On Friday afternoon, Time magazine religion reporter Amy Sullivan briefly blogged her complaint about what she sees as hypocrisy from conservatives who oppose federal monies for Planned Parenthood but support federal support for faith-based initiatives.
"Money is Fungible," blared her April 8 Swampland headline. Well, "[o]bviously," she agreed, then carped that:
Except when it's a grant to a religious organization, in which case it's obviously tightly segregated in order to prevent the appearance of government-funded religion and therefore the furthest thing from fungible. If only Planned Parenthood would hire some church treasurers to replicate that nifty accounting system for them, this whole silly argument could be solved.
Sullivan's lament is telling: The Time magazine religion reporter is much less scandalized by direct taxpayer aid to a major abortion provider than federal aid that flows to religious charities that don't have blood on their hands.
If Sullivan is truly concerned about such hypocrisy, maybe she'd favor voucherizing both the money that goes to Planned Parenthood and monies that go directly to religious charities. That way recipients could shop around for social welfare services and taxpayers wouldn't directly shovel money to controversial organizations.
Of course, given how most liberals are grousing over a D.C. schools voucher plan that was hammered out in Friday evening's eleventh hour budget deal, I highly doubt that sort of compromise would be palatable to Sullivan.
