Archive [July 1999]

All by himself, AI Gore has torn down the wall of separation between church and state.

Campaigning at (believe it or not) the Salvation Army in Atlanta, AI Gore called for the “use of partnerships between the government and faith-based organizations.” Why? Because Algore has discovered: “Freedom of religion need not mean freedom from religion.” In fact, he noted, Americans “rightly believe that politics and morality are deeply interrelated.”

Yes, he really said that.

This is the same guy who once had to apologize for referring to religious conservatives as “the extra-chromosome right wing.” But now that he’s running for President, the involvement of religious groups is hunky-dory. Even welfare reform is hunky dory:

“The 1996 welfare reform law contained a little-known provision called Charitable Choice,” Gore exuded. “It says, simply, that states can enlist faith-based organizations to provide basic welfare services, and help move people from welfare to work … Let us put the solutions that faith-based organizations are pioneering at the very heart of our national strategy for building a better, more just nation.”

Of course, in October, 1998 Gore said: “There is one person who’s at the center of all the progress in our country. And that is our president, Bill Clinton.”

But never mind. Now Algore is proposing “a New Partnership” with “faith- and values-based organizations” because they help in a way government programs can’t: “To the workers in these organizations, that client is not a number, but a child of God.”

“For too long, faith-based organizations have wrought miracles on a shoestring. With the steps I’m proposing,” said the Vice President, “they will no longer need to depend on faith alone.”

Now they have Algore.