Original article: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/religion/story/F9902397ABBF9E3E862574AC001F09F0?OpenDocument
Tim Townsend details a wide initiative by Missouri Governor Matt Blunt which is “the first formal effort under a broader plan Blunt signed into law last year to forge a close working relationship between the government and religious groups” in aiding areas and people devastated by natural disasters. Given the heavy flooding that hit much of Missouri this year, few would have much quarrel with the idea that the government has some obligation to help out businesses, families and farms devastated by natural disaster. However, the idea of forging “a close working relationship between the government and religious groups” in just about any venue is enough to make most people, religious or not, cringe at least a little bit.
It seems that it would be downright appalling, especially given how events surrounding hurricane Katrina played out, to deny government funding and aid trying to help out those devastated by natural disasters. It seems that given those events, it might not be wise to rely on the preparedness and action of the government for such emergencies, and those individual communities should have some degree of readiness, especially in areas known to be prone to disasters. However, the second that “religion” is brought into the debate, strong feelings are going to pop up, and rightfully so. Could the same state funding available to local governments to use in disaster aid instead by given to some type of non-religious community initative or organization? Probably so, but then what of the large number of religious groups who may want to do more than they can? As previously mentioned, it seems silly to put all a communities eggs in the basket of the government. When people are out of homes and jobs, sick and starving, it seems a bit heartless to say “sorry we must have separation of church and state” in the name of abstract concepts, however important they may be and however badly we do not wish to cross an "invisible line" when there are tangible problems. In fairness though, it seems the same funding should be made available to non-religious groups involved in relief efforts. But without going into exact statistics(and they may not even exist for the concentrated areas dealt with in the article), the sheer number of religious groups in areas such as northern Missouri and “The Bible Belt” makes them much more likely to be effective in their efforts than non-religious groups. Further, non-governmental and non-religious organizations are (at least in theory) as equally susceptible to corruption as religious groups. Further, the article notes that the initiative is somewhat biased towards Christian groups. While Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish and other faith groups interested in helping in disaster should receive the exact same benefits (if one accepts the basic tenants of this bill), the fact that it primarily helps Christian groups cannot be a source of outrage since the basic fact is most faith groups in Missouri are Christian (again though, any recognized faith communities who would like the aid ought to have equal access).
On the flip side though, the only protection against using the funding for evangelization and other purposes seems to be a “gentleman’s agreement”. From any perspective, this is simply not good enough. The bill already flirts within establishing to much connection between any one (or any) religious group, and it should be stated as strongly as possible in the bill that any and all government aid must be used solely for the purposes of relief efforts, and that failure to do so will result in stiff penalties. Further, there also needs to be some debate about the role of non-religious aid groups included before I am ready to accept the bill as being fair and just.