Who's protecting the children?

The hubbub over the Republican congressional leadership's blatant failure to protect the minors under their custodial care in the wake of the Mark Foley scandal should be (but isn't) just the opening shot in a larger story of the hypocrisy of right wing (aka, conservative) politicians about "protecting our children."

At any moment, state inspectors can step uninvited into one of the three child care centers that Ethel White runs in Auburn, Ala., to make sure they meet state requirements intended to ensure that the children are safe. There must be continuing training for the staff. Her nurseries must have two sinks, one exclusively for food preparation. All cabinets must have safety locks. Medications for the children must be kept under lock and key, and refrigerated.

The Rev. Ray Fuson of the Harvest Temple Church of God in Montgomery, Ala., does not have to worry about unannounced state inspections at the day care center his church runs. Alabama exempts church day care programs from state licensing requirements, which were tightened after almost a dozen children died in licensed and unlicensed day care centers in the state in two years.

The differences do not end there. As an employer, Ms. White must comply with the civil rights laws; if employees feel mistreated, they can take the center to court. Religious organizations, including Pastor Fuson?s, are protected by the courts from almost all lawsuits filed by their ministers or other religious staff members, no matter how unfairly those employees think they have been treated.

And if you are curious about how Ms. White?s nonprofit center uses its public grants and donations, read the financial statements she is required to file each year with the Internal Revenue Service. There are no I.R.S. reports from Harvest Temple. Federal law does not require churches to file them. (New York Times)

The children in each have the same organ systems, subject to the same diseases, can be killed by the same accidents.

As in many states, these regulations were a response to conditions that had put young lives at risk. In Alabama alone, almost a dozen children died in day care facilities in the two years before the state began upgrading its licensing requirements in 2000.

These two day care centers are a mile apart. There is accountability in one. There is no accountability in the other. So let's add "no accountability" to "hypocrisy" as charges against conservatives (aka, right wing).

Where did these special favors (aka, affirmative action for conservatives) originate? The New York Times analyzed laws passed since 1989 (the culmination of the Reagan Revolution and the start of Bush I) and found more than 200 "special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use." So let's add corruption to the Bill of Particulars against coservative politicans: Hypocrisy, no accountability, corruption.

As a result of these special breaks, religious organizations of all faiths stand in a position that American businesses - and the thousands of nonprofit groups without that "religious" label - can only envy. And the new breaks come at a time when many religious organizations are expanding into activities - from day care centers to funeral homes, from ice cream parlors to fitness clubs, from bookstores to broadcasters - that compete with these same businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Now we can also add, "Free market opponents." Conservative politicians are hypocrites who evade accountability, who are corrupt and who don't mind rigging the free market against legitimate small businesses. Worse, they reward "faith based" organizations while penalizing secular non-profits trying to serve the community in the same way. Sounds more like a War on Secularism than a War on Religion. Moreover, these unfair arrangements have been strongly buttressed by the conservative Rehnquist Court, supposedly the bastion of activists jurists hostile to religion. With enemies like this, who needs friends? Doesn't sound like the much vaunted "war on religion" we hear so much about from conservative moral paragons like Bill O'Reilly (the guy who was sued for phone sex harrassment by a subordinate).

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, in introducing a legislative agenda last July, said, "Radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built."

In March, hundreds of people and a number of influential lawmakers attended a conference called "The War on Christians and the Values Voter in 2006" in Washington and applauded the premise that religion was under attack.

Society "treats Christianity like a second-class superstition," Tom DeLay, then a Republican representative from Texas, told the crowd. "Seen from that perspective, of course there is a war on religion."

Sorry. I think we already covered this under "hypocrisy." Or maybe just plain "lying" is more apt.

Now the battle to abrogate zoning and local land-use regulations for religous institutions is being joined in a Boulder, CO lawsuit that could set precedent for the nation. Forget about land use planning. Man's Dominion over Nature will be triumphant. Only Nature will lose. And we know what conservative politicans think of "Nature."

Hypocrisy, evasion of accountability, corruption, contemptuous of small businesses even as they praise them in speech, lying, disregard of human distortion of the natural world. That's the short list.

And the marvel of all this is that they have succeeded in making "liberal" a dirty word instead of "conservative." You'd think anyone who would believe something like that would also believe God created the universe in seven days, 6000 years ago. Wouldn't you?