…and this is a 
Obama and ‘faith-based’ initiatives
Category: Politics
Posted on: July 1, 2008 7:49 PM, by PZ Myers
First, there was this awful news about Obama's support of "faith-based programs":
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.
Gak. If that were true, he'd be at some risk of losing my vote, and would definitely be on the road to losing my campaign support. That was Fox News, though, so I held off until I heard more…although reporting that Obama supported an agenda favored by the religious right seemed unlikely from that source, unless they also announced he was only going to fund Islamic programs (Oops, did I just start another rumor?).
Next, there was some fast damage control: that early report was wrong, and here's what Obama really said.
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.
That's better. Until you think about it. He's still proposing an expansion of Bush's faith-based initiatives — he's going to be handing out billions of dollars to religious organizations. It's nice that he's specifically saying there will be restrictions, that the money can't be used in programs that discriminate, and it must be for secular purposes, but he's still propping up a religious middleman between government aid and the people, and that's a tool that will be used to proselytize indirectly, even if they don't simply flout the rules. This is a bad idea.
I'm going to take the side of Americans United, which has put out a call for Obama to shut down the government's pandering to religion with these faith-based charities.
Rather than try to correct the defects of the Bush “faith-based” initiative, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would do better to shut it down, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Obama today announced a proposal to expand faith-based funding during a speech in Zanesville, Ohio.
“I am disappointed,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “This initiative has been a failure on all counts, and it ought to be shut down, not expanded.”
However, Lynn said he was pleased to hear Obama express support for church-state separation and say that he would bar government-funded proselytism and religious discrimination in hiring when tax dollars are involved.
“It is imperative that public funds not pay for proselytizing or subsidize discrimination in hiring,” said Lynn. “Obama has promised that he will not support publicly funded proselytism or discrimination in hiring, and that’s an important commitment.”
The Bush administration has repeatedly insisted that religious charities can discriminate on religious grounds in hiring staff when running publicly funded programs.
Lynn said he is concerned that the Obama plan apparently would allow direct tax funding of houses of worship to run social service programs. That, said Lynn, raises serious issues of entanglement between religion and government.
Americans United has led opposition to the Bush faith-based initiative since it was unveiled in 2001.
The plan Obama proposes doesn't even make sense. If religious groups have a history of altruistic support for the needy, good for them and let them continue as they have…but funneling government funds through organizations that supposedly already have "faith-based" mechanisms for raising money seems superfluous. That's the only advantage these groups have, anyway — the ability to fleece the flock to fund their work. Being religious does not give any advantage in obtaining material outcomes.
End the faith-based initiatives. The government should only be supporting programs that work — at least, in my dreams of an efficient administration, anyway.
Politics
Comments
"Gak. If that were true, he'd be at some risk of losing my vote, and would definitely be on the road to losing my campaign support."
Er, who would you then vote for? Being as the US only has two real political parties, your only option is McCain. And I can't see that working out.
Posted by: Sivi Volk | July 1, 2008 7:55 PM
How about evidence-based initiatives?
Posted by: Dennis N | July 1, 2008 7:58 PM
I loathe anything labeled "faith-based" but the fact of the matter is, there are eighty-some percent of Americans who believe in a god and all of them can't be repugnantklans. Obama is campaigning as politicians have campaigned for years. He needs the votes of moderate religious Democrats who, by the way, are a lot more numerous than we godless.
A third party vote basically means you've joined the McCain People's Front Crack Suicide Squad. So, don't do it.
Posted by: raindogzilla | July 1, 2008 8:05 PM
Watch the opposition to discrimination in hiring disappear (likely in some kind of "compromise"), if it really goes through. How does it even make sense for it to be a religious organization if it can't pick and choose its employees based on religion?
That's the only advantage over Bush's egregious program, and its disadvantage is that it's supposed to be even bigger.
Really, it's understandable that Obama might want to reach out to religious voters. But this is more than mere politicking, it's exactly the pandering that we hate when the Republicans do it.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | July 1, 2008 8:05 PM
Faith-based initiatives are unnecessary at best. People can use their faith as motivation and start a 501(c) org to help the public good instead of running an organization straight out of the church. Give the grant money to universities, schools, and hospitals instead.
Posted by: Aaron Boruff | July 1, 2008 8:08 PM
In a country like the US, Obama's approach is probably the best way to secularize religious organizations from the top down. Thats an interesting opportunity to consider.
Of course, that might all go straight down the toilet again under the management of anything like the current administration.
Posted by: Dutch Delight | July 1, 2008 8:09 PM
Oh, come on and stop being so doctrinaire. Whatever you or I think about magic sky fairies, churches do server social functions that are only loosely fantasy based. What he's proposing is essentially using the existing organizational structure to accomplish social goods. As long as it's separated from the spread of woo, seems to be to be a very small camel to swallow for the potential good.
Posted by: Spunky Hussein Tuna | July 1, 2008 8:09 PM
Thinking back, what PZ seems to be saying in a previous post is that Obama's religious pandering is akin to having an 800 lb enema rammed up the rear!
Posted by: Cynthia | July 1, 2008 8:10 PM
Remember that he has to get elected before he can do anything, so he has to pander somewhat. Once you apply his restrictions it's not much of a faith based program anymore, but still sounds like one so it can get votes. Attacking the faith based programs outright is probably not a good political move right now, even if it is a sensible one.
