Updated: 07:27 AM EDT
Bush Seeks Church Membership Data
By David Morgan, Reuters
WASHINGTON (July 1) - President Bush, seeking to mobilize religious conservatives for his reelection campaign, has asked church-going volunteers to turn over church membership directories, campaign officials said on Thursday.
In a move sharply criticized both by religious leaders and civil libertarians, the Bush-Cheney campaign has issued a guide listing about two-dozen "duties" and a series of deadlines for organizing support among conservative church congregations.
A copy of the guide directs religious volunteers to send church directories to state campaign committees, identify new churches that can be organized by the Bush campaign and talk to clergy about holding voter registration drives.
The document, distributed to campaign coordinators across the country earlier this year, also recommends that volunteers distribute voter guides in church and use Sunday service programs for get-out-the-vote drives.
"We expect this election to be potentially as close as 2000, so every vote counts and it's important to reach out to every single supporter of President Bush," campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said.
"We expect this election to be potentially as close as 2000, so every vote counts and it's important to reach out to every single supporter of President Bush," campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said.
But the Rev. Richard Land, who deals with ethics and religious liberty issues for the Southern Baptist Convention, a key Bush constituency, said he was "appalled."
"First of all, I would not want my church directories being used that way," he said, predicting failure for the Bush plan.
The conservative Protestant denomination, whose 16 million members strongly backed Bush in 2000, held regular drives that encouraged church-goers to "vote their values," said Land.
"But it's one thing for us to do that. It's a totally different thing for a partisan campaign to come in and try to organize a church. A lot of pastors are going to say: 'Wait a minute, bub'," he added.
The guide surfaced as a spate of opinion polls showed Bush's reelection campaign facing a tough battle.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed Bush running neck-and-neck with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry among registered voters, 47 percent of whom said they now believed the president had misled Americans about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
The Bush campaign has also been spending heavily on television ads, only to see the president's approval ratings slump to new lows.
Stanzel said the campaign ended the month of June with $64 million on hand. He had no figures on how much Bush has raised in June. At the end of May, Bush had raised $213.4 million and spent all but $63 million.
The latest effort to marshal religious support also drew fire from civil liberties activists concerned about the constitutional separation of church and state.
"Any coordination between the Bush campaign and church leaders would clearly be illegal," said a statement from the activist group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
07/01/04 19:30 ET
Absolutely priceless, if nothing else shows what kind of isolated, pie-in-the-sky, no touch with reality nut Bush really is, how does pissing off your most die-hard support treat you?
"On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." -Richard Feynman
teh article wrote:The latest effort to marshal religious support also drew fire from civil liberties activists concerned about the constitutional separation of church and state.
"Any coordination between the Bush campaign and church leaders would clearly be illegal," said a statement from the activist group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
yup, pretty sure it's illegal.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
I wonder if this will get the message through to the Theocratic America types that the seperation of church and state is a good thing for religious freedom?
Possibly not, but he's managed to piss off the Southern Baptists this time, so I can always hope.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
To simply [/i]ask[/i] organizations to voluntarily hand over their records? No, not really.
BoTM / JL / MM / HAB / VRWC / Horseman
I'm studying for the CPA exam. Have a nice summer, and if you're down just sit back and realize that Joe is off somewhere, doing much worse than you are.
Frank Hipper wrote:I wonder if this will get the message through to the Theocratic America types that the seperation of church and state is a good thing for religious freedom?
Probably not. They always "interpret" the first amendment to mean that government can't interfere with religion. Under their one-way variation of it, it isn't a violation for religion to interfere with government.
Wasn't this sort of blatant politicizing tried before the 1994 Congressional elections(the one where the Conservatives pretty much drove the Democrats out of Congressional power)? I seem to remember reading something about that in the newspaper(Salt Lake Tribune).
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” -Jean-Luc Picard
"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." -Margaret Atwood
FOX News wrote:One section of the document lists 22 "coalition coordinator" duties and lays out a timeline for various activities targeting religious voters. By July 31, for example, the coordinator is to:
— Send your church directory to your state Bush-Cheney '04 headquarters or give to a BC04 field representative.
— Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush.
— Recruit 5 people in your church to help with the voter registration project.
— Talk to your pastor about holding a citizenship Sunday and voter registration drive.
Is it just me, or does the part I bolded sound like a chain letter? "Email 5 friends in your address book to help with the voter registration, sending all their personal information to Bush by July 31st, 2004, or else you will get struck by lightning four times and have frogs fall on your head every time you masturbate. Vote Bush!"
"On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics." -Richard Feynman
If I were these churches, I'd be more concerned about their tax status. I would think that should these churches "stump on behalf of political candidates," they risk losing their tax exempt status. In fact, the IRS states that this is the case. The link is to press release about a reminder letter they just sent out, and specifies the section of the tax code that they would take action under.
“There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it’s perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible … Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between drug warriors and child molesters.” - Jacob Sullum[/size][/align]
No. Campaigns are not government operations. They're free to ask whoever they want for mailing lists.
It's still unethical as fuck, but Bush's political handlers have long ago proven there's no bottom to their barrel.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
RedImperator wrote:No. Campaigns are not government operations. They're free to ask whoever they want for mailing lists.
Doesn't every candidate recieve some public funds for their campaign, though?
No. I forget the specifics, but there's a bunch of restrictions for that, and it's optional. Bush doesn't do the government thing because he can get money without the restrictions.
BTW, it's pretty obvious that Bush has offended pretty much everyone by now. The only question is if he's offended enough people so much that they won't vote for him.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
RedImperator wrote:No. Campaigns are not government operations. They're free to ask whoever they want for mailing lists.
Doesn't every candidate recieve some public funds for their campaign, though?
Bush has opted out of Federal matching funds. Even if he hadn't, I'm still not sure if it's outright illegal to mobilize voters through churches.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
No. Campaigns are not government operations. They're free to ask whoever they want for mailing lists.
It's still unethical as fuck, but Bush's political handlers have long ago proven there's no bottom to their barrel.
It would indeed be illegal, because such an act would violate the churches' 501 (C)3 tax exemption —a fact even the thickest Southern Baptist pastor can comprehend and why most if not all of them are going to flatly refuse this request.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
No. Campaigns are not government operations. They're free to ask whoever they want for mailing lists.
It's still unethical as fuck, but Bush's political handlers have long ago proven there's no bottom to their barrel.
It would indeed be illegal, because such an act would violate the churches' 501 (C)3 tax exemption —a fact even the thickest Southern Baptist pastor can comprehend and why most if not all of them are going to flatly refuse this request.
Whoops, you're right. Totally forgot about that.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Doesn't matter if it is illegal though since I'm sure that the pro-Bush PAC's could just as easily request the lists without violating the tax exempt status of the church.
Obviously not if Bush's campaign has gone this particular route.
“There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it’s perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible … Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between drug warriors and child molesters.” - Jacob Sullum[/size][/align]
