RFK Jr. Is Seeking To Spend Taxpayer Dollars On ‘Faith-Based’ Addiction Recovery Programs

The injection and prioritization of religion into government institutions, specifically Christianity, is a very real thing. This sort of Christo-fascism shows up in a variety of ways. Attempts to inject Judeo-Christian icons and messages into public classrooms. Pete Hegseth's attempt to create a Religious Affairs" office at the Pentagon, likewise trying to claim that this office wouldn't favor any particular religion, which is obviously bullshit. The GOP's general insistence that the IRS should not be targeting any particular group over its ideological or religious stances, when they are all too happy to target all sorts of other groups for their own ideological stances.

The desire to wrap the flag in faith is a longstanding tradition among authoritarian governments. Hell, even the USSR, ostensibly an atheist government, was all too happy to cozy up with the Russian Orthodox church when it needed to recruit soldiers, and even incorporated what were essentially miracles" in the form of the lies Lysenko told about his agricultural achievements.

The point of all of this is not that religion is bad. The point is that for those of us who believe in western-style democracy, you should be very wary of any mixing of government and religion. It's one of the main points of the First Amendment, after all. So, when RFK Jr. is out here claiming he is working on how to get more taxpayer dollars funneled into so-called faith-based" addiction recovery programs, that's a problem. He made these remarks while visiting a Christian program in Michigan called Sheepgate, which does not currently receive taxpayer money from the federal government.

Kennedy visited Detroit on Tuesday to discuss the Detroit Health Department's receipt of STREETS program funding for long-term services to assist people struggling with homelessness, serious mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders. At the Michigan event, Kennedy said the program will have a new emphasis on faith-based recovery."

Though Sheepgate - nor any Iowa facilities - received federal dollars through the STREETS program, Kennedy said the Colfax recovery center was a exemplar" facility showcasing the type of care encouraged through the Great American Recovery Initiative - long-term programs that offer a year of in-house recovery and reintegration into the community," he said.

Our plan of Great American Recovery is to reorient recovery towards value-based recovery in this country," Kennedy said. We follow the addict comprehensively over the lifetime, from detox to rehab to housingto jobs and stability. And that's value-based care - but alsoto include more and more faith-based care, and that's one of the reasons we came here to Sheepgate."

These ministerial treatment programs don't receive federal funding for a very good reason. It is anathema in a secular government for public money to go to activities that in any way push religion on others. And that's what these programs do. They are not strictly focused on science-based addiction recovery programs. They also inject the concept of subjugation to a higher power into the program as well.

And they are free to do that, just not with our money. And, just as is the case with the Pentagon, I have a very hard time believing that public dollars will be doled out in equal portions between Christian recovery programs and that of other religions. Does anyone really think Donald Trump is going to be found to be funneling millions in public money to mosques that do recovery work? I highly doubt it.

Advocates for Kennedy's plan will argue that this isn't a First Amendment issue at all, but one created by the Biden administration.

Regulations enacted in April 2024 by nine federal departments overseeing social service grants including drug rehabilitation services placed restrictions on partnerships with faith-based organizations to ensure funding did not go toward explicitly religious" purposes, but some churches and faith-based services said the regulations made their programs ineligible for federal assistance. Kennedy said this policy has been changed during the Trump administration, but that problems remain.

We've changed that policy at the top, but there are still impediments to us getting the money to these kind of programs," Kennedy said. This program is entirely funded by private donors, and that's getting harder and harder for them to do. And we want to make sure that these kind of programs - they serve such a critical role -we want to make sure that they continue to function."

But that Biden regulatory order was actually a response to one from Trump in his first term, in which he lowered the barrier for entry for faith-based programs. It restored the status quo, in other words, and rooted the regulation once more in good standing with the First Amendment. And all it really did was say that the money from taxpayers cannot be spent on overtly religious practices, such as holding services or proselytizing as part of the recovery program.

That's how the First Amendment works. I don't want my money going to a faith-based Christian group that is preaching as part of its recovery program any more than I'd want a Christian's tax money going to a recovery program that pushes Zoroastrian faith on the people it is attempting to help.

And I certainly don't want a charlatan like Kennedy leading the charge on diverting taxpayer money anywhere at all.