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 A new report finds that religious groups engaged in lobbying or advocacy around Washington employ at least 1,000 people.
November 22nd, 2011
12:29 PM ET
Report tracks explosion of religious lobbying in WashingtonBy Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor (CNN) - Lobbying and advocacy by religious groups in Washington have exploded in recent decades, increasing fivefold since 1970 to become a nearly $400 million industry, a new Pew report finds. More than 200 groups are doing faith-related lobbying and advocacy in the nation’s capital, compared to fewer than 40 in 1970, according to the report. Put together, the groups employ at least 1,000 people. The report, released Monday by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, found that religious groups spend $390 million a year to influence U.S. domestic and foreign policy. “About one-in-five religious advocacy organizations in Washington have a Roman Catholic perspective (19%) and a similar proportion is evangelical Protestant in outlook (18%), while 12% are Jewish and 8% are mainline Protestant,” according to the report, called "Lobbying for the Faithful: Religious Advocacy Groups in Washington, D.C." “But many smaller U.S. religious groups, including Baha’is, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, also have established advocacy organizations in the Washington area,” the report said. The number of Muslim groups engaged in lobbying and advocacy in Washington (17) is about the same as the number of mainline Protestant groups engaged in such work (16). The report said that the most common domestic issues for religious groups are: - The relationship between church and state; - Civil rights and liberties for religious and other minorities; - Bioethics and life issues, including abortion, capital punishment and end-of-life issues; - Family/marriage issues, including definition of marriage, domestic violence and fatherhood initiatives. The top international issues for religious groups are religious freedom, human rights, debt relief and other economic issues, and the promotion of peace and democracy, the report found. |
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Only Buddha can save you all.
What! How dare you. Do you not know that only the imperial essence of my hallowed, sacred and transcendent house cat in whom, by whom and through whom all things are coagulated can save you?!
I can't wait for sharia law.
Look its the new money changers from the temple.
religious nuts stay out of DC bunch of wack jobs
Christianity: The belief that some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul because some rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
pretty much
Love it Bub.. its right on!
Wonder if they will let us put this in the history books.. or on the wall of a court
Excellent summary. Awful hard to believe, but you might just want to check it out.
snow: "Love it Bub.. its right on! ... Wonder if they will let us put this in the history books.. or on the wall of a court"
It's says volumes about your intelligence that you think a strawman based on ad hominems counts as a good argument that's "right on".
🙂
I enjoy reading Nah's comments. They make me feel even smarter than I am.
@Nah.. there are some jokes that you read, laugh and/or extend it and then move on with life.. the fact that you put thought into not just the joke, but comments on it and linked it to past experiences in order to respond speaks so much about you that I have to say to you, "You dip$ hit, get a life!"
Now look what you did.. your stupidity is becoming co.ntagious.. get away from here..
@ tj, please leave my parents out of this (the ones who gave me life)! @ James, please pick up a book other than your bible. Our founding fathers were deists, at best. They claimed a belief in a higher power but were NOT christians. Yes, many who came to America were religious. They came here for the promise of freedom of, including from, religion.
my: "Our founding fathers were deists, at best. They claimed a belief in a higher power but were NOT christians."
Oh please. Most of them were tied specifically to a particular denomination of Christianity. The fact that you ignore this either shows that you're a partisan, an atheist who likes historical revisionism, or just a moron.
Much less their theism (not deism) is still a religious belief. It's why they believed human beings have "natural rights" that are inalienable: because they're granted and enforced by a higher being.
Muslims have a religious belief too. I guess you will enjoy living under Sharia Law.
Nah: That's because Dawin hadn't come along yet.
pat: "Nah: That's because Dawin hadn't come along yet."
You do realize that evolution and theism aren't mutually exclusive, right?
@Nah.. oh ya.. you are sooooo right.. which is why the piligrims and seperatists and every jerkface took to arms and started killing (sorry.. massacring) the native indians as soon as they recognised their "Natural Rights", right?
The early christians were so pious and followed the god's "Natural right for human beings" that they reduced the native american population to a tenth of their original numbers.. What kind of god did they follow? and what kind of a human are you to support them?
Nah
Theism and Evolution can coexist the same way the men who brought you the Declaration also owned slaves.
Eventually moral sense combined forces the choice.
You KNOW it's either one or the other, and any pretense otherwise is, well, pretense.
will: Sorry to embarrass your but your response was, well, non-responsive.
Theism and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Why? Because neither one contradicts or supplants the other. You can believe a god was necessary as a first cause of the universe while still holding that evolution - the natural change of things based on mixing or changing of traits - causes change among animals and species.
Sorry to disappoint you.
Nah: Yes the earth is a flat sphere and Jesus burried dem dino bones to test your faith.
god: Alas, "god" doesn't know what "theism" means.
Nice strawman, too 🙂
Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine were both deists if not atheists! My guess is that pledging deism was the politically correct copout for atheism back then, atheism being so unpopular.
Nah
Your approach is pathetic, somewhat akin to a ghetto high school debater.
Of course mutually exclusive beliefs flourish in fools, it happens every day.
