"Have you ever noticed how tigers have eyes to the front of their head and deer to the sides? Tigers are hunters, deer the hunted," writes Rubem Alves, a Brazilian theologian and teacher.

"The questions tigers put to their environment are different from the questions deer put to the same environment. And when tigers begin to speak in general terms about the future of animals, they obviously have something in mind quite different from the hopes of the deer."

With great clarity, we have seen those who approach life from the perspective of the tiger or the deer.

In the State of the Union address, President Bush was long on war, terror and tax cuts and short on real homeland security issues. Had the truth been told, the speech would have addressed:

• 2.4 million jobs lost.
• A surplus of $127 billion three years ago, compared to a $455 billion dollar deficit.
• The war in Iraq, begun based on lies, has cost 9,000 American and Iraqi lives.
• Education is affirmed, while $6 billion has been cut.
• Prisons are overflowing, and drugs are destroying our children.
• Medicare is promised $400 billion but budgeted with $40 billion, while more and more people have no health care at all.
• Choice exists when we talk about school vouchers, but no choice is sought when we talk about women and reproductive rights.
• Our relationship with the United Nations and the international community is a disaster.

At a Take Back America Conference last summer, Bill Moyers said: "There is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose policies serve all its citizens and one whose institutions have been converted into stupendous fraud. That difference can be the difference between democracy and oligarchy.

The job of preserving equality of opportunity and democracy demands the end of the unholy alliance between government and wealth."

In this day, when fundamentalism is rising in all different religions and is providing justification for violence, war, discrimination and hatred, Bush's fever-pitched God talk and desire for a Christian theocracy are frightening. Right-wing politics are blessed by religions that support these same ideologies.

Bush's nominees and appointments of fundamentalists to positions of authority are an outrage. We read that the latest nominee sought to head the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee is Dr. W. David Hager.

He is a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist, describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. He suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the Bible and praying.

When tigers begin to speak in general terms about the future of animals, they obviously have something in mind quite different from the hopes of the deer.

Faith communities who differ with the status quo need to move beyond smooth patriotism to the high grounds of firm dissent, moral leadership and action. Faith communities and all who are concerned about the common good must speak the truth and act upon it. Too many religions with strong social principles have abdicated their voices and leadership because they do not want to cause divisions in the congregations.

However, those religions and faith communities who support war and discrimination, who diminish women as moral decision makers and who are intolerant of other positions or religions, have no problem strongly advocating for these beliefs.

As faith communities who care for the "hopes of the deer," we must speak and act. And if the truth is spoken on behalf of the poor and vulnerable, and if the division that clergy fear actually occurs - so be it.

At Covenant House, our work is simply a microcosm of the larger reality. Each day, an average of 80 people enter our doors for showers, laundry, food, financial help, AIDS services, requests for housing, and a sense of community. In 2003, more than $300,000 was spent on emergency services.

Each person who comes to Covenant House has a face with his or her own story. And it is the importance of listening to those stories which shapes what we do, how we think, what we believe and what we know needs to change. All of which puts us in direct conflict with the present U.S. policies.

We realize that while food and clothes and showers and laundry are important direct services, true compassion and justice demands that we see what produces poverty and therefore what is necessary to remedy the problems.

What can we do? Name what we see, and speak the truth of what we know. Nothing will change if we do nothing! We must work for the good of the whole community.

We have a continuing task to demand that our government disengage itself from its unfair and unjust policies that favor a few.

If we say as members of faith communities that we don't want anything to do with politics, we're fooling ourselves because then we support the status quo.

As members of different faith communities, we need to think critically. If we believe that people have certain rights, we should always ask the following questions:

• To what extent does a particular practice benefit all and not just a few?
• How does a policy and law attend to the demands of justice?
• How does a particular state or nation attempt to meet the vital interests of its entire population, especially the interests bound up with life itself: food, employment, health, education and housing?
• Do priorities function for the collective good or special interests?

The more faith communities become the eyes, ears, voices of the people, the more they are for human rights.

The more distant the leadership from those who have the perspective of deer, the more they are aligned with those few who have privilege.

Patricia Hussey and Barbara Ferraro are co-directors of Covenant House in Charleston. This commentary was condensed from a much longer talk given at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Charleston on Jan. 25.

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