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Don't Get Mad, Get Elected
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Jul
1
Okay - people who are rabid Obamamaniacs - what is up with this? And he does it in Ohio?
Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush’s program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.
Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio, at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services.
More concerning:
Obama’s support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions could invite a protest from those in his own party who view such faith requirements as discrimination.
Obama does not support requiring religious tests for recipients of aid nor using federal money to proselytize, according to a campaign fact sheet. He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.
I’ve called for Governor Ted Strickland to shut his faith-based and community initiatives office down and I’ve wanted the same at the federal level. The executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State agrees:
Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized Obama’s proposed expansion of a program he said has undermined civil rights and civil liberties.
“I am disappointed that any presidential candidate would want to continue a failed policy of the Bush administration,” he said. “It ought to be shut down, not continued.”
According to the article at NPR, the Obama campaign has consulted a former Bush administrator for the office, David Kuo, “a conservative Christian who was deputy director of Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives until 2003 [who]… later became a critic of Bush’s commitment to the cause…”
More specifics from the story (which seems to have a copy of whatever Obama said or is to say in Ohio today):
Obama proposes to elevate the program to a “moral center” of his administration, by renaming it the Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and changing training from occasional huge conferences to empowering larger religious charities to mentor smaller ones in their communities.
Saying social service spending has been shortchanged under Bush, he also proposes a $500 million per year program to provide summer learning for 1 million poor children to help close achievement gaps with white and wealthier students. A campaign fact sheet said he would pay for it by better managing surplus federal properties, reducing growth in the federal travel budget and streamlining the federal procurement process.
Like Bush, Obama was arguing that religious organizations can and should play a bigger role in serving the poor and meeting other social needs. But while Bush argued that the strength of religious charities lies primarily in shared religious identity between workers and recipients, Obama was to tout the benefits of their “bottom-up” approach.
Okay cooler heads and more invested Obama fans -’splain this to me.
Hattip to Andy Carvin’s tweet.
UPDATE: Here’s the take at Plunderbund and at Progress Ohio (including links to the policy overview).
Sphere: Related ContentBy Jill Miller Zimon at 11:58 am July 1st, 2008 in Government, Barack Obama, Ohio, Announcements, Religion, Politics
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27 Responses to “[update] Obama to expand faith based programs (cue Tim Allen huh? grunt)”
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Shalom Jill,
This isn’t good. But since my choices are:
a) Suck it up and vote for Obama;
b) Act pissed and vote for McCain; or
c) Really protest and vote for nobody,
I don’t really have a choice.
I’m not pleased.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Thanks, Jeff - yeah, I’m looking at some other opinions and they are not liking the sound of this - but I guess we really need to hear it first before we should judge. I can only say that just the preliminaries are given me serious willies.
If anything, it makes me think that this will give grounds for justification of expanding vouchers, and more mixing of church and state in general. Very perplexing to me at the moment.
[…] Obama to expand faith based programs (cue Tim Allen huh? grunt) Posted in Comments, Election […]
Shalom Jill,
I have a really bad feeling about this.
Obama’s record on Choice is very solid. To me that means he couldn’t buy the christianist/Neotheocon vote if he increased the Faith-Based spending 100 fold.
Which leads me to fear that this is a precursor to a dramatic change on Choice. I can’t believe that possible, but right now it’s the only step that makes sense in light of this pandering to Ohio’s bible-belt voters.
I don’t feel so good right now.
B’shalom,
Jeff
I do not understand how the government giving money to religious organizations doesn’t interfere with them and others.
As you know I support him too but I don’t like this at all and cringed when I read the article this morning. Separation of church and state and I agree with Jeff, why pander to….no I can’t even go there. I guess no one is perfect.
I agree Chuck - it’s a terribly subjective judgment to begin with.
Hi Carole - I would recommend reading the Politico article linked to in the Liveblog I did but also reading the Liveblog - we had a great bunch of commenters in there and I do think what Obama is saying is a bit different than what exists now but in general, yeah - I am still not for this, at all.
I did read the Politico article thanks; and yes it may be a bit different but to me it has no place in a presidential campaign. I am sorry but i have a knee jerk reactio everytime someone starts talking like this so i hope he stops soon lol
The grant program has been in place for how long? How would you have addressed it? Do you think he could have said, “I will get rid of that”? If a church is offering social service in any of the seventy defined areas they can apply for a grant, the access to the funds is under the same consideration or criteria as any other social service entity, that being a state program or a county program etc.
He could not be against it, if he was he would loose votes. He only said he would tinker with it, add summer school education and look to prevent discrimination in hiring practices of groups that apply and receive grants.
I would like to see some time spent on were the money is going, that being who is getting the lions share of it and what are they doing with it.
