Jim Stillman
Randy InmanSenator Obama’s promise to expand the “faith-based initiative” is disturbing.
July 11th 2008 15:08
Both Senators McCain and Obama have had problems with endorsements from religious leaders whose prior statements have been extreme, offensive and distracting to their respective campaigns.
John McCain’s problems were associated with the rants of the Rev. John Hagee of the giant Cornerstone Church, in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee was known first and foremost for his preaching about the evil of the Catholic Church which he says is "the great whore," a "false cult system," and "the apostate church." In Hagee's most recent book, Jerusalem Countdown, he refers to Hitler as a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing, and claims that "the sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself."
For his burden, Barack Obama was endorsed by the infamous Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. He was also saddled with the statements of the pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Jr., of the Trinity United Church he had attended for years. Rev. Wright had made many anti-Semitic and anti-white comments over the years and Farrakhan is a well known anti-Semite.
Both senators refuted the extreme views of their “supporters” and, in truth, neither Senators Obama nor McCain have anything in their respective backgrounds or records that would question the refutations.
However, the lessons of the campaign should have made both men far more sensitive to the need to separate the positions and interests of church and state. Unfortunately, Senator Obama has demonstrated a deaf ear to the dangers of church-state entanglement, an attitude different from other Democrats.
Among the Bush Administration’s many problems, I suggest that a primary fault has been in its incessant deference to religious interests. From its promotion of funding for religious mission through the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, to its creation of a special office in the Department of Justice to aggressively aid religious interests, it has been an administration deaf to Establishment Clause concerns.
Traditionally, the Democrats had been more sensitive than the Republicans to the separation of church and state. However, southern evangelicals and Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton turned the tide in a way that fed into the Bush Administration’s uncritical support for religious agendas and interests. (I have no problem that religious entities may. like all other interest groups or citizens, lobby for their interests; my concern arises when public officials do not carefully consider such requests and when they ignore constitutional boundaries in favor of those religious entities.)
In the past, Senator Obama had been quite eloquent in his support of the principles of the First Amendment’s Establishment clause,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”
It is usually considered that the Establishment Clause means more than a prohibition against the creation of a government sponsored preference for one “official” religion; it also forbids the affording one faith preference over any other and an infringement of the right to believe in none.
Under the Bush program there was a clear policy of shifting government from a purely secular (but moral) institution to a quasi-theocracy adopting some primary Christian beliefs. An interesting site that presents much source material is http://www.theocracywatch.org. This site states its purpose,
“Twenty-five years ago, [the theocratic Right] targeted the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could advance their agenda. At the same time, a small group of Republican strategists targeted fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches to expand the base of the Republican Party. This web site is not about traditional Republicans or conservative Christians. It is about the manipulation of people of a certain faith for political power. It is about the rise of [theocratic interests] in the U.S. federal government.”
Senator Obama now has stated that he would continue the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. That is not terribly surprising, in that one of the primary targets of the program has been inner-city minority churches – a constituency with which Obama needs to re-connect following the Rev. Wright affair.
I am, moreover, bothered that he did not stop with continuation of the Office itself. Rather, he promises to expand it. Moreover, there are conflicting reports on his view regarding discrimination by religious social service providers on the basis of religious belief. Some reports have him saying that he is wholly against such discrimination in programs accepting any government funds, while others seems to say that he would be tolerant of such discrimination in some circumstances. When the issue is the delivery of public social services, such discrimination is never justified. But neither is the government funding of religious missions.
It would be ironic for Senator Obama to take the position that religious discrimination can ever be promoted or supported by the government. While a Senator, a bill was introduced to permit religious groups carrying out social services on government funds to discriminate on the basis of faith. It was and is controversial, because the argument for faith-based federal funding rests on the argument that the government is not doing enough for all of the people and religious groups can fill that gap. Democrats stopped that bill from moving. Therefore, Bush took the matter into his own hands and instituted a rule permitting such discrimination through the executive branch. If Obama intends to reject that position, it will not be hard for him to do.
To date, there hasn’t been much public discussion regarding discrimination by social service providers on religious grounds; it has been suggested that providers need to discriminate in favor of coreligionists. But such arguments hide the larger public policy that is at stake here. If a Baptist group, for example, can discriminate on the basis of faith, then it can hire the less- qualified Baptist psychiatrist for its teen drug program and reject the more-qualified Jewish psychiatrist, resulting in lesser degree of service. That would undermine the purported purpose for funding religious mission – to serve more Americans in need of social services.
In addition, it opens the door to the use of federal funds to underwrite proselytizing when all those working in the organization share a single religious perspective. There is no question from Obama’s comments that he opposes the subsidization of proselytizing.
I believe that the “faith based initiative”, even if well-meaning and adopted without crass political motivation (two assumptions that may be naïve), is contrary to the ideals of this country. The government should not be giving financial support to religious organizations and private charities. Any furtherance of the practice and, certainly, any expansion, are simply wrong.
