www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Pres. Obama overhauls faith-based agency

Well, I guess this will take an organization or church's ability to hire according to one's standards and principles away. Notice there are NO CATHOLIC or ORTHODOX on the board. Also, matter of $$$$$$$$$$$$$ that will be used to fight the battle in court, when the monies could be used for helping people. Lord have mercy on us all!

Obama overhauls faith-based agency
Posted: 09:12 AM ET

President Obama will sign an executive order that will strengthen the constitutional and legal grounding of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.


WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama will make changes Thursday to President Bush's controversial Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, partly to ensure religious groups that receive government money do not discriminate in hiring, administration officials said.

Obama will sign an executive order that will strengthen the constitutional and legal grounding of the Office, two senior administration officials told CNN.

Critics of the agency, which steers government money to religious charities that perform social services, say that under the Bush Administration faith groups were allowed to take religion into account when hiring.

On contentious issues like hiring, Obama found that one of the problems with the previous Initiative was that tough questions were decided without appropriate consideration, data, and input from different sides, the officials said. There were ideological decisions, instead of decisions based in fact, they added.

Obama officials say his executive order will make religious groups demonstrate to the government that their hiring is legal and non-discriminatory.

"We think this is a key step forward. It doesn't resolve all issues at the outset, but it does provide a mechanism to address difficult legal issues moving forward," they said.

The president is naming Josh DuBois, who ran religious outreach during Obama's campaign, to run the revamped Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

He will also create a new advisory council, whose 25 members will include Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judiasm; Judith Vredenburgh,the CEO of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America; Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first female bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; the Rev. Joel Hunter, the senior pastor of Northland Church, a megachurch in Orlando, Florida, and the Rev. Frank Page, a past president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Office of Faith-Based Intiatives is a programming and policy arm of the federal government. It is the primary mechanism for federal agencies to connect with local neighborhood and faith-based groups to deliver social services. Centers within executive agencies run programs like job training for low-income individuals at the Department of Labor; ex-offender re-entry at the Department of Justice and international HIV/AIDS efforts at USAID.

–CNN Correspondents Suzanne Malveaux and Jessica Yellin contributed to this report.
Pres. Obama & faith based agency [politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com]

Pani Rose:

Why? No one must take government money. Remember what the government gives, it can take away. So to stand on principle, one goes back to the way one operated before this money was available. No entitlement here!!

BOB

I am glad we are excluded from this. He is only going to use this oppertunity to take control of these group that will now beholden to him because of $$$. Thank you God for hiding us from the clutches of this sinful man.

To set standards like these on religous groups is the devil getting his claws into the church. Faiths that don't promote gay lifestyles and other contiversal lifestyles or practice will be forced to accept these into their practices.

I, for one, am tired of seeing any "faith based" groups in the government. I prefer my separation of church and state neat, not on the rocks . . . nor watered down.

-- John

FROM THE CATHOLIC LEAGUE

OBAMA’S FAITH-BASED PROGRAM TESTS THE FAITHFUL

The Obama administration said today that its newly designed Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will decide on a case by case basis whether a funding request violates the Constitution. Joshua DuBois, who will head this initiative, said today that “People on both sides are going to be a little uncomfortable with that.” At issue are the hiring rights of religious social service organizations that receive federal funding.

Responding is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

“Those who walk in the middle of the street risk getting run over by cars on both sides. We know what President Obama wants—he said during the campaign that religious organizations that receive federal monies should not have the right to determine who works for them. But now he’s preoccupied with issues of a more urgent matter. Thus, the balk.

“Sending requests on a case by case basis to lawyers to examine the constitutional questions is a ruse: We already know what the law says. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, in Section 702 (a), specifically allows an exemption for religious organizations in hiring. The legislators who passed this historic act knew that for the government to deny religious organizations that receive public monies the right to determine who should service its constituents would effectively neuter them. That position is as true today as it was then.

“It was also announced today that this office will expand its domain by working with the National Security Council ‘to foster interfaith dialogue with leaders and scholars around the world.’ Bunk. What in the world does servicing the poor and promoting responsible fatherhood—two of the four priorities outlined by DuBois—have to do with having the National Security Council sit down with Ahmadinejad for a chat? This is just another way to gut faith-based initiatives.

“We need a test case that will force the Obama administration to walk on one side of the street.”

And I, for one, am tired of seeing any government influence on my religion. I prefer my state subdued to my Church, not the other way around.

-- John

Separation of Church and State is the same as saying "I am Christian at home but not at work". There is no separation with God. His desire is in totality and clearly Christian history establishes this desire. Unfortunately, this idea of separation is so prominent and established by America's Protestant roots that I fear it will never change.

Bill of Rights
Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Would someone please explain to this Hunkie where its says that there should be separation of Church and State??
Where does it say that asking people to pray or to read a Bible is illegal?

I wish our lawmakers would read the Constitution. I guess what they say about Americans not being well educated is correct, for they have a problem reading "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Thanks for letting me vent.

The notion comes from a letter by Jefferson to a Baptist something or another. Jefferson was single-handedly the lunatic fringe on church and state (or church for that matter--e.g., the Jefferson Bible); the Jefferson of chruch and state is the Jefferson of the Sedition Act, not the Declaration of Independence.

Anyway, aside from Jefferson's ravings, the the establishment clause was understood as neutrality by the federal government, not the states between Christian sects. Virginia could have an established church; the federal government could not.

Even the Fourteenth amendment was not understood to ban the states from establishing churches; at least four kept established churches afterwards.

The current notion of separation is quite recent, and without foundation.

hawk, now taking his lawyer's hat back off