http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2002Nov24.html

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GOP Looks To Move Its Social Agenda
Hill Push to Include Abortion Curbs, 'Faith-Based' Programs

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 25, 2002; Page A01

With Democrats no longer blocking their way in the Senate, President Bush and Republican congressional leaders plan a more vigorous push on their social policy agenda by trying to limit abortions, provide greater support to religious groups and increase funding for sexual abstinence and fatherhood programs, according to White House officials and key lawmakers.
....
Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.), the Senate GOP's third-ranking leader, said Bush and the Republican-led Congress will take the country in a "more conservative direction" in the next two years. "There are a lot of conservative groups who would like to see things they care about considered," he said.
....
Wading deeper into the church-and-state debate, Bush wants to further his program to help religious groups win government contracts to administer social programs such as soup kitchens and rehabilitation programs for drug addicts and alcoholics.
....
Even with Democrats controlling the Senate, the administration made progress in expanding the role of religious groups. It spent nearly $30 million to provide technical advice to such groups interested in winning government contracts. It also worked with agency heads to encourage them to consider religious groups when doling out federal money. The government does not keep reliable figures on how much money flows to religious groups, so it's impossible to gauge precisely how much progress Bush made.
....
Santorum has told the White House that, during the debate over welfare reform, he will fight for a provision to allow religious groups to discriminate against certain people -- gays, for instance -- when hiring if they don't share their religious beliefs. "I will make that stand," Santorum said.
....
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Discrimination against gays: woo-hoo!

Question: how come "[t]he government does not keep reliable figures on how much money flows to religious groups...?"

Imagine that the shoe were on the other foot, and you were to read that the government had been funding People for the American Way and Barbra Streisand's "Save the Whales" Foundation [a group I just made up]. Wouldn't you want to know how much money had been flowing from the government into their coffers? I certainly would.

I'm neither surprised by this announcement, nor by the silence on this list about what is obviously hateful, extremist legislation that the GOP leadership hopes to ram through Congress. Michael Oxley of Ohio supposedly crowed that the GOP House can now pass anything it wants, and under Tom DeLay's leadership (does anyone really believe he takes orders from Dennis Hastert?), I doubt there will be any moderation whatsoever. Indeed, many of the Republican moderates (Morella, Roukema, Grucci, etc.) are no longer in office, and the ones who are (like Jim Leach) are beholden to the GOP for having elected them.

Santorum is in the Senate, however, which will be a tougher grape for the GOP to press, since the Democrats have enough votes to filibuster certain bills, there are still some GOP moderates (almost all from the coasts), and Trent Lott is an obnoxious moron who turns off his own party members (and W.) as readily as Democrats. If Santorum continues to try to breach the Church-State wall (don't these people read ANY history? Aren't they aware of why the Puritans, Huguenots, Irish Catholics, Brazilian sephardim and others fled to the United States in the first place???) with outright support of discriminatory policies, I think Democrats and some Republicans (I HOPE some Republicans) would vigorously speak out and stall, if not kill, the legislation as best they could.

[quote]Originally posted by twin58:
Question: how come "[t]he government does not keep reliable figures on how much money flows to religious groups...?"

---

I think the answer is the same reason why the government does not keep tabs on how much money it gives to liberal advocacy groups.

The government does not have a working definition of "religious group." Name a particular organization and you might get a decent accounting of how much goes to that one particular group. But use the word "groups," and that creates the problem. Is AA a religious group? What about the Jewish Defense League? I don't know. Do you? (By the way, I don't know if either get federal funds; these are chosen as examples.)

Since no one can agree on the exact definition of the qualifying adjective, "religious," you're not going to get a good answer as to how much goes to all groups that could be counted under that umbrella.

By the way, the U.S. government does give money to liberal advocay groups like Planned Parenthood, or the Sierra Club, or the Natural Resources Defense Council. Supposedly, the government money must be kept segregated from the money used for lobbying ... a stupid distinction as money is fungible. But if I asked: how much money goes to "liberal" advocacy groups en toto, not just one particular liberal group, could I get a definitive answer? NO. The government (at least since the death of J. Edgar Hoover) does not keep tabs on what constitutes a "liberal" group.

And for that reason, we'll never get a good answer as to how much of our tax money goes, in general, either to "religious groups" or to "liberal advocacy groups." C'est la vie. And c'est la big government.

Which leads to ...

[quote]Originally posted by fantomas:
I'm neither surprised by this announcement, nor by the silence on this list about what is obviously hateful, extremist legislation that the GOP leadership hopes to ram through Congress.

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(Emphasis added.)

Extremist? Considering that the Republican party enjoyed majority support in the last election, and a substantial share of those voting Republican do buy into much of the party's platform, you're going to have to come up with a better adjective than the hackneyed "extremist."