And I regret that Senator Obama has not taken that position.
John McCain’s problems were associated with the rants of the Rev. John Hagee of the giant Cornerstone Church, in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee was known first and foremost for his preaching about the evil of the Catholic Church which he says is "the great whore," a "false cult system," and "the apostate church." In Hagee's most recent book, Jerusalem Countdown, he refers to Hitler as a Catholic who murdered Jews while the Catholic Church did nothing, and claims that "the sell-out of Catholicism to Hitler began not with the people but with the Vatican itself."
For his burden, Barack Obama was endorsed by the infamous Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. He was also saddled with the statements of the pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Jr., of the Trinity United Church he had attended for years. Rev. Wright had made many anti-Semitic and anti-white comments over the years and Farrakhan is a well known anti-Semite.
Both senators refuted the extreme views of their “supporters” and, in truth, neither Senators Obama nor McCain have anything in their respective backgrounds or records that would question the refutations.
However, the lessons of the campaign should have made both men far more sensitive to the need to separate the positions and interests of church and state. Unfortunately, Senator Obama has demonstrated a deaf ear to the dangers of church-state entanglement, an attitude different from other Democrats.
Among the Bush Administration’s many problems, I suggest that a primary fault has been in its incessant deference to religious interests. From its promotion of funding for religious mission through the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives, to its creation of a special office in the Department of Justice to aggressively aid religious interests, it has been an administration deaf to Establishment Clause concerns.
Traditionally, the Democrats had been more sensitive than the Republicans to the separation of church and state. However, southern evangelicals and Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton turned the tide in a way that fed into the Bush Administration’s uncritical support for religious agendas and interests. (I have no problem that religious entities may. like all other interest groups or citizens, lobby for their interests; my concern arises when public officials do not carefully consider such requests and when they ignore constitutional boundaries in favor of those religious entities.)
In the past, Senator Obama had been quite eloquent in his support of the principles of the First Amendment’s Establishment clause,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”
It is usually considered that the Establishment Clause means more than a prohibition against the creation of a government sponsored preference for one “official” religion; it also forbids the affording one faith preference over any other and an infringement of the right to believe in none.
Under the Bush program there was a clear policy of shifting government from a purely secular (but moral) institution to a quasi-theocracy adopting some primary Christian beliefs. An interesting site that presents much source material is http://www.theocracywatch.org. This site states its purpose,
“Twenty-five years ago, [the theocratic Right] targeted the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could advance their agenda. At the same time, a small group of Republican strategists targeted fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches to expand the base of the Republican Party. This web site is not about traditional Republicans or conservative Christians. It is about the manipulation of people of a certain faith for political power. It is about the rise of [theocratic interests] in the U.S. federal government.”
Senator Obama now has stated that he would continue the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. That is not terribly surprising, in that one of the primary targets of the program has been inner-city minority churches – a constituency with which Obama needs to re-connect following the Rev. Wright affair.
I am, moreover, bothered that he did not stop with continuation of the Office itself. Rather, he promises to expand it. Moreover, there are conflicting reports on his view regarding discrimination by religious social service providers on the basis of religious belief. Some reports have him saying that he is wholly against such discrimination in programs accepting any government funds, while others seems to say that he would be tolerant of such discrimination in some circumstances. When the issue is the delivery of public social services, such discrimination is never justified. But neither is the government funding of religious missions.
It would be ironic for Senator Obama to take the position that religious discrimination can ever be promoted or supported by the government. While a Senator, a bill was introduced to permit religious groups carrying out social services on government funds to discriminate on the basis of faith. It was and is controversial, because the argument for faith-based federal funding rests on the argument that the government is not doing enough for all of the people and religious groups can fill that gap. Democrats stopped that bill from moving. Therefore, Bush took the matter into his own hands and instituted a rule permitting such discrimination through the executive branch. If Obama intends to reject that position, it will not be hard for him to do.
To date, there hasn’t been much public discussion regarding discrimination by social service providers on religious grounds; it has been suggested that providers need to discriminate in favor of coreligionists. But such arguments hide the larger public policy that is at stake here. If a Baptist group, for example, can discriminate on the basis of faith, then it can hire the less- qualified Baptist psychiatrist for its teen drug program and reject the more-qualified Jewish psychiatrist, resulting in lesser degree of service. That would undermine the purported purpose for funding religious mission – to serve more Americans in need of social services.
In addition, it opens the door to the use of federal funds to underwrite proselytizing when all those working in the organization share a single religious perspective. There is no question from Obama’s comments that he opposes the subsidization of proselytizing.
I believe that the “faith based initiative”, even if well-meaning and adopted without crass political motivation (two assumptions that may be naïve), is contrary to the ideals of this country. The government should not be giving financial support to religious organizations and private charities. Any furtherance of the practice and, certainly, any expansion, are simply wrong.
And I regret that Senator Obama has not taken that position.
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