The Truth About Obama's Faith-Based Initiatives

Today Barack Obama rolls out a new policy proposal.  It isn't huge.  It isn't about universal health care, Iraq withdrawal or stopping global climate change - his three top policy priorities as President.  But it is important.  It represents a clear pushback against a signature Bush Administration initiative and a restoration of constitutional principles.

At a speech in Ohio, Obama unveiled his proposal for a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.   It both expands the federal government's partnership with faith-based organizations and reins it in, by strengthening how the program can meet policy goals and requiring it to abide by stronger church-state separation protections.

Oddly, the early reporting on this program is stupendously wrong- claiming that Obama's proposal guts existing anti-discrimination law that applies to religious organizations.  In fact, Obama's proposal reaffirms the protections of current law and states he intends to apply them.  This error also distracts from the ways this proposal respects both religious organizations and secular values.

As many of you know, when Bush took office he began a campaign to change how the government funds projects carried out by religious organizations.  Claiming that there were too many pesky rules and "barriers" that prevented government from funding effective programs and organization, President Bush established the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.  The only problem was that many of those "barriers" were based on longstanding legal principles safeguarding the Constitutional separation of church and state, and so they had to go

Groups like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services have partnered with public officials for decades, almost always without incident. There have always been safeguards in place to protect church-state separation, the integrity of the ministry and the rights of those who receive the benefits.

The safeguards were just common sense, and helped make these partnerships legal. Independent religious agencies, not churches themselves, handled the public funds. Tax dollars supported only secular programs, and no religious discrimination with public funds was permitted.

So what happened? George W. Bush decided he wanted to rewrite the rules. His White House identified those safeguards and renamed them "barriers." To protect the First Amendment and the interests of taxpayers, the president said, was to stand in the way of churches helping families in need. The safeguards, Bush insisted, had to be eliminated.

Obama saw the potential benefits of supporting religious and secular organizations doing critical work in their communities, as he explained today in his speech -

There are millions of Americans who share a similar view of their faith, who feel they have an obligation to help others. And they’re making a difference in communities all across this country – through initiatives like Ready4Work, which is helping ensure that ex-offenders don’t return to a life of crime; or Catholic Charities, which is feeding the hungry and making sure we don’t have homeless veterans sleeping on the streets of Chicago; or the good work that’s being done by a coalition of religious groups to rebuild New Orleans.

You see, while these groups are often made up of folks who’ve come together around a common faith, they’re usually working to help people of all faiths or of no faith at all. And they’re particularly well-placed to offer help. As I’ve said many times, I believe that change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques.
That’s why Washington needs to draw on them. The fact is, the challenges we face today – from saving our planet to ending poverty – are simply too big for government to solve alone. We need all hands on deck.

But he also saw the problems with how Bush's proposal works and, unlike our current President, understood the need for following the Constitution and existing anti-discrimination law:

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.

I'm not a church/state separation expert.  But I do know a lot about employment discrimination law, an area where I have practiced for many years.  And I was always concerned about the Bush Administration effort to water down federal legal protections and grant religious organizations far greater latitude to take religion into account in hiring or other employment decisions.  Obama proposes to restore the traditional, common sense rules.  Churches have always been allowed to consider religion when it matters to the job - for example requiring that an applicant to be a minister in a Lutheran church is a Lutheran is not a problem.  But requiring that the folks who get paid by a federal grant to tutor kids be members of that religion is a problem, and won't be allowed by Obama's plan.

For some reason, even though he actually says the words "you can't discriminate", sloppy reporting has turned this on its head.  Thus, the early AP story, which some bloggers picked up on, says:

Reaching out to religious voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for expanding President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — supported some ability to hire and fire based on faith.

It's sure to cause controversy alright.  In fact, it already has, when it was the highly controversial policy of the Bush Administration's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.  Obama proposes to reverse that policy.  Is that so hard?

As Steve Benen writes on Salon today, when he saw that erroneous story he "nearly fell out of my chair."

Thankfully, this AP feed was wrong, it's being corrected, and Barack Obama has not completely lost his mind. I obtained a copy of the speech Obama is going to deliver today, and he specifically outlines a faith-based agenda that in no way resembles Bush's approach. In fact, it's largely the opposite. . . .

Obama has identified the pre-Bush safeguards and wants to strengthen them, not abandon them.

So why, as progressives, should we care about this proposed expansion?  I believe this is an important announcement because it shows us how an Obama Administration approaches the links between core American values, religious practice, and government policy.  Obama recognizes that people of faith are often strong contributors to their communities.  This work represents values of participation and community building the state should support and encourage.  As progressives, don't we want more people organized in their communities and working to make them better?  At the same time, Obama understands that the government must tread carefully to avoid making religious practice a state policy.  He respects existing anti-discrimination law and Constitutional requirements.

Benen summed it up quite well:

By all appearances, Obama's vision is consistent with what Bush's plan would have been, if Bush cared about constitutional law, the interests of taxpayers, the rights of families in need and the integrity of religious institutions.

Fortunately, Barack Obama cares about all of these things.  He's going to get it right.  What a nice change that will be.

Disclaimer:I am a volunteer with Barack Obama's Presidential campaign in California.  When I write here I speak for myself and not the campaign.  The campaign does not vet these diaries in any way - the ideas and all the words in them are my own.