Federal Funds for Faith-Based Charities

* Re “Dunces Line Up Against Faith-Based Idea,” March 13: As she so often does, Arianna Huffington ignores a serious discussion of the issues in favor of ad hominem attacks on those with whom she disagrees. In discussing the topic of governmental funding for faith-based organizations, she dismisses the concerns that have been raised by various persons through use of labels like “nitwits” and analogies to flat-Earthers. Governmental funding for faith-based organizations should only be considered if it can be demonstrated that this path is more likely to achieve the desired results than either (a) government providing the services directly through its own agencies or (b) government providing the services indirectly by funding independent secular groups.

Huffington provides no evidence that funding faith-based groups is inherently more effective than the alternatives. She doesn’t cite a single study that might tend to show increased efficacy of this path. So much for her Copernicus analogy; she is the one who simply takes her position based on faith.

Huffington refuses to address any of the serious concerns that have been raised, such as how the funding can be implemented without favoring one religion over another, how the governmental officials can make funding decisions without having their own religious beliefs affect their decisions and how the government can fund these religious groups with appropriate oversight without at the same time hindering the religious groups’ own free exercise of religion. These are real concerns that should be addressed without attacking those who raise them as “nitwits” or “dunces.”

BRUCE LEISEROWITZ

Los Angeles

*

* Memo to Arianna Huffington: There is a world beyond the Beltway. Because I am “in the business,” I have a lot of conversations about politics. I have yet to hear anyone mention President Bush’s proposal to allow financial support of faith-based groups. No doubt some people do talk about it, but there is little evidence for an “uproar,” much less an “intense” one. Outside of Washington, the sound of American politics in the year 2001 is more like deafening silence.

EDGAR KASKLA, Lecturer

Dept. of Political Science

Cal State Long Beach