Redefining Donation

All right, my first response to this headline was anger:
FEMA plans to reimburse faith groups for aid

FEMA officials said it would mark the first time that the government has made large-scale payments to religious groups for helping to cope with a domestic natural disaster.

Civil liberties groups called the decision a violation of the traditional boundary between church and state, accusing FEMA of trying to restore its battered reputation by playing to religious conservatives.

Charity is "a gift for public benevolent purposes", right? It's given freely without the expectation of remuneration. Charity is not work for pay, it's donations - things you've given away. Your time, your money, your goods, when you give them to charity, the most you expect in return is a tax break, and I'm thinking that during a national disaster that most people aren't taking the time for the formality of a receipt. I'm not the only one of this opinion:

"Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer," said the Rev. Robert E. Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board. "We would never ask the government to pay for it."

But if you read further into the article, which of course I did, you find that the reality of this situation is a little more reasonable than the first thoughts that sprang to mind.

The government's talking about reimbursing churches and synagogues that set up shop at the request of the state, or FEMA:

FEMA officials said religious organizations would be eligible for payments only if they operated emergency shelters, food distribution centers or medical facilities at the request of state or local governments in the three states that have declared emergencies -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In those cases, "a wide range of costs would be available for reimbursement, including labor costs incurred in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and delivery of essential needs like food and water," FEMA spokesman Eugene Kinerney said in an e-mail.

...

For some individual churches, however, reimbursement is very appealing. At Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Ocean Springs, Miss., as many as 200 evacuees and volunteer workers have been sleeping each night in the sanctuary and Sunday school classrooms. The church's entrance hall is a Red Cross reception area and medical clinic. As many as 400 people a day are eating in the fellowship hall.

Suzie Harvey, the parish administrator, said the church was asked by the Red Cross and local officials to serve as a shelter. The church's leadership agreed immediately, without anticipating that nearly a quarter of its 650 members would be rendered homeless and in no position to contribute funds. "This was just something we had to do," she said. "Later we realized we have no income coming in."

Harvey said the electric bill has skyrocketed, water is being used around the clock and there's been "20 years of wear on the carpet in one month." If FEMA makes money available, she said, the church definitely will apply.

Now that's a bit of a different story, isn't it? The government is proposing to pay back organizations that serve as emergency shelters at their request. It's kind of like paying for buildings that have been commandeered. That, to my way of thinking, isn't so bad.

Still, I don't trust this government. The administration gives me no reason to do so. This article's headline grabbed my attention because the government giving money to churches means one of two things:

1) There's a plan to channel government money to churches that support the insane bleeding of American funds even further (how much is the deficit now?)

or

2) They just knew that it would piss civil rights groups off and they can't resist the baiting.