Story here:
Issue for debate:
What
the
FUCK?!
No real surprise, if the article is correct (no direct quote). Isn’t the conventional wisdom that you make the pitch to your party in the primary and towards the center in the general election? Swing voters must like religion.
Oh, I understand a certain amount of pandering is necessary to win, but now he’s crossed the line between pandering and whoring.
I’ll still vote for him, the alternative is war with Iran, but I’m mega-disappointed already.
On the contrary, this is a wise and reasonable decision. I support it.
Uh oh, BG, you may have just made…the list.
I get where you’re coming from here, but I don’t think you need to be as worried as all that. The article says he plans to focus on smaller areas and communities. This means that it’s more likely that a wider variety of religions/churches will get some of this money. One of my major problems with the program under Bush was the Christian focus.
On the other hand, this could be something he talks up now and ignores later, just like Bush.
For the record, faith-based initiatives aren’t something I’d have thought up and have never received a lot of support from me, I just don’t think that the sky is falling.
Bricker, would you please elaborate? I really respect your decision making process and would love to hear your thoughts on this matter.
Well you know, those black people have no perspective on the whole issue of inequality. Put them down for a few hundred years and we’ll see. …oh wait.
My only guess would be that either he’s just personally that religious, or the sort of legislation he’s meaning when he says this is something that would have no realworld effect, so it’s X number of voters gotten essentially for free (minus the cost of selling your soul, that is.)
This is nothing to be alarmed about. It’s actually a good move both politically and practically. All it does is allow religious charities to compete with secular charities for government grants. By law, those religious charities cannot discriminate in services and cannot proselytize. They actually do provide good and useful services. This is not a scheme (like school vouchers) to funnel taxpayer money to churches to serve a theocratic agenda. It provides grants to the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities to set up food shelves and homeless shelters, treatment centers and halfway houses. It’s not insidious and the services are needed. It’s not about proselytizing or politcs, The grants actually go to help people.
This is not a radical departure for Obama, by the way. When he was a community organizer in Chicago, he sought out the aid of local churches as an integral strategy in rebuilding ravaged neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, when he first went to speak to Jeremiah Wright, it was to seek his help in community organizing efforts (something Wright was very involved in). He had no personal religious intent in seeking out Wright and wasn’t expecting to get converted.
As for the hiring standards – he’s only talking about jobs which do not involve taxpayer money. Churches do have a right to religious discrimination in hiring. That’s nothing to be alarmed about either.
According to Salon, AP got this one dead wrong …
Well, that’s something of a relief. Of all the appeals to the right available, ‘faith-based initiatives’ are one of the unwiser ones.
And the political focus, as David Kuo lamented. Kuo’s support for what Obama’s plan is actually encouraging to me. Kuo is a good guy with honest intentions, even if he is a religious conservative.
As my posting history would indicate, I am about as hard a sell as you’re ever going to find when it comes to distributing tax payer money to religious organizations, but, as it happens, I am married to a government grant writer who knows a lot about it and who turned me into a smoking stump when I tried to argue with her about it. I found out I didn’t know what I was talking about. F-BI is not a bad thing. For the most part, it’s been little more than symbolic.
I really hope Twoflowers report is more correct.
Well, faith based social programs have always been more efficient. Like Obama said, they are ground level, grass roots. Why not piggy back on that? Support what works, etc.
Hmmm…Salon is wrong that what Obama’s proposing is any different from Bush’s initiative.
This:
represents strictures that already exist on F-BI. There’s no departure here.
On the bright side, if any of the money ends up going to Rev Jeremiah Wright, it could produce some amusing contortions.
I disagree.
You ask for miracles Theo? I give you the F-BI.
I’m not entirely sure he really IS converted. I think it’s politics at its American-ist, for the most part. He found a tool that worked in his fight against poverty.
Sure, although other posters above have laid out what I consider to be the benefits of this initiative – it permits organizations that are providing a community benefit or outreach to receive government funding, even if the organization is religiously-based. This has obvious value for the government – it permits the award of funds to the most efficient organization, regardless of that organization’s underlying philosophy of existence. Under President Bush’s vision of the program, organizations are forbidden from using federal grant money to advance religious causes; the funding must be used for secular aid. I see nothing in either version of the Obama reports to suggest this would be changed.