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Obama's Faith-Based Council Sticks to Middle Ground
CLARIFICATION: Below I said that task force members who wrote the report disagreed about whether groups that are subcontractors (people hired by the faith-based groups who directly received government grants for the work) have to meet the same church-state separation requirements as the faith-based groups themselves. The report didn't make clear, a task force member tells me, that the disagreement isn't about ALL subcontractors. It is only about situations when the government provides a voucher -- say, for something like substance abuse counseling -- and a person has a choice of different service providers. Some task members feel because clients have choices of providers (ostensibly some faith-based, some not), they are protected. Other task force members feel that the line needs to remain bright, that everyone needs to meet the same church-state separation requirements.
By Michelle Boorstein
The first effort of President Obama's new faith advisory council sidesteps some of the most contentious issues, including what kind of lengths faith-based social service groups need to go in order to separate government work from proselytizing and whether supporting same-sex parents means recognizing gay marriage.
The council, which Obama created - expanding Presidents Bush's faith-based infrastructure - met today to discuss the report its members have been working on for the past six months.
The report, which is in the rough-draft phase, advises the president on six areas he has said are the top priorities for collaboration between faith-based groups and his White House: fatherhood and the family, interreligious affairs, domestic poverty, global poverty, reforming the faith-based office itself (this is mostly about constitutional issues) and the environment. It was written by council members and their task forces and will be revised before Obama decides whether to adopt its suggestions.
The administration months ago took off the table one of the thorniest legal issues: whether faith-based groups - which do a large slice of domestic and overseas social service work - are allowed to only hire people of their own faith. Officials told the advisory council not to focus on that issue, that it would be decided by the Justice Department and White House counsel.
Dozens of council and task force members packed into a small room today at the Commerce Department (as well as some members of the public, including one who was knitting) to discuss the report, including its lack of consensus on the legal distinction between direct and indirect aid. This question governs many millions of dollars and questions about whether groups that GET aid from the government have to meet the same church-state separation requirements as subcontractors of those groups. Members also agreed to disagree about whether faith-based groups who do business with the government should be required to create a legal non-profit {501(c)3} in order to keep its religious work separate from its secular work.
Another section of the report urges the federal government to do more to support fathers and families, and some more traditional groups were watching closely to see if the report would allow the term "marriage" to be used to describe couples of the same gender. The "fatherhood and healthy families" task force sidestepped the issue, saying it supported same-sex families (particularly children) but did not go into the issue of marriage.
Everyone at the event (which were primarily faith-based groups who provide social services to the needy, including everything from job training to housing to overseas development) could agree publicly on one thing: the government needs to be more efficient. Less different types of forms for people seeking assistance, for example. A more updated definition of "the poverty line." Get aid groups their reimbursement checks faster.
By
Michelle Boorstein
|
October 13, 2009; 2:19 PM ET
| Category:
God in Government
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Posted by: esthermiriam | October 15, 2009 1:18 AM
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Obama should know better as a Constitutional scholar. The only way not to prohibit the free exercise of religion is not to give it any money with any strings attached. Giving billions to bible thumpers who pay no taxes is a double dose of theocratic crimes against taxpayers. This fbi faith based crap is an establishment of religion and violates Article 6 setting up the religious test of deciding which believers get money and which do not. Gov't can only hire people for secular jobs. Period. Gov't employees must keep their faith or lack of faith private and not force their opinions on all others. Our nation must stay neutral in matters of religions. Money doled out to churches & missionaries for any reason is the opposite of neutral. Come on Obama, undo the damage boy Bush & Clinton did with massive escalations in theocracy. Restore our secular Constitution not make it worse by letting incompetent believers make any policy what so ever. American Atheist Larry Carter Center 843-926-1750
Posted by: larry_carter_center | October 14, 2009 10:31 PM
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These faith based People are All Illegals, and are self serving Parasites whom bath in selg agrandizement and more EGO centric behaviours.
Posted by: cyber-man | October 14, 2009 11:46 AM
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They want our tax dollars but they refuse to live by the same non-discrimination laws that everybody else must live by and they refuse to separate their religious activities from their supposedly secular social services. And on top of that they all want their checks faster!
I call B.S.! The whole program just reeks of government funding religion. A clearer violation of the 1st amendment would be difficult to find. I say the sooner we cut them off from the public trough the better!
Posted by: Freestinker | October 14, 2009 11:45 AM
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Just what is the middle ground between Establishment and Not?
Obama is, in this area as in others, doing much like the administration before his.
This slippery-sliding toward religion is worrisome, or would be if other worries weren't getting more attention. Is there no voice in Congress to speak up about it?