I didn't say publicly funded faith based organizations did. I said that some faith based organizations have withheld assistance to those who have required it until they've agreed to convert. I didn't say when, or where this was occuring, nor did I mention where these organizations got their money and supplies. I'll thank you to not misrepresent my argument.
It happened, it is happening, and it will happen again. I see no reason to believe that it won't happen here, nor that it can't happen with government funding. I see no reason here to chip at the wall between church and state.
I think taxpayer-funded reads as publically funded :-/
Me, I'd be interested to know what percent of aid programs out there are absolutely secular and faith-blind. Ideally enough would be secular that the government could, through them, take care of the needs it faces. But I don't know how possible that is.
Do you want recent examples because quite a few of the non-governmental soup stations set up during the Irish famine of 1845-49 refused to serve food unless the people asking for food recanted their Catholicism?
I'm not saying it never happened, I'm saying that it's really, really uncommon and has been for a very long time. Two alleged, anonymous nuns from some unnamed NGO. Public funding for faith-based initiatives carries roughly the same risk of abuse as any other NGO, which is pretty slim. It's not as if the government is just going to throw condition-free money at faith-based organizations and leave them to tend to the book-keeping themselves, there are going to be regulations, and the first report of sectarian discrimination is likely to get that NGO's funding put on some serious review.
And yeah, I'm not going to be too overwhelmed by reports of sectarian discrimination in 19th century Ireland, I don't think that example really applies to this context.
As it happens, I agree with the idea that while it probably still occurs in this day and age it is extremely rare. Probably limited to charities run by extremist religious groups which don't receive public funding in the first place.