Disagree, if you will, but the Republican agenda has far too broad of support to be dismissed as "extremist." Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco style liberalism is more out-of-the-mainstream than anything proposed by Tom DeLay (except, of course, in San Francisco and in certain neighborhoods on Manhattan Island). You're too intelligent, fantomas, to traffic in such trite cliches.

In order to serve you better, two distinct thoughts were combined into a single post.

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]

[quote]Originally posted by Charlie in the Trees:
Disagree, if you will, but the Republican agenda has far too broad of support to be dismissed as "extremist."

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Very good point- Charlie.

Well, it looks like the Thanksgiving Truce is over. So be it; I need some activity to work off all those leftovers.

At any rate - rhymes with 'bait,' FT - GOP moderates WILL be speaking out, and we don't need you or anyone else setting our timetable for doing so. Personally, I am most POd by the retreat on the environmental front, since strong, sensible environmental policy was one of my campaign platforms, and remains my chief concern. (Yes, even to the detriment of gay rights - there ARE bigger things to worry about!) But can we get thru the Holidays - let alone wait for any of the parade of horribles you predict to actually start their march - before I and my colleagues do so? In the meantime, what will YOU be doing??? Seems like I asked someone else here that question a while back, but never got an answer. So much for reciprocity.

Speaking of poison pens, word is that the NY Democrats are about to kill off the gay rights bill that is poised to pass the GOP-dominated Assembly by inserting a provision for transgendered rights, in the expectation that the GOP won't pass it with this Johnny cum Janie-come-lately added. Seems the NY Demos just can't handle the idea of GOPers passing anything pro-gay, so they're using the "transgender(ed?) 'community'" to propel their partisanship. Look for HRC and their other attack dogs to start straining at their leashes next week. I'll try to post a link to this story, but again, I actually RELAX over the Holidays and don't practice partisan politics 24/7.

Albany Times-Union Story

Edited to provide story link as a courtesy to our Doubting Tomas(es).

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: gmginsfo ]

[quote]Originally posted by Charlie in the Trees:
In order to serve you better, two distinct thoughts were combined into a single post.

---

Thank you for your support of Barbra Streisand's "Save the Electron" Fund. As you are no doubt aware, each day billions and billions of electrons are put to waste simply for their....
[snip]

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: twin58 ]

[quote]Originally posted by gmginsfo:
At any rate - rhymes with 'bait,' FT - GOP moderates WILL be speaking out, and we don't need you or anyone else setting our timetable for doing so.

---

Ummm, your beef is with Santorum. He's the one quoted in the article, not me.

[quote]But can we get thru the Holidays - let alone wait for any of the parade of horribles you predict to actually start their march - before I and my colleagues do so?

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No. As Lord Acton said....
[edited to say: wrong. I was thinking of Edmund Burke. See later post.]

[quote]In the meantime, what will YOU be doing???

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Spreading dissent and encouraging resistance.

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: twin58 ]

Twin58, No I wasn't replying to you. It was FT's 5-day late response to your initial one that I answered. These delayed resurrections bespeak the lack of a life. I recall one from a few months back where one guy was actually answering his OWN posts after no one went for his stale bait. But yes, I disagree with Santorum's position, as well as the easing of strict environmental laws.

Actually, I find myself in a somewhat happy position in all this. As a GOP nominee, I can take the party to task on these issues with a certain amount of enhanced credibility than any Demo could - and one harder to ignore, since the media will be only to happy to print dissension within the ranks. So while you're out there "spreading dissent and encouraging resistance," (cf. Joan Baez: "The Sixties are over, so set him free," written c.1975), I'll be doing it with an added voice from within.

gmginsf - Please, go spread your moderate views asap within your party as threatened repeatedly. I'm with you 100% against easing environmental regulations...but all I see happening is this huge shift towards W.'s agenda: screw the environment, screw the moderates, and what's particularly disturbing - screw the seperation between church and state! (Does that bother any of the conservatives on this board at all?) So, by all means, don't bother yourself with those nasty little gay rights - you're obviously above that....the environment is far more important and I'm sure as a moderate Republican you'll have a huge impact...!

And just look at you guys on this thread respond to the posting of the Washington Post article. You sound like a pack of conservative attack dogs. Reading this brief thread shows us why our country is in a constant state of civil war.

And gmginsf - I'm sure there's many of us here who do our share of contacting our senators and congressman about our beliefs and concerns, etc., but, not being politicians, we don't feel the need to trot out our resumes and actitivities on a constant, self-stroking basis...

BD, Did you ever stop to consider that if guys like you didn't constantly cast aspersions, then guys like me would not be obliged to dispel them by "trotting out my resume and activities?" As I've said before, I'm not one to turn the other cheek. If someone casts me in a bad light, I'm going to switch it off. What's so hard to understand about that - except why you persist in doing so in the first place.

