Obama Vows To Expand Bush's Faith-Based Programs

Jennifer Loven, AP: Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and - in a move sure to cause controversy - support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio, at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services.

"The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone," Obama was to say, according to a prepared text of his remarks obtained by The Associated Press. "We need all hands on deck." ...
The Democratic presidential candidate spent Monday talking about his vision of patriotism in the battleground state of Missouri. By twinning that with Tuesday's talk about faith in another battleground state, he was attempting to settle debate in two key areas where his beliefs have come under question while also trying to make inroads with constituencies that are traditionally loyal to Republicans and oppose Obama on other grounds.
But Obama's support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions could invite a protest from those in his own party who view such faith requirements as discrimination.

Obama does not support requiring religious tests for recipients of aid nor using federal money to proselytize, according to a campaign fact sheet. He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.

Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized Obama's proposed expansion of a program he said has undermined civil rights and civil liberties.

"I am disappointed that any presidential candidate would want to continue a failed policy of the Bush administration," he said. "It ought to be shut down, not continued."

Bush supports broader freedoms for taxpayer-funded religious charities. But he never got Congress to go along so he has conducted the program through administrative actions and executive orders. ...

Obama proposes to elevate the program to a "moral center" of his administration, by renaming it the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and changing training from occasional huge conferences to empowering larger religious charities to mentor smaller ones in their communities.

Saying social service spending has been shortchanged under Bush, he also proposes a $500 million per year program to provide summer learning for 1 million poor children to help close achievement gaps with white and wealthier students. A campaign fact sheet said he would pay for it by better managing surplus federal properties, reducing growth in the federal travel budget and streamlining the federal procurement process.

Like Bush, Obama was arguing that religious organizations can and should play a bigger role in serving the poor and meeting other social needs. But while Bush argued that the strength of religious charities lies primarily in shared religious identity between workers and recipients, Obama was to tout the benefits of their "bottom-up" approach.

"Because they're so close to the people, they're well-placed to offer help," he was to say. ...
UPDATE: An Obama campaign official told the Huffington Post that the AP's claims about Obama allowing hiring or firing based on faith are false. From a portion of Obama's speech today:

"Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea - so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them - or against the people you hire - on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work."

LSB: It was inevitable that, in order to secure "the center," some pandering by Obama to the evangelicals would be required. I agree with him that 'all hands on deck' are needed if we are to overcome the social ravages brought on by eight years of the Bush administration; and I also agree that many religious organizations have the grassroot operations in place to readily offer needed services. Do those two ideas belong together? I'm not so sure. IF (and this is a big IF) churches and other religious organizations can offer social services without proselytizing, then we'd have a great solution. But do I have faith that churches and other religious organizations can offer secular services (which seems to contradictory to their purposes) without discriminating against a recipient's national origin or sexual identification? No. And how many of those grants are going to mosques, temples and/or MCCs? Few, if any, and then, like the NEA, all of the great work by the 99.99% of the grantees of this program will be jeopardized when Dobson's AFA and its main stream media minions scrutinized beyond any common sense those .01% of grants that do go to non-Evangelical Christian religious organizations. I don't think the idea should be dropped just because the Dobsons of this world will fault the effort - that gives him and his nutcases too much power, - but I do want to see some protections in place that mean these social services are provided without strings to anyone in need, and that no potential grantee is discriminated against on the basis of its religion. Until the Dems can rid DC of all the Monica Goodling-like clones in all of the departments that distribute these funds, this last part of the promise of this idea will not be fulfilled.