Just Another Infidel

A conservative political newsletter I receive expressed a satisfying viewpoint in today's edition. After berating Mike Newdow's efforts to eliminate two taxpayer-funded congressional chaplains on the grounds they are an unconstitutional breach of the separation of church and state, he went on to say,

"For the record, the two chaplains are receiving a combined salary of
$278,000 of taxpayer money per year. Sure, it's a drop in the bucket, but
that's not the point. If we're ever going to get Congress to stop trading
in the currency of OPM - Other People's Money - this is as good a place to
start as any.

If a member of Congress needs the services of a minister, he or she should
simply do what the rest of us do: Drive down to the local church.

It's not like they don't exist in the nation's capital. A quick search of
the Washington, D.C., Yellow Pages found some 884 churches listed for 92
different denominations.

And I'm absolutely certain that an unlimited number of clergy from those
churches would be honored to VOLUNTEER their time to open up each session of
Congress with an appropriate prayer."

Chuck Muth's website is lame but can be found at <a href="http://www.chuckmuth.com" target="_blank">www.chuckmuth.com</a> .

How the hell can anybody justify paying these two chaplains that kind of money? This reinforces my belief that religion is "really" about power, influence and money!

JAI

Splat

Whoa! That's an awful lot of cash for talking about people's imaginary friends.

Excellent point about the symbolic value of cutting the chaps and allowing volunteers to do the job. Perfectly consistent with the philosophy of privatization and public service that Bush claims to support.

Buffman

<a href="http://members.tripod.com/~candst/chaptest.htm" target="_blank">http://members.tripod.com/~candst/chaptest.htm</a>

Toto

I think the amount of money for the two chaplains is greater than that (there is not only salary, but some staff and probably office supplies.) In 1999, the office of the House chaplain received $136,000, while the office of the Senate chaplain received $277,000. The Senate chaplain also has some private funding described <a href="http://loper.org/~george/archives/2001/Feb/46.html" target="_blank">here</a>, some of which he uses to buy his own books to distribute free to members of Congress, and occupies some valuable government offices.

A few years ago, there was a big todo over the House Chaplain. A committe had evaluated applicants, and recommended a Catholic for the post. The Religious Right evangelicals rejected the recommendation in preference to a good Protestant, but the House ended up appointing a different Catholic just to prove that they were not prejudiced against that important voting block.

Barry Lynn of Americans United published a letter proposing that the position be abolished (<a href="http://www.au.org/press/pr126let.htm" target="_blank">here</a>). You would think that would have been the best resolution of that embarrassing tiff, but no one in Washington has any shame at this point.