Obama and Faith-Based Initatives
Filed under: Barack Oama, Feature, Lead Story, Religion — Michael Merritt on July 2, 2008 @ 5:29 am CEST
Barack Obama seems to support faith-based initiates. PoliGazette’s Michael Merrit takes a look at Obama’s plan.
You know, for all the namecalling Barack Obama has endured during the last 16 months; for apparently being the Muslim communist anti-Christ atheist (yes, he has been described as every one of these so far) that he apparently is, Obama has talked more times about religion than his opponent John McCain has. Some times it’s been forced on him; most recently, it was the Father Pfleger and Reverend Wright scandals. Still other times, he’s been able to do it of his own accord and craft his own message.
Before today, the biggest speech I can think of was one in 2006 which has portions that I think could as easily have come out of the mouth of one of McCain’s pastor friends. Then today, he gave a speech outlining his plans for faith-based initatives.
In his speech, Obama argues that while church and state must be separate, it doesn’t mean they can’t work together to do some good. He makes his case thus:
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.
He goes on suggest that his brand of faith based initatives, the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, will have an active role inside his administration:
And my Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will also have a broader role – it will help set our national agenda. Because if we are going to do something about the injustice of millions of children living in extreme poverty, we need interfaith coalitions like the Let Justice Roll campaign standing up for the powerless. If we’re going to end genocide and stop the scourge of HIV/AIDS, we need people of faith on Capitol Hill talking about how these challenges don’t just represent a security crisis or a humanitarian crisis, but a moral crisis as well.
Taken at face value, that doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Yet, I think the “it will help set our national agenda” part will give some of his liberal supporters pause. Some progressives already try to argue that religion has clouded the current President’s judgment, so what will they say to this? Well, I think it’s pretty clear that this is targeted toward evangelicals and other conservative Christians, so they’re probably not going to like it very much. Yet, faith is not the exclusive domain of conservatives. Obama points out that Bill Clinton signed legislation that opened it up.
Still, it’s a smart move. The AP notes that McCain leads among the church going crowd, 49 to 37 percent. He also has a good share of the evangelical vote.
Yet, amazingly, it’s Obama that’s had more to say on the issue than McCain. I would think that he’d want to make his own speech, since he’s never gotten the big points on religion until he became the nominee. Huckabee was the evangelical’s man during the early primaries. After he left, I think those voters split between Romney and McCain, but Romney got more press about it. Even now, many evangelicals still hold some reservations toward him, even if they are starting to publicly embrace him, as though facing the inevitable.
So, it really is something to see when the Democratic candidate has had the lead on religion. It’s certainly the area where he’s been most consistent. The video I linked to above is from 2006, well before his “flip-flopping,” “move to the center,” “returning to his real positions,” or whatever you want to call it. So, I think John McCain needs to think about what he’s going to do on this topic, because if evangelicals see Obama as appealing to them, they may consider a move toward him.
Especially the evangelicals not so concerned with abortion and homosexuality.
1 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
July 2, 2008 @ 9:50 am CESTIt’s not that amazingly at all I think Michael. I believe it was Andrew Sullivan recently who made clear that McCain is politically very secular. He’s not fond of mixing religion and politics… at all.
Obama, on the other hand, mixes the two constantly. Look at his message, and also look at what his wife says and has said. I started saying this many months ago already.
But you know why progressives don’t mind so much now? Because Obama’s interpretation of religion is one they feel is acceptable.
2 Chuck Norton
July 2, 2008 @ 10:45 am CESTObama says, "or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion." Constitutional Law and Supreme Court decisions all say that religious groups CAN descriminate on who they hire. Its called freedom of expressive association. It is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment. If you are a Christian group for example, you do not have to hire radical Muslims or athiests etc or anyone who is hostile to your mission. Religious groups wont back down to this, they will sue. Obama knows it and after seeing this quote of his religious groups who do charity now know that he is out to destroy them. See Supreme Court decision BSA v. Dale - http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-699.ZO.html
3 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
July 2, 2008 @ 11:36 am CESTI agree with that Chuck; religious organizations are free, and should be free, to hire who they want. If they don’t want to hire people who aren’t of their religion, they’ve got every right to do so. After all, it’s a religious organization.
What’s next? The Catholic Church will be sued for refusing to elect a Hindu as the new Pope?
