http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._north_grant_6
Quote:
U.S. Changes Policy in Grant to Church
BOSTON - The Old North Church, where two lanterns were hung to signal Paul Revere that the British were coming, will receive federal grant money for a fix-up under a change in government policy on church and state.
Old North is still an active Episcopal church, and up to now, historically significant structures that were also used for religious purposes have been ineligible for federal historic preservation grants because of concerns about the separation of church and state.
But Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Tuesday that under a new policy, all nationally significant historic structures can get grants.
"This new policy will bring balance to our historic preservation program and end a discriminatory double-standard that has been applied against religious properties," Norton said in a statement.
The announcement drew criticism from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a 52-year-old Washington-based group.
"Gale Norton is wrong on the Constitution at a minimum because the Constitution prohibits turning the public treasury into a church building fund and that's apparently what this administration now wants to do," said Barry Lynn, the organization's executive director.
"It's really a gross abuse of tax dollars to drop public funds into the collection plate of an active church."
The new policy was approved by President Bush (news - web sites) after he consulted with the Justice Department (news - web sites) and the White House counsel's office, said Jim Towey, director of the Bush administration's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
It is part of a campaign by the president "to remove barriers that have prevented faith-based groups from being treated fairly in the public square," Towey said.
Diane Cohen, co-director of Partners for Sacred Places, a national group that helps religious congregations preserve their buildings, called it a "wonderful day for us" and predicted that dozens of grant applications from religious groups with rundown buildings would be filed each year.
The $317,000 grant has been approved to repair and restore windows in the building and make it more accessible to the public.
The 280-year-old church still has an active congregation, and services are held every Sunday.
On the night of April 18, 1775, two lanterns displayed from the church steeple warned Revere that the British were heading to Lexington and Concord.
Lynn said that if Revere were alive today, he would "ride around the country, saying your tax dollars are being abused and warning that the church-state separation wall has just seen another crack."
But Towey said, "Americans don't want to fund religion. But this isn't funding religion. This is preserving a national treasure."
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why am i not surprised that bush would do something like this?
i'm not saying the site is historic, but i'm opposed to this because the STILL use the site for church services = giving money directly to churches.
if this was an old church converted into a museum, i would have no problem w/ it, but this is an active church!
anyway, what's your view on this?