I was off on vacation when all this came up, so I’m just circling back to this now. Obama pulled down some heat from his supporters by supporting continuation and even expansion of Bush’s “faith-based” support programs.
Taking a page from President Bush, Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday he wants to expand White House efforts to steer social service dollars to religious groups, risking protests in his own party with his latest aggressive reach for voters who usually vote Republican.
[…] On Tuesday, touring Presbyterian Church-based social services facility, the Democratic senator said he would get religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty efforts if elected. “We need an all-hands-on-deck approach,” he said at Eastside Community Ministry.
Now, certainly I’ve not been a big fan of President Bush’s faith-based program — largely because it’s come across as a way of getting money into the hands of conservative religious organizations to allow them to proselytize and expand their churches. While there are some risks and concerns (for both churches and for the governments) for faith-based organizations to start accepting money from the state, the fact is that there are a lot of charities and organizations out there that do good work, and can use (with caution) some help.
While Obama would expand Bush’s efforts to give religious charities more equal footing when getting federal funding, he also would tweak what he would call the President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in ways that divert from Bush’s approach.
He would increase spending on social services, starting with a $500 million-a-year program to keep 1 million poor children up to speed on their studies over the summers. He would increase training for charities applying for funding and make it a grass-roots effort. He would elevate the program to be “a critical part of my administration,” a reference to criticism that Bush paid barely more than lip service to his effort.
This is part of this tactic that’s sheer genius. There are a lot of religious conservatives who’ve been majorly torqued over the Bush administration paying mostly just lip service to their cause — getting in the vote, putting up a show, but never really following through. This isn’t going to cause those conservatives to jump onto the Obama bandwagon, by any means, but given their lukewarm feelings toward McCain, it might cause some of them to give a shrug and simply stay out of the process.
Obama also chose a different emphasis for why religious charities are an important answer to solving poverty and other social problems: because they better know the people who are hurting, instead of Bush’s argument that religion itself is a transforming power the government must not be afraid to harness.
Also an important (and distinguishing) point — and one that Obama knows whereof he speaks, given his community activism background.
And while Bush supports allowing all religious groups to make any employment decisions based on faith, Obama proposes allowing religious institutions to hire and fire based on religion only in the non-taxpayer-funded portions of their activities — consistent with current federal, state and local laws. “That makes perfect sense,” he said.
Where there are state or local laws prohibiting hiring choices based on sexual orientation in the federally funded portion of the programs, he said he would support those being applied.
Actually enforce employment law! Yes, he is indeed a radical.
Of course, for those concerned as to whether this really is Obama selling out to the ultra-right crowd …
This position would make his proposal “dead on arrival” for many evangelicals and small churches, said Jim Towey, a former head of Bush’s faith-based office. That’s because telling a small organization to keep employees hired with federal funds separate from others “is unmanageable — and besides those folks want to hire people who share their vision and mission,” Towey said.
Which, of course, they’re free to do … just not with the taxpayer’s nickel.
I actually don’t have the degree of concern about this that a lot of other Obama supporters do. First off, I think it’s great politics — given the right’s disappointment with Bush’s actual delivery on promises to them, as well as all the memes about Obama as crypto-Muslim or Obama as godless liberal. But secondly, I also think it’s something that can be a help to communities, and that’s actually right in keeping with Obama’s non-partisan “yes we can” kind of thinking. This isn’t Obama saying that Focus on the Family needs money to convert domestic heathen, but that there are people in this country who could be helped by well-funded community organizations, some of which are (gasp) religious in their motivation to help others.
Though I’m a member of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, I disagree with their position that the overall concept should be “shut down, not expanded” (since the expansion being talked about is in all the right direction). I do agree it is a place to keep an eye on, should Obama win (and even moreso beyond into the next administration after that). And, like Les, the proof as well will be in who actually gets the money and for what — including programs sponsored by faiths other than conservative Christianity — as well as how the inevitable controversies (from left and right) get resolved. As such, it is a risk — but one which is probably worth giving a try.