But time and genetics make them fade.
There can be only one reality, and natures favors one over the other
Religion served a genetic purpose (it may still, after all we do require an underclass and fodder for the cannons) but it shall fade like the silly beliefs of the past.
The world was never round, regardless of how many fools thought it was.
Your God shall be supplanted and surpassed soon enough.
Nah – Some of them were Deists, not Theists. Become educated, then speak. The reverse just makes it very hard to take you seriously.
200 groups and 400 million in lobbying compared to 12,941 groups spending 3.5 billion in 2010. In other words, religious groups make up 1.5% of the lobbyists and spend 1.1% of the money. Nothing but an attack to make religious organizations look bad, ignoring the fact that the amount of money spent on lobbying in the last 40 years has gone up the same amount.
Fact is, they have no business lobbying the government. Keep religion out of politics!
doc: "Fact is, they have no business lobbying the government. Keep religion out of politics!"
And what is it about religion that marks it out as a category of speech that should be prohibited? Because you don't like it?
Great standard.
Can Congress then prohibit unions, abortion supporters, minorities and so on from lobbying the government for legislative change? Or does your bigotry begin and end at religion?
@Doc – first off that is an opinion, and secondly, that is exactly why they lobby. To protect the interests of the religious (83% of the population) against those who believe they should have no say what-so-ever.
Bigotry? Hahahahahaha. The difference is, my dim friend, that the other groups you mentioned pay taxes.
god: Ah, right. Your right to speech is measured by the taxes you pay.
Should the rich, then, be allowed a greater voice and vote than the poor?
Good job at shooting yourself in the foot.
Nah
Th rich ALREADY have a greater voice than the poor.
That is the error in the system that requires repair.
Government funded elections are QUITE simple to arrange, leveling the playing field.
Or perhaps you would prefer to see a 21st century version of our founding fathers explain basic fairness to todays elite at the point of a bayonet? Our nation was born of revolution, it only seems fitting we die of it as well.
Evolve or perish.
Nah – The difference is that the other groups you mentioned are all addressing issues based in reality whereas the religious lobbyists are attempting to push beliefs based on fairy tales.
Freaks
TAX CHURCHES – PERIOD!!!!!!!
this is why america is falling behind the rest of the world
Right. The U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world because it guarantees that no matter who you are, what your social status is, or what your beliefs are, you have a right to lobby for and support political causes, and you can do so by bringing your grievances straight to the government itself.
What backwards thinking.
I guess Nah will be happy when muslims successfully lobby for Sharia Law.
People like Nah will never be happy until we all believe their exact version of the grand fairy tale (but nobody else's because they are all wrong).
retards
Say to them: There is no evidence that god exists and therefor, morality is relative. Now what can I do for you today?
In which case they ought to impose a religious dictatorship, shouldn't they? After all, if there is no morality, they ought to do what pleases them. And if it pleases them to tell you how you should live your life, shouldn't they do it?
Good job at shooting yourself in the foot.
That is how it works now
I think what Nah is trying to say is that he has no sense of right and wrong outside of the ped0philia they preach in his bible.
god: Nah, it has nothing to do with the bible. It has to do with the fact that your "moral sense" in an atheist's universe is tied simply and solely to your own pleasure and comfort. Hence, if you feel guilty doing some act, you ought not do it. But if it brings you pleasure and you can avoid pain (i.e., bad consequences) you have no reason not to do whatever you please.
Glad you're following along 🙂
Nah – you are erroneously assuming that morality has something to do with having some higher being tell you what to do.
If you need a mythological being to tell you how to behave morally, then you are nothing but a childish sheep.
ALL RELIGIONS ARE IMF IRS 501(c)(3) LIMITED LIABILITY CORPORATIONS (LLC), ASK TO SEE THE CHARTER AND SEE FOR YOURSELF, ITS A SADIST BUSINESS AT IT'S BEST
It sickens me how these people use religion for evil purposes
All lobbying should be illegal and punishable by 10 years hard time. No time off for good behavior
agreed 100%
Yeah, I mean, everyone should be prohibited from speaking, acting politically or supporting political causes. The government - specifically Congress - should be the arbiters of what you can and can't say, what you should believe, and should control who can bring grievances to their doorstep.
What a lover of liberty you must be.
Stupid god d*mned Christians
When the cloud fairies start doing the lobbying...I'll begin believing in religion. Till then, we can live so much better lives without it.
Just don't let them get around scientific fact, like evolution.
Just what Jesus would have done: He would have gone into lobbying or Wall Street, stock markets. There's lots more money in it than walking your feet sore as a street preacher going from town to town, IN the desert. He would have a better PR agency. And he would SELL the wine he made out of water. Why forego a nice chunk of money. He'd be buying stocks in the faithhealing business, and and ..... NOT! I think Jesus would do things differently.