BTW, - darn, here comes that pesky ole resume of mine again! - I'll match my record in the courts on gay rights against anyone's. Visit my site;* they're all listed there.+ Woops, shame on me for defending myself with the facts. I'll try not to show such brazen self-esteem - isn't that what its called these days? - again. And yes, I'm concerned about the separation of church and state, too, but not as much as about protecting the environment, since our constitution guards against the former, but not the latter.

Finally, cave cani. Imitation has been called the sincerest form of flattery, although I'm disinclined to believe it in the context of your posts.

Twin, to which quote from Lord Acton did you refer? About power corrupting? Like BD's borrowing, that line wasn't originally his own.
_____
*www.smartvoter.org/vote/german
+Except for Doe v. Roes I, II and III, Cal. Court of Appeals, 4th Dist. (1990) (extending privacy protection afforded for identity of sexual partners to gays). Cite unavailable because publication denied by Cal. Supreme Court.

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: gmginsfo ]

[quote]Originally posted by bryan d.:
I'm with you 100% against easing environmental regulations...but all I see happening is this huge shift towards W.'s agenda: screw the environment, screw the moderates, and what's particularly disturbing - screw the seperation between church and state! (Does that bother any of the conservatives on this board at all?) So, by all means, don't bother yourself with those nasty little gay rights - you're obviously above that....the environment is far more important and I'm sure as a moderate Republican you'll have a huge impact...!

---

It'll be hard to push for gay rights while we're all evacuating the planet because the atmosphere is no longer habitable and we're running out of natural resources, etc.

Okay, I'm obviously being facetious. But I'm beginning to wonder why people have such a problem with gmginsfo and others with more moderate viewpoints trying to affect the GOP agenda? Just because I don't think they'll have a whole lot of success, does that mean they shouldn't try? And if they do have success, aren't we all better off?

Example: the GOP-controlled Pennsylvania House just passed a bill that was on hold for 17 months after being passed in the GOP-controlled Senate. It expands the hate-crime laws to include, among other things, sexual orientation and gender identity. The outgoing GOP governor is expected to sign it into law.

Now, this in itself isn't going to make me vote for a Republican any time soon (especially considering some of the other shenanigans the state legislators pull on a regular basis, mostly showing an extreme anti-Philadelphia bias). But still, isn't this a good thing? A sign of some progress?

I wish the moderates all the success in the world withing the Republican reign. It's just that the attitude and the arrogance gets a bit old...

This talk about faith based programs feels dangerous but we haven't gotten much comment or response about that, have we? from our resident conservatives...

Charlie referring dismissively to Planned Parenthood as a liberal advocacy program disturbs me in its lack of depth and understanding...gmginsf implying that his environmental concerns are #1 even if detrimental to gay rights concerns is disturbing if only in its unnecessary and somehow spiteful comparison...

Politics makes for strange bedfellows here...

[quote]Originally posted by gmginsfo:
Twin, to which quote from Lord Acton did you refer? About power corrupting?

---

Whoops. Bad attribution on my part. It was Edmund Burke:
"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts ... the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to
do nothing." - Edmund Burke

[quote]Originally posted by gmginsfo:
Twin58, No I wasn't replying to you. It was FT's 5-day late response to your initial one that I answered. These delayed resurrections bespeak the lack of a life. I recall one from a few months back where one guy was actually answering his OWN posts after no one went for his stale bait. But yes, I disagree with Santorum's position, as well as the easing of strict environmental laws.

---

Once again gmg has to stoop to a personal attack, which is really TIRESOME. Yes, I have a personal life. Yes, I responded to Twin's post because it looked interesting, and I did so five days after it was originally posted. What took you so long to trot out your moderate apologias for the GOP?

I doubt the media will play up any dissension in Congress among the Republicans, if only because the House leadership is locktight and will not allow it. The Senate may be a different issue. It will be interesting to see.

Since the majority of eligible voters did not vote in this election, and since Republicans won with only a small majority percentage of all voters across all races, I hardly see the recent election as a rubber stamp for extremist policies.

As Nathan Newman shows on his
site, the majority of Americans are actually to the LEFT of Democratic, not GOP, but DEMOCRATIC party policy.

[quote] Extremist? Considering that the Republican party enjoyed majority support in the last election, and a substantial share of those voting Republican do buy into much of the party's platform, you're going to have to come up with a better adjective than the hackneyed "extremist."

---

Most of the analyses of the 2002 election that I have read do not imply that Americans have adopted the more conservative social agenda of the Republican party - a social agenda that is driven in large part by the "faithful" religious wing of the party. The issues of this last election were more about security and war, and although I disagree with the administration on their current course of action, I do see most Americans as supporting them. There was also the matter of the Dems being outspent, and the heavy tilt toward Repubs of business lobbying interests and cash - they have abadoned their policy of giving to both parties, and in some segments it is 5:1 giving in favor of Repubs.

