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WORLD> America
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Obama courts conservatives with new faith program
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-02 10:11 Obama's high-profile embrace of a key theme of Bush's time in office - the "faith-based initiative" - is just the latest example of him trying to show his centrist side. Last week, he quoted Reagan, saying "we have to trust but verify" after Bush lifted trade sanctions against North Korea and moved to remove the country from the US terrorism list. Obama also supported new electronic surveillance rules for the government's eavesdropping program, saying "an important tool in the fight against terrorism will continue," after opposing a similar bill last year. After the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's gun ban, he said he favors both an individual's right to bear firearms as well as a government's right to regulate them. Speaking with reporters, Obama disputed that he is altering views. "I get tagged as being on the left and, when I simply describe what has been my position consistently, then suddenly people act surprised," he said. "But there hasn't been substantial shifts there." While Obama would expand Bush's efforts to give religious charities more equal footing when getting federal funding, he also would tweak what he would call the President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in ways that divert from Bush's approach. He would increase spending on social services, starting with a $500 million-a-year program to keep 1 million poor children up to speed on their studies over the summers. He would increase training for charities applying for funding and make it a grass-roots effort. He would elevate the program to be "a critical part of my administration," a reference to criticism that Bush paid barely more than lip service to his effort. Obama also chose a different emphasis for why religious charities are an important answer to solving poverty and other social problems: because they better know the people who are hurting, instead of Bush's argument that religion itself is a transforming power the government must not be afraid to harness. And while Bush supports allowing all religious groups to make any employment decisions based on faith, Obama proposes allowing religious institutions to hire and fire based on religion only in the non-taxpayer-funded portions of their activities - consistent with current federal, state and local laws. "That makes perfect sense," he said. Where there are state or local laws prohibiting hiring choices based on sexual orientation in the federally funded portion of the programs, he said he would support those being applied. This position would make his proposal "dead on arrival" for many evangelicals and small churches, said Jim Towey, a former head of Bush's faith-based office. That's because telling a small organization to keep employees hired with federal funds separate from others "is unmanageable - and besides those folks want to hire people who share their vision and mission," Towey said. Even as Obama courts the right, his support for a signature Bush program could invite protest from others. "This initiative has been a failure on all counts, and it ought to be shut down, not expanded," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. |
