And I love this quote from the secular liberal:
"any proposal combining religion and federal money carries "the potential for a lot of mischief."
Oh, like it doesn't have an effect when it goes OTHER PLACES -- like WAR-PROFITEERS and "SECURITY" firms or BIG PHARMA or BIG AG or....?
Of course, Obama's plan is nothing more than BIG GOVERNMENT where it DOESN'T BELONG!
"Obama vows $500m in faith-based aid; Analysts say bid signals shift to center" by Joseph Williams, Globe Staff | July 2, 2008
WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama said yesterday that if elected president he would set aside more than $500 million a year in federal funds for religious organizations to help the disadvantaged, sharply expanding a Bush administration program that has strong support from evangelical Christians.
In Ohio, Obama said his plan would get religious charities more involved in solving the nation's social problems, including feeding the needy, helping poor children learn, and providing job training for those who need work. Unlike Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Obama said, his plan would not be used to "promote partisan interests" - and it would lay out far more money than Bush's program, which depends largely on a network of grants.
"The challenges we face today, from putting people back to work to improving our schools, from saving our planet to combating HIV/AIDS to ending genocide, are simply too big for government to solve alone," he said. "We need all hands on deck."
But some liberal critics suggested that Obama was outdoing the president himself by building on Bush's faith-based initiatives, which some groups have said come close to violating First Amendment protections separating church and state. Others noted that Obama's proposal does not completely ban faith organizations from discriminatory hiring practices based on religion, even while receiving federal funds.
"I find it a tad worrisome, to be perfectly honest," said Randall Balmer, professor of religious history at Columbia University. While it could pass muster under the Constitution, he said, any proposal combining religion and federal money carries "the potential for a lot of mischief."
In a statement yesterday, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister and president of the Interfaith Alliance, said Bush's faith-based initiative "has been a colossal failure." He said Obama's plan - which, like Bush's, allows religious organizations to receive money directly from the government rather than through a separate nonprofit entity - needs "much stronger safeguards" to guarantee separation of church and state and to keep religious organizations from hiring only people of the same beliefs.
In his announcement yesterday, Obama said he firmly believes government and religion should remain separate, "but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea" as long as safeguards are in place.
Groups cannot use the money to proselytize those in need, he said, and they cannot refuse to hire someone of a different religion. Federal dollars granted directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs, Obama said, adding that close monitoring will "ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work."
At this point I'm thinking KEEP YOUR $$$ because we don't want GOVERNMENT-MANDATED VIEWS encroaching into the CHURCHES!!
It is BAD ENOUGH as it is NOW!
Douglas L. Koopman, a political science professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., said Obama's intention to prevent discriminatory hiring will be difficult to enforce. Though the law bans hiring solely on the basis of religious beliefs, it is less clear on whether a fundamentalist Baptist organization, for example, can refuse to hire a candidate because of his or her sexual orientation, or position on abortion rights.
According to his campaign, Obama wants to streamline the process by which faith-based organizations get federal money; maintain the 11 faith-based offices currently embedded in government agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice; study the effectiveness of both the charity and the government's assistance to it; and create a network between the federal faith-based offices and their local counterparts across the nation.
Obama's campaign did not give a cost for the entire program, saying only that the educational component - involving reading programs and free summer school for 1 million poor children nationwide to address the achievement gap with wealthier children - would cost about $500 million a year. That would be paid for through savings accumulated through more efficient management of surplus government property, holding down spending in the federal travel budget, and streamlining the federal purchasing process, the campaign said.
I'm sorry, folks, it sounds well-meaning but it is MORE BUREAUCRACY and MORE WASTE?
--MORE--"
