I moved to the Ann Arbor area about two years ago to be closer to this bastion of liberalness and coolness. Imagine my horror to find out that my representative to the U.S. House of Representatives is one of the biggest right-wing Dick Cheney wannabes in the entire Congress, Tim Walberg.
To whit: He recently voted AGAINST to refund the federal Headstart program. He was the only one, in fact, on the House Education Committee to do so. Why did he vote against it? Hold on to your hats, yer not gonna believe this but I swear to God it’s true:
“It didn’t allow communities of faith to hire who they wanted to hire,” Walberg said. In other words, say a Baptist or a Catholic church wanted to continue to offer its Head Start program and a Muslim or “a Wiccan from a coven in Ann Arbor” wanted to apply for a job to teach there, now it couldn’t discriminate based on religious grounds anymore, or vice versa.
I am totally not making this up. He totally, really, actually said that in his out-loud voice to a reporter who was taking notes. He voted against renewing Headstart because of the covens of Wiccans in Ann Arbor.
Hoo boy.
The odd thing about this What’s totally batshit insane about this is that these groups, theoretically, if they wanted to, not that they would but if for some crazy, off the wall reason decided this was a good idea, could do this NOW. As Fitzy from the Walberg Watch explained in his blog on this:
Religious groups have never been allowed to discriminate the way Walberg wants to let them discriminate– at least, not since 1972…Religious groups that run Head Start programs already operate under the nondiscrimination rules to which Walberg objects so strongly…Let’s be absolutely clear about this. The House majority decided to keep the same rules that have worked for decades. Even religious organizations were comfortable operating within those rules. Tim Walberg wanted to change the rules to allow discrimination.
There are two solid Democrats running against this guy right now. I will divide my time between campaigning for Senator Obama’s campaign and whoever is running against Walberg because Walberg does not deserve to represent my district.
To think I moved here to be in a liberal community. It’s bitter irony, I tells ya, bitter irony.
I’m just sayin’…