The program already has restrictions on using the funds for propagating religious beliefs. So does Catholic charities only offer help to Catholics? Do they attempt to baptize the teenage mother and her child, I have not heard of anyone getting pressured into faith over this grant program. I have not heard any stories of alcoholic or drug users claiming they were pressured into finding God? Would that be one for the ACLU a heroin addict that was converted to a Evangelical with the help of a government grants?
The point is the grant program was way controversial in theory, how about in practice how many years has it been going on and how many complaint or legations have been filled over violations in it use?
To me its like any funding program, we really do not get to see the amount dispersed, not easily anyway, who gets the money and what are they doing with it?
I find some humor in Obama’s proposed summer education proposal for grant funds, yeah children will line up for that, and the church that gets the funds will they be honest if they get no participation? Will they not teach Bible studies? Will they understand it’s a violation of the grant?
The thing that gets me is that the more funds the government issues that are not based on anything tangible or economically sustainable, then these charitable entities as employers become dependent industry. If they cut the funds then the program goes away and so do the jobs the funds created. It’s much like the American Cancer Society finding a cure, then the entire entity has no need to exist, that’s self defeating to the huge entity that forms around the problem.
If a group sets up job training and even goes further to actually create jobs in a designated area then if they were very successful they would eventually need to shut down. Its weird isn’t it, its like a car manufacturer making a car that last twice as long and only need half the services. Functional obsolescence does it exist in charity, so they paint a gloomy picture even fake up some needs, just to keep themselves around? For sure they make their programs look way more successful than they are. There is no accountability, if they touch a person then what was the results? Problem solved or is it empowered, is it perpetuated, it becomes a way of life.
Shalom Onegus,
Sen. Obama didn’t have to address this issue at all. There are literally tens of thousands of government programs that will never be specifically addressed in any campaign.
Obama chose to make this an issue, and a day later I’m feeling uncomfortable again. Why did he chose to make this a part of his campaign?
Why do faith-based (i.e. irrational, superstition-based) organizations get a leg up on this? Can an Atheist organization apply for the same money? Can a totally secular organization apply for the same money?
If not, why not?
What makes faith-based social service organizations different so that they receive this special treatment?
B’shalom,
Jeff
just as joe has been telling you all along: the man is a phony. vote for nader.
Shalom Joe,
I’ve yet to see anything in what Sen. Obama has said or done that would qualify for the use of the term phony.
Reasonable people my disagree reasonably.
I voted for Nader in 1996.
While I have great admiration for the man and what he has done with his life, there is too much at stake — a third Bush term — this year for such a protest vote.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Jill,
There’s nothing surprising about this at all. The community organizing network with which Obama is most closely associated is the Gamaliel Foundation, directed by Greg Galluzzo, one of the three guys who ran the South Chicago project he worked for in the ’80s. (A second, Mike Kruglik, is also on the national GF staff.) Among the national CO networks (the best known of which is the granddaddy, Alinky’s Industrial Areas Foundation), Gamaliel is the one most committed to an explicitly “church-based” or “congregational” method of building grassroots power organizations in low income communities. A walk through their website will give you a pretty good idea what this means in practice.
http://www.gamaliel.org/
Like the civil rights movement, church-based organizers look to churches and clergy for primary leadership not just because “that’s where the people are”, but because that’s where many non-middle-class people are most comfortable forming relationships based on values and vision.
Of course Obama’s own relationships have now grown far beyond this particular network of organizers. But they’re still in the picture, and it would be amazing if he (and they) were not thinking about how to apply church-based organizing principles to the social change opportunities created by national political power.
Thank you, Bill. But let me ask you this, what is your experience in observing the principles being applied to the opportunities in a way that is separate from the faith?
Part of me feels that with more than just this area, Obama puts the cart before the horse, in terms of people understanding. I don’t know if it’s because he expects us to just believe, or join, if it’s because he thinks we already know or understand or what.
For those of us who find the introduction of this idea - which, given the way you describe it, is absolutely acceptable and understandable as something that can be applied and used in a secular way - as a bit of an affront to the separation of church and state, I cannot understand why he wouldn’t put down the foundation - in a way similar to how you have - first.
I think this is the kind of thing people mean when they say that they “don’t know him.” I don’t feel that I don’t know him any more than I don’t know McCain. That’s not my concern, really.
But having him be clear about what he’s thinking is getting to be a real problem for me. We can’t be inside his head.
Anyway - I’m feeling frustrated with his approaches lately so I’m blathering a bit.
Thanks again for the comment.
I agree with what you say Jill and he (Obama) may in fact be assuming our amount of understanding. Leave it to Bill to put it in a better perspective. He was certainly very active in the time period of Cleveland’ heavy grassroots period when the Diocese was one of the movers and shakers in Cleveland.
Good god, imagine that-the Cleveland Catholic diocese being directly involved in grassroots progressive action. That almost sounds like recalling something from the American Civil War. It’s been so long since they’ve had their act together.
