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are completely exempt from state requirements designed to keep people safe, what she fails to mention is that some of these same organizations are also the groups that are providing the most help "in many low-income urban communities" (DiIulio 3) that the federal government has somehow forgotten.

Despite the fact that black churches in urban America receive zero public funds, they lead other organizations in the amount of services they provide, their propensity to be located in and help the most severely needy populations and at-risk youth other organizations have failed to help, and their willingness to form partnerships with other organizations (DiIulio 3). The church has stepped in where the government has failed. America has become so concerned with the separation of church and state that it has failed to see how the two can interact to help people and complement each other, as Locke urged. Instead of pointing out how religious organizations have truly helped the nation's neediest citizens and how they provide services that are irreplaceable in American society, the Times, in a very liberally biased way, points out just how unfair it all is.

As author John J. DiIulio, Jr. argues, imagining cities without these organizations that have opened their doors and hearts to communities otherwise forgotten is impossible. "Who would suffer the most, and who would have to pay to replace the social services that they now provide" (DiIulio 4)? The answer is unclear. The government, as policy is now, is unequipped to handle the work that so many religious volunteers provide for our country. But the New York Times doesn't offer readers anything more than a laundry list of complaints. It fails to acknowledge the fact that in many circumstances, the government has become very "adversarial" (DiIulio 5) in their relationship with religious organizations. For example, very little funds were given to religious organizations destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Furthermore, under many state Constitutions, religious groups are singled out for "special legal burdens and restrictions" (DiIulio 4). Each group feels that they are being treated unfairly in regard to how the other is treated. Neither wants you to believe their opponent.

But why does it have to be one or the other, black or white, religion or absolutely none? Locke would argue for a separate relationship, but a much more intertwined relationship that benefits everyone. Religious organizations that comply with regulations and

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