4 Claudia, Assistant Editor
July 2, 2008 @ 11:50 am CESTChuck and Michael, the non-discriminatory hiring practice rule is perfectly reasonable in the context of what he’s proposing. Religious organizations would be forced to be non-discriminatory in hiring ONLY in those activities that are receiving public funds. That is, if the Catholic Church wants to exclude women from the priesthood, that’s there business. Now, if they want to exclude them from a charity group that receives federal funding, that’s another matter. The government shouldn’t be in the business of subsidizing activities with discriminatory policies.
If the religious group simply can’t stand the idea of hiring or giving charity to groups or individuals on the basis of religious prejudice, fine (well, not fine, but certainly legal), they simply can go about their charity business without taxpayer money.
5 Michael van der Galien, Editor-in-Chief
July 2, 2008 @ 12:22 pm CESTIn other words, it’s also a means for the government to creep into charities, faith-based charities on that. All in all, double bad.
6 RRRocks
July 2, 2008 @ 12:30 pm CESTDOA.
Why is it that the Democratic party continues to have this incessant need to be a super nanny?
The religious right is laughing at this yet it is very astute politically. He is offering once again a bone to the moderates and is trying to justify the work he did for the last 20 years with his own politically active church.
While I do not oppose faith based initiatives I find that if you start regulating them then you are in effect asking religion to become a state sponsored program and once you do that then its gotcha for them.
Grant money used for works is one thing. Grant money used that forces a religion to then become subject to all the government nanny policies is nothing more then a huge desire to have state sponsored religion.
His heart is in the right place but once again this is another policy position that is just not very well thought out and is intended to try and reconcile base groups that he is trying to appease. The far left who are notoriously anti religion if not downright atheist and those White voters who tend to go to church and do churchy things.
7 Connor
July 2, 2008 @ 1:49 pm CESTNo kidding McCain is secular; the more conservative and religious Republicans have been reluctant to embrace him for a reason.
Glad to see Obama talking about working with religious groups, although I too wonder if this will lead to government interference in religious organizations.
I wonder if his newfound enthusiasm for religious groups will extend to providing vouchers for religious schools; I could sure use the help.
8 Michael Merritt
July 2, 2008 @ 5:23 pm CESTYea, I don’t know how I feel about the hiring requirements. A mosque is probably not going to hire a Christian any more than a church is going to hire a Muslim. As is already pointed out, there’s laws against forced hiring standards for religious groups. I wouldn’t have a problem with the status quo there. That said, I would like any federal funding to be used for secular programs.
Back when I was young and naive, faith-based initiatives seemed like a no-no to me. Then I grew up. But, I’m still an agnostic, so I would want my tax money going toward programs with a religious slant.
9 Michael Merritt
July 2, 2008 @ 5:25 pm CESTOh, and as for McCain, I know he’s more secular. In some ways, I like that, since I am for a more secular government (in operation, not who it hires). Yet, he’s going to loose a lot of ground if he doesn’t try and reach out.
10 Chuck Norton
July 2, 2008 @ 6:54 pm CESTClaudia, you have made it clear that you do not believe in freedom of expressive association. So tell me, how many other freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights should be surrendered by anyone participating in the public sector? So bye-bye Salvation Army and prison ministries that have the BEST offender non-recidivism rate of any prison program. No more faith based drug-rehab programs whose success rate is not in dispute. Are not people of faith taxpayers as well? You believe in separation of church and state, but doesn’t that separation go both ways? Obviously not if the government can tell church groups who they can hire. How can you make the case that a government who can tell charities and church groups who they can HIRE is in any way a limited one? I challenge you to answer these questions directly and specifically.
11 Chuck Norton
July 2, 2008 @ 7:12 pm CESTAllow me to explain my zeal on this particular issue. It is no secret that I have become a known activist in the matter of campus free speech. Most universities take taxpayer money to some degree. Leftist students and faculty/administration have repeatedly tried to take control of conservative student groups and religious students groups by force of numbers, and attempt to elect themselves to the leadership of those student groups, solely for the purpose of keeping them from expressing their message or having any campus activities. When the victimized student groups resists the student government and or university administration would cry “discrimination” and yank their funding and ban them from campus. This is a pattern of behavior that we see over and over and over again. I have cataloged dozens and dozens of such cases. This has forced such groups to sue, and they win in court over and over because the First Amendment is clear. Here is one such case here http://www.centerforacademicfreedom.org/news/default.aspx?cid=299 The truth is that to force a group to take in members who are hostile to their mission is religious bigotry and/or an attempt to silence those with just such a mission. It is censorship.