That Lutheran Guy

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Religious Liberty Update

Greetings,

As I understand this bill from my sources, mere participation in the aforementioned 'volunteer' program would then prohibit a young person from participating in a lot of other outside programs including Church.

I must apologize, I am way behind the curve on this one. The bill became law just today, it is called the 'Serve America Act' now, previously called Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education. It is an expansion of the Americorps ( www.americorps.gov ) program where college money from the government is exchanged for government service. The person who alerted me to all this was a bit johnny-come-lately on this and so I am too. The Senate version (S 277) already passed and today Obama signed it into law. Section 132A of the new law forbids funds going to any entity that is:

Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of proselytization, consistent with section 132.

So the above paragraph is already law and I bet many or all of us did not know until today.

A companion bill (not yet passed into law) HR 1444 would make this 'volunteer' service mandatory. So the bill is law and we are too late to stop that but we can attempt to stop HR 1444 and whatever it's Senate version maybe:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1444

Remember, when government expands, liberty contracts.

Jim

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