Family Law

Faith-Based Means Us, Too

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press, Feb. 4, 2009

Josh DuBois might be called a New Evangelical. He is a Pentecostal pastor (with a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton) who believes Jesus is his personal savior.

But he also seems to put more weight on the social gospel (that is, that Christians should take care of the poor and the disenfranchised) than on the old Evangelical hammers of gays and abortion.

Now the 26-year-old has a new position: head of the new President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Under Bush, this was called the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, and it spent a lot of money pushing abstinence-only programs.

Obama's idea is different. The office will go beyond grant giving to find ways to partner with religious organizations to find solutions to social problems. Most notably, at least for gays and lesbians, the Faith-Based Council will forbid religious organizations from discriminating against gays and lesbians when they hire for programs that are taxpayer supported.

That means if a church applies for a grant to fund a program that feeds the needy, the organization can't refuse to hire chefs or program directors or secretaries for the program just because they're gay.

And yet — it's not enough just to prove fairness in hiring. Gays and lesbians are rightly suspicious of federal programs that purport to be "faith based." For too long, faith has been a tool of exclusion for us. We've gotten used to hearing political leaders tell us they want to take our rights away because of their own superior "family values."

We might also be suspicious of Josh DuBois. DuBois has been silent about his personal beliefs on religious right touchstones like homosexuality and abortion, but I suspect he's not a religious centrist, despite being a Democrat. Columnist Sally Quinn notes that DuBois was the person who first floated Rick Warren's name as a possibly inaugural speaker.

DuBois, who was in charge of faith-based outreach for the Obama campaign as well, also put together the program that featured Donnie McClurkin, an "ex-gay" gospel singer who has said that "homosexuality is a curse."

Yet I'm going to give DuBois — and Obama — the benefit of the doubt here. DuBois is young. I don't think he did these things to send a message to gays and lesbians — I think he did these things because he doesn't figure us in at all.

And maybe that's partly our fault.

Gays and lesbians have given religion over to the right. This is not good. There are many religions that have denied us our personhood; there are many of us who have been hurt by the religious traditions we grew up in. But gays are a diverse people, and there are many of us who are religious or spiritual — and we should not be ignored by a national program that should serve the whole country.

My hope is that gay religious organizations will approach DuBois's office about funding their valuable social service programs that assist homeless queer youth, people with AIDS, and other disenfranchised LGBT communities. And that we will all make noise about it until we know that our programs are being treated equally.

There are plenty of gays and lesbians who will disagree with me here. They think that religion is poison, and we are fools to drink it. We shouldn't want to be part of a club that doesn't want to grant us membership. They think we should fight the existence of a faith-based anything in the West Wing.

That is a battle we won't win, not this time around, not with a president who was partly elected through the voter turnout strength of the black church.

But in any case, seeking equity when it comes to this new President's Council isn't a referendum on religion. It's about fairness. Take the military as an example. I'm not too keen on the whole military-industrial complex. But if there are gay people who want to fight in the military, then I support their right of equal access. It is not for me — but I will not deny my gay brothers and sisters their own choice.

If there is a federal conduit for getting funds to religious organizations, then gay religious organizations should be getting equal access to those funds. Any President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships should not only be reaching out to Evangelicals — it should also be reaching out to us.

Full post as published by Independent Gay Forum on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).