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Obama To Support Expansion of Faith-Based Initiative

By Howard M. Friedman

An advance text of remarks by Barack Obama to be delivered today in Zanesville, Ohio indicates that Obama will support expansion of President Bush's faith-based initiative. According to the AP: "Obama proposes to elevate the program to a 'moral center' of his administration, by renaming it the Office of Community and Faith-Based Partnerships, and changing training from occasional huge conferences to empowering larger religious charities to mentor smaller ones in their communities." Obama would also allow faith-based charities receiving federal money to make hiring decisions on the basis of religion, but does not support religious restrictions on aid recipients or use of federal funds to proselytize.

UPDATE: The original AP report was inaccurate in saying that Obama will support religious-based hiring. In the full text of his remarks, Obama says just the opposite:

Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don?t believe this partnership will endanger that idea ? so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can?t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can?t discriminate against them ? or against the people you hire ? on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we?ll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.

Salon provides further coverage. [Thanks to Blog from the Capital for the lead.]

Full post as published by Religion Clause on July 01, 2008 (boomark / email).