benefits, facilities and equipment.

And that’s understandable - it makes sense and it would benefit taxpayers. But that shouldn’t mean you get to control a faith based org now. If how they do it isn’t acceptable, just keep doing it the way you were without enlisting these faith based orgs in the first place. 

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How about this. The taxpayer gets to decide which organization/s their tax dollars support. If it’s Christian based so be it. If it’s Muslim based so be it.  Etc, etc. Everybody is happy.  

Edited by creed
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7 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

If the government wants that power, they can just do it themselves. 

They can and have.

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7 hours ago, creed said:

How about this. The taxpayer gets to decide which organization/s their tax dollars support. If it’s Christian based so be it. If it’s Muslim based so be it.  Etc, etc. Everybody is happy.  

Nothing would get funded

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7 hours ago, AUDub said:

discriminate is heinous.

Further, its against the law.

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7 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

All I’m saying is, you either value what a faith based organization does or you don’t. 

No. it is not that black and white.

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