Jill,
I’m not saying it’s good or bad (”acceptable and understandable” or not), just that it’s been part of the Obama package all along. I don’t think he’s ever been shy about the historical connection between his organizing experience and his “coming to Jesus”. For example, this speech has been linked on his website (under Issues/Faith) for a long time.
What’s my “experience in observing the principles being applied to the opportunities in a way that is separate from the faith?” Um… I don’t think you’re asking for my professional critique of Gamaliel’s organizing approach compared to other trainers and consultants. But if you mean “applying community empowerment organizing principles to political leadership, only without the religious baggage”, I’d say there’s little if any experience to observe.
How would you “apply and use” the principle of empowering low income communities by developing a capacity for collective action based on shared values and vision “in a secular way”? Where will you find an existing organizational setting for that process in most communities, if not in churches? The only alternative is usually to construct organizational settings from scratch, which is a whole lot harder than it sounds.
There are community organizing models that try to create such settings in non-religious ways — ACORN, for one good example. In many communities that’s all they can do, because religious institutions aren’t that strong or aren’t interested. But I don’t know any experienced community organizer, from any network or tradition — no matter how secular personally — who fails to welcome church engagement and leadership where it can be found.
But here’s something else all good organizers understand — Alinsky Organizing Principle #1: Both individuals and institutions are motivated to participate in collective action by self-interest. For churches to put their relationships and credibility at the service of a larger community agenda — either for a Gamaliel organizer or a government social service program — they, like you or me, need to get something important in return. Recognition. Or a place at the political table. Or new members. Or money. Something their boards will see as advancing real institutional self-interests.
So the logic goes: a) churches are generally desirable if not essential partners for bottom-up empowerment approaches to low-income community change; and b) there has to be something in it for the churches as churches to join such a partnership.
Not unlike businesses, or unions… or some bloggers we know.
I think we’ll find that Obama’s version of faith-based programs will involve different churches, different kinds of “values and vision”, and a different set of institutional self-interests than Bush’s. It’s likely to be more about helping poor people to be empowered players rather than grateful charity clients. But it won’t be any less about “faith”… or about getting those poor people into somebody’s pews.
Democrats who are uncomfortable with that approach need to ask ourselves: What are we doing to make any other approach possible?
community organizer is code speak for registering alot of black people to vote after communicating the racist black liberation theology myth. liberate themselves from what? what other country in the world could they possibly reside in that would accord them the quality of life that they experience here. let’s recall some history that is indisputable: black people enslaved black people and white people liberated them. end of story. stop your freakin whining already!
I agree with Joe.
“Phil” Your comment has been edited for hate-filled ranting. You want to put that out there - find another blog or start your own.
Oh good God, I just read #13 by Jeff Hess stating that he voted for freaking Nader in 1996!!! Now I have even more reasons to despise Jeff’s unrealistic pie-in-the-sky mentality.
Jeff, go hang out with all the Nader supporting idiots. I’m sure there’s a big contingent nearby who also support boy wonder Kookinich. Or why don’t you try to breathe life back into the Ohio Green Party which is lucky if it gets 2 percent of the vote at any given time.
Now that I know all this, I’ll be sure to avoid reading most of Jeff Hess’s political commentary on his coffee induced writing blog. Of course, I rarely read it now, but I’ll read it even less in the future.
B’Shillom
Phil
Comment #23 by the same “Phil” as in #20 was a duplicate and has been unapproved.
#24, 25, 26, 27 have been unapproved for hate towards me and accusations of being a hater. If anyone wants to converse with “Phil” about all that, let me know and I’ll email him to see if he’ll release his email to you.
Shalom Phil,
Fortunately, I was able to read the unapproved comments via email I have to say that you and Joe really, really need to work on your troll bait.
Speaking as a non-Hispanic born Catholic, non-Black, raised Congregationalist Christian, White American male Jew by Choice who volunteered to serve his country proudly for 11 years and received the Navy Expeditionary medal in 1979 for duty in Gulf War Part I: the Iranian phase (and how many years of service have either you or Joe given your country in return for the myriad of benefits it has bestowed on you?) I suggest you better know the people you childishly mock.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Let me see, if a religious organization has $10 to spread between preaching and community works it has decisions to make on what goes where; if the govt gives them $10 on top it would seem the preaching end would gain since the govt’s $10 now covers the “good works.” That would seem to give an edge to the selected group versus the unselected. I would call that interference.
I don’t like interference of this sort. I don’t give a rat’s patoot about what religion, to each your own, but that should be the deal - your own.
Shalom Chuck,
That’s true. You’re absolutely right.
I’ve used much the same argument in the past to deride state lotteries that help to finance school systems. The net money to schools doesn’t increase, governments just get more money to play with their pet projects.
B’shalom,
Jeff