Obama’s National Service Plan – Is Religious Activity Forbidden?
posted by Josiah Garber on March 25, 2009
in Politics
How would you feel if, in order to obtain federal loans for college, you had to do national service?
Maybe not too bad, eh?
How would you feel if, in order to obtain federal loans for college, you had to do national service AND were prohibited from engaging in anything religious (including attending church).
I suspect this idea sounds like an outrage to many reading this article. It does to me.
I heard rumors that Obama’s plan (HR 1388) to require national service in order to receive federal student loans, included a ban on religious activity. I had a hard time believing this was true. However, upon further investigation, it appears that House Resolution 1388 includes this ban on religious activity!
The language is rather vague about whether this ban includes only the national service activities, or any religious activity. One thing is certain if you wanted to do your National Service through a religious organization such as MCC or World Vision, you are out of luck.
Whether this ‘service’ will be mandatory or not is still up in the air. Compulsory volunteering, what a great concept!
Here’s a look at the section of the bill that explains this.
SEC. 125. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.
‘(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
‘(1) Attempting to influence legislation.
‘(2) Organizing or engaging in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes.
‘(3) Assisting, promoting, or deterring union organizing.
‘(4) Impairing existing contracts for services or collective bargaining agreements.
‘(5) Engaging in partisan political activities, or other activities designed to influence the outcome of an election to any public office.
‘(6) Participating in, or endorsing, events or activities that are likely to include advocacy for or against political parties, political platforms, political candidates, proposed legislation, or elected officials.
‘(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.
This bill has already passed the House of Representatives. If you are upset by this bill, and you should be, please spread the word and contact your representatives in the Senate.
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I don’t think this bans church attendance, just doing work _for_ a church. Which is slightly different.
Let’s hope!
I updated this article a little to make it a little more accurate. Thanks Nathan.
This just means that the hours you spend doing religious work (ie going to church, leading worship, etc) can not be counted for pay by the government funded organizations. They just don’t recognize those hours as work, not that you can’t participate in religious things.
excellent point. I thought the wording was rather weird. Thanks for the comment.
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We all dislike this idea, but why is this clause there? Why did they put it in? So that service is for the benefit of the public rather than a particular religious group?
Personally I don’t think its all that terrible. No-one is making us take those lones, we have a choice.
Yeah, it could be a good clause. I guess. Actually I am more concerned with the idea that those who work (are owned) for the government, will get some of their tax money back in the form of a subsidized loan and those who refuse will be treated differently.