Economic Stimulus Bill Excludes Places That Allow Faith-based Meetings. Under the stimulus bill, any public facility that allows worship in its rooms may not receive federal stimulus funds to renovate. Click here for details and call your congressperson to protect college and high-school faith-based groups' rights to use public buildings for religious purposes.
From the article: "If the university itself is a religiously based or faith-based institution, it does not qualify. And if the facility that is being renovated allows religious worship to take place, it also does not qualify." Specifically, the provision reads that stimulus funds may not be used for "modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities -- (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission."
Under that provision, according to Jay Sekulow, many schools would bar on-campus worship or even Bible study because it will put federal funding in jeopardy. That, he says, should raise a warning flag in a federal courthouse."
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