One of the buzzerati in this post combed through the Mayor of Minneapolis’s recent budget address, and found an interesting detail. Well, perhaps that’s the wrong word. Here’s the paragraph:
"Beyond connecting people to jobs and preparing future workers, we need to continue creating more jobs by also supporting our entrepreneurs and small business owners, who are responsible for half of all new jobs created. We’ll support these small businesses with more than $4.7 million dollars of business financing tools that provide:
* market-rate loans for job creation,
* low-interest loans to purchase equipment or make building improvements,
* loans to purchase and rehabilitate small commercial and industrial properties, and
* alternative financing loans with no interest to business owners whose religious beliefs restrict them from receiving traditional interest-based financing." (Emphasis added.)
Unless no-interest business loans are available to religious believers whose doctrines do not forbid interest – not to mention anarchists - this would seem to be Flamingly Unconstitutional, to use the legal term. Does one have to prove one holds this particular religious belief? Would they bring in someone to test you? It seems absurd to expect the government to validate your piety to make sure you qualify for benefits.
Advocates of the program might argue that the program is not an example of discrimination, since loans are available to people who do not object to interest, and that the absence of a religious exemption constitutes discrimination. They do not wish to abolish loans that charge interest; they only wish that their beliefs be accommodated.
That slender postulate, one suspects, will become increasingly familiar.
The Mayor’s budget address can be found here. (h/t buyakuren.)
Sharia banking
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking
Sharia banking involves very clever ways of making a profit from the loan, including making sure that the loan is fully collateralized. Is the city going to do the same thing? If not, it is offering something far more than what sharia demands.
And why is the city of Minneapolis concerned about following sharia, which will be at the expense of the taxpayer? Doesn't that violate the separation clause of the Constitution?