About $7 million in federal, state and county money has gone through the Human Services Department to foster care services at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch in two years, but the money is not for religious programs, said Carol Olson, executive director of the state Human Services Department. "The Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch receives private donations to support their spiritual life programs," Olson said.
The government money makes up about 70 percent of the organization's budget, said Gene Kaseman, president of the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch Association. The ranch is affiliated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Its mission is to "help at risk children and their families succeed in the name of Christ," according to its Web site.
Source: Forbes
This is the future of faith-based funding: funneling public funds into religious organizations that engage in religious indoctrination on behalf of particular religious perspectives. It's an unethical scheme designed both to get more money into the hands of conservative Christian supporters of the Bush regime and to advance the conservative, evangelical agenda of Christian Nationalists. Now, because the Supreme Court has decided that taxpayers cannot challenge White House funding of such schemes, they can not only continue but even grow in size.
According to the full text of the complaint (PDF), these are the sorts of things which the public has been funding:
16. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch, through its staff, attempts to modify behavior by directing children to find faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
17. The children who are committed to Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch are instructed to rely on the love of Jesus Christ to cope with their emotional and behavioral problems.
18. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch purports to address the spiritual "needs" of the children committed to its care.
19. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch is an avowedly Christian organization, and is an integral part of the evangelizing effort of the Lutheran Church/Missouri Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch, participating in the ministry of Jesus Christ, including by instructing children to accept Christ as their Savior.
20. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch provides services to children in the context of an explicitly Christian community, including post-release mentoring services, which are publicly funded with taxpayer appropriations.
21. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch implements a philosophy holding that the spiritual needs of committed children must be identified and met
22. Programming at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch incorporates Biblical teachings; being a Lutheran agency, the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch subscribes to the three Ecumenical Creeds and the Lutheran Confessions.
23. Programming at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch includes weekly Spiritual Life Groups activities, church attendance or other spiritual activities on Sundays, individual discussions with spiritual life staff, and prayers at meals.
24. Other Christian programming at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch includes baptism, confirmation studies, devotions, Bible studies, and discussion groups.
25. Non-Christian religious services are not allowed on the premises of the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch.
26. Each cottage at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch has a designated Spiritual Life Specialist, who is a direct care person responsible for the spiritual life of the committed children.
27. Each cottage at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch has Spiritual Life Groups; a typical group views videos or reads the Bible, followed by discussions of what the children have seen or heard.
28. All activities at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch incorporate a Christian theme.
29. The mission of the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch is to help children succeed in the name of Jesus Christ ...
33. An explicitly Christian perspective embodies all of the services provided by the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch.
34. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch embraces a Christ-centered environment in all of its activities, including post-release mentoring services.
35. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch considers personal security and well being to require a close relationship with God.
36. According to the message of the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch, that is communicated to the resident children, God has a plan and His plan includes the children at the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch; the Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch teaches that Christ chose to love, live, and die for all people, and that Jesus sits at the right hand of God.
None of this is even slightly constitutional — no level of government anywhere in the United States has any authority to do anything at all like this. No government or public agency can teach kids to "find faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," to "rely on the love of Jesus Christ to cope with their emotional and behavioral problems," or to develop "a close relationship with God." It's just as unconstitutional, though, for the government to hand these tasks off to a private organization and pay for it with the same public funds. There is no legitimate secular, public, or government purpose behind any of this. It all exists to advance a religious and a theocratic agenda.
Dear Mr Cline,
As you say, the US Constitution allows church and state to be separated (by preserving religious liberty as free from State control) but it nowhere mentions a separation, nor mandates any such thing.
I see no harm in what the Boys & Girls clubs are doing, in showing kindness and free generosity to children who otherwise receive so little. I am in awe of their selflessness.
If what they do is working, would we who are not helping, stop its working?
Brad
Philadelphia
By the same token the Constitution doesn’t meant a “right to a fair trial” or “separation of powers.”
They can be selfless with their own funds, then. The government has no authority to fund religious instruction or indoctrination.
Do you like liars? thieves? murderers? or child molesters?..I bet you do not so your own conscience tells you God’s law the Ten Commandments are good and just.
So you see Austin you are a hypocrite because you agree God’s law is good but you constantly break his laws everyday.
Satan: Have you ever told a lie during your lifetime?
You: Yes, I have lied numerous times…everyone has
Satan:
“The word of God says All liars shall have their part in the lake of fire”- Revelation 21:8
“It also says if you fail one part of the law you fail the whole law” – James 2:10
That is all he has to say and your fate is sealed without Christ. Let alone all the other sins you will have committed during your lifetime.
