Oh, lovely.

Here's one from the "closing the barn door after the horse escapes" file, courtesy of our friends at Americablog.



It seems that a Christian missionary group's idea of tsunami relief was to kidnap Muslim orphaned children in in Banda Aceh and raise them in a Christian children's home -- turn them into hookers for Jesus instead of hookers for disgusting men like Neil Bush.



but it turns out that the Indonesian government doesn't WANT Muslim children to become hookers for Jesus. And who could blame them?

An evangelical Christian charity has dropped plans to settle 50 Muslim children orphaned by the Asian tsunami in a Christian-run home after the Indonesian government blocked the move, the group said on Thursday.



Virginia-based World Help has raised $70,000 to place Muslim children in a Christian orphanage near Jakarta. But the group's president, the Rev. Vernon Brewer said it suspended fund-raising on Wednesday after Indonesia said Muslim children could not be raised in a non-Muslim home.



"Once we realized that the government was not going to grant permission yesterday we took that fund-raising appeal off of our Web site," Brewer said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

John Aravosis is right: The damage has already been done:

1. Putting all foreign aid, even "foreign" foreign aid, at risk. What Muslim country would EVER allow aid from a Christian country in the future? And how many thousands, if not millions, of disaster victims in the future will suffer because their governments will no longer permit foreign aid as a result of this scandal?



2. Putting all foreign aid workers at risk. Is that aid worker talking to your child a REAL aid worker, or a secret agent out to kidnap your children and convert them to the Great Satan's religion?



3. Jeopardizing citizen donations to disaster relief projects. Do you REALLY know that your donations aren't going to kidnap small children in other countries? After all, how many Americans realize that the Salvation Army is actually a religious right activist organization that lobbies for anti-gay legislation in Washington and the states?



4. Reinforcing the fears that US foreign policy is all about an American crusade against the world, and against Muslims in particular. I mean, Jesus, these freaks chose the largest Muslim country in the world to pull this little stunt in. Kiss our image, or what was left of it, goodbye for good.



5. Making the entire world hate us that much more.



6. Increasing terrorism against Americans. No, I'm not exaggerating. Imagine the terrorist recruiting film you could make out of this little ditty. Sunny day. Massive wave. Muslim moms and dads and kids swim for their lives. Poor little Muslim orphans left crying for their parents. White American Christians, seeing the death of almost 200,000 Muslims as "an opportunity," enter the picture to save the day and kidnap poor Muslim children and brainwash them. I wish I were joking.



And for me, this issue opens up lots of other questions:



1. I doubt this is the first time the religious right has tried to steal children in order to brainwash them into Christianity. Where else have they, or other religious right groups, done this, and are they getting US government money to do this or to support any other of their work?



2. Does the Bush administration condone these kind of actions, and will they support the passage of US laws to stop this fundamentalist traficking in children? Are there any laws on the books already that cover this matter?



3. Who is WorldHelp? Their Web site, to the best of my searching, doesn't include a single name of ANYONE behind the organization. That's rather troubling for a group that collects money from the public, then gets caught spending it in morally questionable ways.

He says it all. Go read what these foul creatures who claim to be doing God's work were going to do. There's nothing I can add, except to continue to weep for what my country has become in just four short years.