Political Rhetorical Analysis

In January 2003, then President George W. Bush signed an executive order that gave religious charities access to federal money. This order circumvented Congress and all their objections to the requests through the previous years of Bush’s presidency. According to President Bush, this would “help clear away a legacy of discrimination against faith based charities” (Wilhem and Williams, para. 7). The order made it legal for the organizations that were receiving federal money to keep their religious beliefs out in the open. Previous laws forbade any charity or organization receiving federal help from displaying crosses or other symbols, having their board members chosen strictly based on their religious beliefs, and even having a religious stance in their mission statements (Wilhem and Williams para. 12). Now, Bush cleared the way for those that wanted to have a charity, be religious, and have access to federal grant money. Another aspect of
Mr. Bush and many of his supporters believed that “Charities and faith-based programs should not be forced to change their character or compromise their mission” (Wilhelm and Williams para. 14-15). One such supporter was, The Christian Legal Society’s director of advocacy, Gregory S. Baylor. Mr. Baylor suggested “Unleashing the ‘armies of compassion’ isn’t a mere slogan – it’s exactly what we hope will happen as outdated regulatory roadblocks are removed” (Wilhelm and Williams para. 25). While no one wants to argue against “armies of compassion”, or support turning people away from helping others, simply because they practice a belief system and cannot afford to give this help without government funding, e.g. taxpayers paying the bill, this all does lead to some serious contradictory views from the other side of the