Honestly folks: It's pathetic and dangerous enough how Washington DC is swamped with money interests (yes, that's what lobbying is!). And of course our faithful brothers and sisters have to poke in the same mud. Shameful.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great Nobel prize winning Russian met Dmitri Panin in Stalin's gulags. Both men had experienced the horrors of Nazism ,and Communism under which millions had disappeared or were consigned to concentration camps for decades. Panin had this to say: " A godless dictatorship both sullies and disfigures a man. Only a deep religious faith can provide him with stout armour. When the church is destroyed and people are left on their own, it is easy for them to fall in with evil schemes."
You seem like you have no self control. So you need a book to keep you from killing your fellow man? I guess without the bible you would be a foaming r@ping ped0phile.
Maybe we should be scared of what you would do without a bible to tell you. I guess you weren't born with a conscience.
CE... Good comment; but reasoned thought seems wasted on most of this board, as evidenced by the overwhelming majority of juvenile, hateful posts.
catholic engineer
You miss the point entirely.
Stalin merely wanted to play the same role that Christ did. Many political systems indoctrinate the same way, and to the same ends as religion.
It is our role as rational humans to reject ALL dogma, be it that of Pol Pott, or Adolph Hitler, or Jesus Christ, or Joseph Stalin.
Any man who aspires to divinity is a megalomaniac and a threat to humanity.
@catholic engineer
Your story exudes a yearning for a benevolent dictator – an oxymoronic concept.
Any kind of dictatorship, godless or not, sullies and disfigures a man.
History provides many more example of theistic dictatorships than atheistic ones.
god: "Maybe we should be scared of what you would do without a bible to tell you. I guess you weren't born with a conscience."
Not a terribly deep thinker, are you?
The question is precisely what would happen if you "didn't" believe in a god. Namely, there is no morality that is binding on you. Even if there are moral laws floating around the universe you have no reason to follow them except if they bring you some pleasure or happiness and help you avoid pain.
Hence, whenever you can do wrong, you ought to do wrong, so long as it brings you no physical or mental discomfort.
Remember, your own personal conscience (your own feelings of guilt when you act) has no bearing on what others should do.
Im wondering where Stalin found an atheist bible to base his government on? Since no such book exists you still have yet to show us a nation based on atheism.
Nah, Not a deep thinker? I have more education in the stuff I pick out from between my toes than your whole farce of a religion. You offered no counter arguments in your comment.
god: *yawn* It's cute that when you can't answer the argument, or defend your position, you resort to name calling instead.
Bravo 🙂
Don't you understand Nah's argument? He and his fellow bible thumpers are so backa$$wards that they could not come up with simple rules like "Don't hurt others" "Don't steal" "Don't kill" without their god talking to them through the voice of a 2000 yr old goat herder..
A small research on 6 month old babies showed that they tend to give others stuff they see the others feel happy about.. even if the babies themselves do not like it.. unfortunately, to be a true christian in @Nah's definition, you need to be born without that instinct..
snow: Alas, you don't understand the argument.
It's precisely because the moral imperatives "do no harm" and "do not steal" have no force outside of your conscience that you are not "forced" to do no harm or not steal. Hence, your being "good" - which, strictly speaking, can't happen since there is no "good" - is dependent only whether or not being "good" brings you some pleasure or happiness.
Hence, if you tell someone they "shouldn't steal" they have no reason to follow your moral commandments if stealing will benefit them.
Who says that you have to go around shoving your morality down other's throats.. that is what Christianity does.. That is ingrained so much into your mind that you can not escape from doing it. If someone steals, or kills, there is police/law that will take care of it.
And even you can understand that law is separate from religion. if you don't understand, try speeding next time you are late to church and say that excuse to the cop who pulls you over..
Fact is, morality being taught through religion is simply a tool used to control mindless masses who will swoon at the mere mention of "eternal happiness in heaven". You don't go to church to better your morality standards.. you go for simple greed to get that eternal happiness.. And this difference will always keep you separate from one who does good for the sake of doing good. Hypocrite!
@catholic engineer,
As opposed to a godfull dictatorship? Is not a gulag a gulag not matter whence it's justification? Were not the serfs of the entire medieval period sullied and disfigured by those rulers who claimed a divine right to rule? Were not the lowest castes of Hindu culture, or the peasants in Ja.pan's Shinto/Bushido culture and China's dynastically supported Confuscian culture likewise subjugated by their oppressors? Even when the church is supported, not destroyed, "evil scheme[s]" abound: Mussilini, Franco, Salazar, "monsignor" Tiso, Piłsudski, etc.
Apparently, God will not deign to save you from temptation or sin; He will not save you from pain or suffering; He will not save the church from corruption; He will not save the angels from falling or the devils from hell; He will not save mankind from Satan or Adam/Eve; He will not save Colleges or Parties from trangressions; He will not save His own word from adulteration;
what makes you think he will save a ruler or a nation from commiting atrocities? To this day He never has!
I'm thinking people felt the same misery from the the pain and suffering at the hand of the Church duuring the Inquisitions....a Godless society has no corner on oppression.
Here's another one for you, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis, 1935
Bobby VanderPutz's Family Leader has narrowed it's endorsement to 4 candidates. Not surprisingly it's Rick, Dick, Mic and, the poster child of Family Values, Newt!~ Outstanding!~