And as for any dire predictions of what is to come - it is true we have to wait for January and the new Congress - but the head Shrub is already on the attack. He just announced he was eliminating certain pay increases for the federal government's civilian workforce (very unionized and very Democratic), because we can't afford it - this while pushing through tax breaks that benefit the wealthy most. These pay increases were meant to keep local government wages (in places like DC and SF) in line with the higher cost of living in those areas - but evidently that government is not concerned about keeping good workers in public service.

I sincerely hope the moderates in the GOP can stem their more rabid brothers and sisters, but that remains to be seen.

I am less concerned about labels such as republican, democrat,independent, liberal, conservative, moderate, etc, etc, etc than I am about specific activities occuring among those close to the administration currently in power.

From what I have been reading, there seems to be a tendency to concentrate budgeting authority into fewer hands, with the president having the greater influence, and with a goal of reducing government spending as much as possible, not counting tax reductions as spending.

If government spending is targeted primarily toward national defense and homeland security with far less social spending, the primary leverage of government will be through aggressive use of the military or homeland policing agencies both federal and local (state and municipal).

This would have a tendency to facilitate and encourage the federal government to use force to achieve its goals. In cruder terms this might be described as a police state: an extremely high price to pay for domestic and national security.

While I don't think we're quite in a police state, there have been consistently disturbing signs that this administration wants nothing less than absolute power. Democracy is being seriously abused by the right wing.

And fantomas, don't you know? gmginsf would never attack anyone here unless attacked first...it's never him lobbing the patronizing, arrogant personal attacks - it's everyone else!...

Good article:

Positive Ratings for the G.O.P., if Not Its Policy (NYT)

Yes, President Bush remains popular, but this election was far from a mandate, according to this poll at least. Only about half of those who voted Republican said their vote was in favor of Bush, and only 37 percent of those polled described themselves as pleased by the results of the election. The public largely disagrees with Bush and the Republicans on the environment, and more and more are coming around to the fact that these tax cuts help only the super-rich and hurt the economy. And still only half say they feel confident in Bush's ability to handle an international crisis.

BD, At the risk of being patronizing and/or arrogant, I'm glad you're beginning to see how I work. There's hope after all.

Now, let's look to the facts, not your unreasonable inferences that you label "implications." When I said my focus is on the environment "even if to the detriment of gay rights," I was hardly implying a stance against gay rights, or that making environmental gains meant retarding gay ones. What I meant, and what my record - sorry to resort to my resume again; did you ever even read any of it, BTW? - shows, is that I've been there and done that on gay rights and now I'm focusing on other things I consider more important. But I've hardly given up on gay rights, as my entire history of posts shows. I just go about it differently than you do. Again, what exactly DO you do, or have you done in that regard? A legitimate question, given your critiques - and still unanswered.

If you look at my other posts, notably the one in which I noted the presence of a constitutional provision for religious freedom but none for environmental, let alone sexual, issues, you will find that I've hardly been silent about the church-state issues to which you refer. Add to that my experiences growing up Catholic in a time when there was still some stigma(ta) attached to that in American society - I can remember the silly fears attending JFK's election, some of which are matched in degree, if not kind, by current concerns - and I think I've got a good handle on recognizing when rigid evangelicalism gets out of line. We're not there yet and I doubt if we ever will be.

I'd hardly call our present situation "a constant state of civil war;" you're letting SF politics pollute your perception. Nor would I call the Admin's policies extremist, as FT persists in doing. They may well seem extremist to people who are used to a permissive welfare state that only now is being seriously - and finally - reigned in, but this Admin is hardly interested in absolute power, as some state. That's pure alarmist thinking and unsupported by the facts.

Twin, thanks for correcting quote. Burke had a few good ideas, but his landed aristocracy theory worked only to a point. That point came in 1832 with the Reform Bill.

JIP, your story re: Penna's GOP Legislature passing its gay-friendly bill matches my link to the Albany Times Union story a few posts above, which recounts a similar situation in NY, but one which is on the verge of being torpedoed by rueful Democrats who can't fathom the idea of the NY GOP supporting gay rights. Re: your question, I don't know why these guys can't handle the spectre of GOP moderates haunting the gay rights movement, but they demonstrate daily that they can't. To me, their inability to do so is narrow mindedness and ultimately intolerance. When coupled with their penchant for public protests, it seems that they're more interested in simply transgressing than seriously transforming. But what do I know? I'm only a tiresome Republican!

[quote]Originally posted by bryan d.:
...this administration wants nothing less than absolute power....

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Now I can quote Lord Acton, though he probably ripped off the saying from Euripides. My "Bartlett's" is downstairs.

http://www.acton.org/research/libtrad/acton.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l.../l/q109401.html
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton