Illinois cancels $1
million grant
to Pilgrim Baptist Church
The State of Illinois has cancelled the Grant Agreement to donate 1,000,000 tax dollars to Pilgrim Baptist Church. The money was intended to pay for part of the cost of rebuilding a church with a predominately African American congregation, located on the South Side of Chicago, after it was destroyed by a fire in January, 2006. Ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich had promised the money to the church, a week after the fire, as a way to pander for Black votes during his campaign for re-election leading up to the March, 2006, Primary Election.
All that's left of Pilgrim Baptist Church, 3301 South
Indiana Avenue, Chicago, is
the front and side walls, which are supported by
scaffolding. Photo by Rob Sherman.
Handling the litigation for me was attorney Richard Whitney, the Green Party candidate for Illinois Governor in both the 2006 and the 2010 election.
Apologists for ex-Governor Blagojevich contended that the Grant Agreement provided that the money could only be used for secular functions of the church and that, therefore, the donation of tax dollars to the church was constitutional.
That's not, however, what the Constitution allows. Besides that, while it's true that the Grant Agreement did limit the use of the money to secular purposes, the Grant Agreement limitation on the use of the money for secular purposes would only have applied until the Grant Agreement expired, which is on February 28, 2010, just four months from now. After that date, the church could use the taxpayer-built facilities for anything that they wanted, including for religious purposes. Since the rebuilding would not have been completed until after that date, the restriction to use the place for secular purposes never would have applied, which, of course, is exactly what the State and the Church had in mind.
Rod's people didn't reveal that part of the Grant Agreement. I'm the one who did that.
The rear view of Pilgrim Baptist Church shows that it is
nothing more than a forlorn, empty shell.
Kind of what religion is, generally. Photo by Rob
Sherman.
Pilgrim Baptist Church remains a decrepit blight on the community, with no prospect of it being rebuilt in the foreseeable future. Indeed, it is a perfect metaphor for what heaven is: Once you look past the phony fancy facade of pearly gates, you realize that there's nothing there. No god, no people -- nothing. It's completely empty, just like the above picture of Pilgrim Baptist.
They ought to tear down the remains of that building and let the community move on.
Click here to read a copy of the two-page letter from DCEO to Pilgrim Baptist that terminated the Grant Agreement.
The excuse that the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity used for cancelling the Grant was that there was insufficient money to fund the grant, but we know what the real reason was.
Shame on the Christians of Pilgrim Baptist for trying to steal our tax dollars from us. It's not like they didn't know that they can't do that. I spent many hours on the phone with leaders of that church, last year, explaining that what they were trying to do was illegal, but they didn't care. They decided to go for the money, anyway.
I'm not surprised by their decision to try to perpetrate this crime against us. After all, they're Christians. They don't have the same high ethical standards that we atheists have.
Next time, I'll stop holding back and tell you how I really feel.