focus on hatred leads to redundancies
From THE COLORADO INDEPENDENT:
Focus on the Family announced on Tuesday that 202 jobs will be cut companywide — an estimated 20 percent of its workforce. The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.
Critics are holding up the layoffs, which come just two months after the organization’s last round of dismissals, as a sad commentary on the true priorities of the ministry.
“If I were their membership I would be appalled,” said Mark Lewis, a longtime Colorado Springs activist who helped organize a Proposition 8 protest in Colorado Springs on Saturday. “That [Focus on the Family] would spend any money on anything that’s obviously going to get blocked in the courts is just sad. [Prop. 8] is guaranteed to lose, in the long run it doesn’t have a chance — it’s just a waste of money.”
In all, Focus pumped $539,000 in cash and another $83,000 worth of non-monetary support into the measure to overturn a California Supreme Court ruling that allowed gays and lesbians to marry in that state. The group was the seventh-largest donor to the effort in the country. The cash contributions are equal to the salaries of 19 Coloradans earning the 2008 per capita income of $29,133.
In addition Elsa Prince, the auto parts heiress and longtime funder of conservative social causes who sits on the Focus on the Family board, contributed another $450,000 to Prop. 8.
“They should do more with their half-million dollars than spending it to collect signatures to take the rights away from a class of people,” said Fred Karger, the founder of Californians Against Hate. “I think it’s wrong and it’s hurtful to so many Americans.”
Thanks to Graham for sending this in.
13 comments:
between Focus on the Family (there's a local bumper sticker, "Focus on your OWN damn family") and little Elsa, that's a million bucks.
Can you imagine what a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, or even a bunch of people facing foreclosure, could do if they had access to that kind of funding?
What a waste. What a poor abuse of resources. What a misdirection of focus.
...contributed another $450,000 to Prop. 8.
When I think of what good that much money would have done in places like Honduras (where my parish sends mission groups to run a local medical clinic for some desperately poor people), I get so angry I can barely think.
Christian my ass! :P
Maybe she spent the money on that hair. As Dolly Parton once said, looking cheap is expensive.
Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his employees for his cause.
I second the above 2 comments by David and Richard.
"Companywide?" I'm sure the reporter meant to say "ministry-wide."
I really prefer to keep those sorts of... um, how to say it... God's less enlightened children up there in Colorado Springs. These unfortunate lay-offs mean that 202 more of them will be running around the country loose.
I once sent an e-mail to FOfF and asked them how they could justify spending that much on a political issue when so many poor and destitute could benifit from that money. I was politely informed that they were a political action organization and not a charity. Wonder what the IRS would think of that? Guess they aren't an employer either.
Unless and until I ever see a picture of Dear Departed (?) Anal Troll, I'm going to picture Miss Elsa (because who could ever tell them apart anyway?)
Guess they aren't an employer either.
Well, not so much.
Elsa Prince is the mother of Erik Prince, CEO and owner of Blackwater Security (the mercenaries in Iraq, post-Katrina New Orleans).
FOTF, like many other organizations, has a 501c3 account for purely charitable/ religious purposes, and a 501c4 account for political advocacy, otherwise known as a PAC.
The 501c3 can spend up to 5% or so of its annual budget on issues advocacy that doesn't mention parties or candidates. 5% of annual FOTF revenue is substantial, and 5% of LDS revenue is huge. Don't quote me on the 5%, I am not a tax lawyer.
NancyP
Good to see Fucass on the Family in decline.
Counterlight, I adore your comments quoting Dolly Parton and Mae West aphorisms.
What David said.
JCF: :-D
Dolly Parton has so much more class than Elsa. Puleeeeeeeeez.
I have little doubt that Prop 8 is unconstitutional and that it will be overturned. The thought that the Dobson empire could come crashing down with it is too delicious for words.
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