Does the resale of Coast Guard Marine cutters by faith-based groups signal a problem for faith-based initiatives?

Yes

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by Robert Crouch

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Americans who are familiar with the historical abuses of governance by various faiths in Europe and Great Britain, during the centuries prior to our Revolution, are firmly opposed to any direct Federal support of religion. The vast majority of United States voters who participated in ratifying our current Constitution in 1789, as well as the Bill of Rights shortly thereafter, were quite firm about separating government from religion, and vice-versa. Their reasoning was based on fact: horrific abuses and sins committed by religious leaders who simultaneously held the reigns of government and wielded the authority of law.
The Salem Witch Trials had occurred not long before. Countless women were publicly murdered in God's name, after trials that were a vile apostasy. The Spanish Inquisition was still active in Europe, and had been for hundreds of years. Too many people of faith these days are blissfully ignorant of how Church Leaders and Royalty used the fatuous claim of Divine Right to murder, torture, imprison, beat, starve and humiliate anyone for sectarian reasons, regardless of innocence or guilt. Centuries of faith-based warfare ravaged Europe and England, squandering the flower of their young manhood for numerous generations. Every single one of God's Commandments were broken, in God's name, by church leaders who were drunk with power and insanely driven to make their own faith The One True Faith.
We don't do that kind of stuff in the United States of America. History is littered wall-to-wall with the corpses of religion's innocent victims, which is why this nation's founding citizens led the entire western world back to morality and sanity when they ratified a Constitution that keeps religion out of government, and prevents government from favoring one faith over any other.
A gift of tax-bought assets to an already tax-exempt religious group is a slap in the face to every person who wants to practice their beliefs in absolute freedom from persecution. It's a dangerous step down a slippery slope that history has long since proved to be a fall from grace.
Organized Religion already receives considerable largess from governments local and federal: no locality may assess property taxes on church, temple, synagogue or other lands owned by a congregation and used for the purpose of freely practicing their faith; charitable donations to religious organizations are fully tax deductible for the donor. Americans are a predominantly religious people - atheists have always been around, but still number in tiny minority. We accept this loss of billions in tax dollars yearly for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that these tax breaks are available uniformly to all faiths, not just one or a chosen few.
Giving away Coast Guard Cutters to members of some faith who can't seem to raise enough money elsewhere is indeed a warning semaphore to all who want government and religion to operate freely in their own separate spheres, and without subsidizing each other.

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