Only a few of the 10 commandments have anything to do with morality. All of those that do are a matter of “Social Contract”. i give up the right to steal from you to deny you having the right to steal from me. Does the phrase “do unto others…” sound familiar? Most of the commandments are about god being an insecure egomaniac.
And Mr. Apostle… according to most of the Bible, this Jesus guy preached tolerance and forgiveness. Where’s yours?
Silly theist all ways cherry picking the “good parts” of their black fable book and forgetting the bad ones! Just because some half-cleaver sheep hurders come up with a all inclusive (this religion has it all) redundant stories based on flimsy imagination that has nothing to do with modern day life. Some meat head always pulls something out and makes it into something that it is not. They build their argument around the preconceived notions of what their tring to prove!
Apostle –
Absolutely the most stupid xian letter I’ve read on this forum or any other. Or at least I think it is since I can’t completely figure out what the hell you’re trying to say or how it pertains to the matter at hand.
Brad, it’s perfectly possible to show kindness and love to children without indoctrinating them to a religious belief. How can you say these people are generous and selfless — they think they’re bringing souls to Jesus for which they’ll be amply rewarded and actually makes them very selfish since they expect this to eventually benefit them a lot more than they’re helping these children.
But that’s just a sidenote – the pisser here is they’re getting seven millon federal dollars to promote the ultimate fantasy world to defenseless children – and I personally would rather they took my tax money and flushed it down an 800 dollar pentagon toilet bowl than yoke up one more child to the heaven or damnation wagon train. Why can’t Christians just for one minute at a time look at a situation through some one else’s eyes? If a group of atheists was using federal money to turn around at risk children and at the same time telling them the only way to a happy life and personal freedom was to rely on their own love and sense of morality and that Jesus, God and Santa Claus are all myths; that modern religion exists to destroy each other and force others to live just like them or die, would your final line be If what they do is working, would we who are not helping, stop its working?
Doubt it. Proably be more along the lines of “I tried to warn you all you’d be stoned by sunup if this got out.”
I currently work for the DBGR thrift store and I did not know untill recently that it was federally funded. know that I now this I believe that the religious aspect of the program should not be forced on the children. I myself am a little put off by the fact that we are an equal opportunity employer but you can be fired for listening to the regular radio stations like in Minot 105.3 or 99.9 we are told we may only listen to the christian and country stations. even if you are in the warehouse where there are no costumers. I feel this is wrong. recently they are also trying to shove religion down my throat and I am a catholic but apparently that form of christianity will not suffice. I am also upset that Native American at risk teens that are forced into the DBGR program by law are not allowed to practice their own culture. to Native Americans spirituality is very important. this is an obvious example of the same kind of colonization that Native Americans have been forced to suffer through for way to long. I am not against any religion, but I am definately against forcing your beliefs on others. this is especially concerning because these so called at risk teens are being stripped of all rights and spiritual freedom because they are poverty stricken and cannot afford better forms of rehabilitation. I have an educational background in Sociology, Philosophy, and Gender and Ethnic studies as well as Native American Studies and the one thing I know to be a fact is that poverty is one of the number one reasons that children act out in violent ways and children raised in poverty are more than half as likely as the rest of the population to have emotional problems. what I see happening is a evangelical organization who has the same type of education finding a way to convert the youth. it is another form of exploitation of the Poor and of minorities who in our area of North Dakota are more likely to be at risk because they are living in poverty. this is not moral and it is not fair. and I beleive they should no longer recieve federal funding. if the affluent evangelicals are so concerned with conversion they should be donating more of their own money. also, if the organization really cared they would do something to battle the larger issue of poverty that causes at risk teen behavior.
Athiest are so crazy, dont you know that social taxation forces you to take care of the poor, needy, fatherless, widow, and homeless which are all the main tennets of religion? read matthew 25:31-46 your going to be saved by jesus christ because the government forces you to obey the tenets of salvation straight out of religion.
Have any of you opinionated atheists ever been or seen the place in operation? Taken time to visit and view with your own eyes how it works, what it does for kids? Talk to the kids who have lived and live there? Quit being so frickin narcissistic and judegemental until you have the informed knowledge to make an educated opinion otherwise your rhetoric is heresay and you opinion is just an opinion. And you know what they say about opinions, they are just like asxxxxxs, everybody’s got one!
Do we need to? Would seeing it somehow magically make taxpayer-funded religious teaching legal?