Posted by: uray | July 1, 2008 8:12 PM
Thank you for commenting on this. I saw this hit fox news and lunch time. I follow a variety of liberal blogs thinking surely I would see outrage within moments. It was not to be so. Thank you Prof. Myers. I knew I couldn't be the only person a little p.o.ed. The sad thing is my brother is an atheist who strongly supports Obama but I think he drank the kool-aid on this one as he has spent our last conversation trying to convince me of its merits.
Posted by: Nathan | July 1, 2008 8:14 PM
The restrictions he listed are the current restriction, not new rules he'd put into place - the problem is that no one is willing to oversee this and enforce the rules. If he said he was creating a new team of people to monitor churches and make sure they don't use tax dollars for proselytizing, I'd be cool with it. But he's not. And if he did do that, he'd lose the major vote he's trying to win over with this bullshit.
Posted by: Zeekster | July 1, 2008 8:21 PM
Actually, if Obama wanted to shrink faith-based programs, this is the perfect way to do it. Just smile and say religious groups can have as much money as they want so long as they understand they can't proselytize or discriminate, then watch as they all pull back their hands.
Posted by: H.H. | July 1, 2008 8:21 PM
I've always been baffled by this contradictory logic: The current administration balks at funding organizations that promote family planning because they might also accidentally sorta kinda provide "forbidden" information (birth control) or services (abortion). Even when said organizations keep their budgets strictly separate, the administration says that the taint is unavoidable. Yet the same administration turns around and says that this kind of organization will have no trouble separating its religious from its non-religious budgets.
Posted by: Ann | July 1, 2008 8:36 PM
Hmm, I rather like HH's point. Some interesting educational opportunities could arise. Just wait for someone to sue an organisation for discrimination in a federally funded program...
Posted by: Cath the Canberra Cook | July 1, 2008 8:36 PM
This is a no-brainer. The First Amendment says specifically that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The conservatives whine that liberals keep finding stuff in the Constitution and only "strict interpretation" is correct. Strict interpretation says that there'll be no faith-based initiatives.
Or is it that conservatives only insist on strict interpretation if a looser interpretation results in something they don't like? I know, you're all saying "conservatives might be hypocrites? Say it ain't so, JoJo." I hate to bring the bad news to you, but....
P.S. Once you've digested that, I have some more bad news concerning Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
Posted by: JoJo | July 1, 2008 8:38 PM
Obama's making a lot of noise about this, but as far as I can tell, his policy basically does involve ending faith based initiatives, at least as anyone means them.
The reason is that most people never understood what FBIs were in the first place. Giving government money to religious charities was not something new when Clinton signed it into law, or Bush made it a talking point. Catholic Charities have been getting government funding for decades. All that was new was giving special treatment to religious organizations to basically be able to avoid various laws that other non-profits had to follow: i.e. they no longer had to keep two sets of books, have separation between religious side and the service side.
So Obama says he's going to get rid of all that special treatment. Leaving... what, exactly? As far as I can tell, that's just putting it back to status quo, and his talk of an "expansion" of funding basically means nothing more than putting more money into social services in general.
In short, it's a scam. But it's a scam run on religious people. For our side, it makes things better, not worse than the status quo.
Posted by: Bad | July 1, 2008 8:40 PM
If eighty-odd percent of Americans believe in an Invisible Supernatural Spook and that said spook wants them to help the needy, then they can damn well pony up the money for their church's contribution themselves. Why the hell do we need the federal gummint to act as middle man? Recall that a middle man takes a cut . . .
A restriction on not using the money to proselytize is more than useless, it guarantees a violation of the restriction. These people are in most cases encouraged or required to "share the good news."
Ben Franklin observed that if people like a church and give money to it and the church thrives, well and good. But if the church requires a handout from the gummint is isn't much of a church to begin with. I'll add that it would be properly scriptural for such a church to "wither on the vine."
Bush's Faith Based Initiative is properly named only if the initiative that motivates the church is to turn to the money trough with all the other hogs instead of showing their faith in their, er, faith. Obama mucking about with it will not change this or any other of the several distasteful problems with this Dim Witted FOOLISHNESS!
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | July 1, 2008 8:43 PM
Ugh. First the good Senator loses his spine on FISA and now this crap.
This is why I don't contribute to political campaigns. Granted, my bar may be set too high, but politicians will do anything to get elected.
It's nice that Obama is laying down some ground rules, but quite frankly this kind of government-sponsored religious welfare has to go.
BTW, is it true that under the current rules, a faith-based initiative can receive fed bucks and still discriminate based on religion?
Matt A
Posted by: Matt A | July 1, 2008 8:45 PM
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/07/01/faith/index.html
Apparently AP got it wrong? It seems that Obama's trying to roll back the changes that have been made during W's term and restore the safeguards, limit the faith-based stuff.
(Noticed here: http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/1062416.html?thread=15049232#t15049232)
Posted by: keri | July 1, 2008 8:50 PM
oh, wait, never mind. I misread one of the links and the salon article is referred to above already.
Posted by: keri | July 1, 2008 8:52 PM
I was raised in a religion that claims it doesn't proselytize, and we were out knocking on doors all over the place. I wonder how such programs are expected to be managed and monitored.
I think it's pretty straightforward. The federalis have been adding breaks and bonuses to religious groups for ages, funneling more and more tax dollars to churches. But Obama has a plan. There are strings attached. I think his ultimate objective is to become a kind of uberbishop of American churches.
Posted by: Dan Jensen | July 1, 2008 9:04 PM
It's a shit position, having to pander to idiots in order to gain support even though it violates the law of the land. When I saw the article on BBC news this morning I was disappointed.
Posted by: Kel | July 1, 2008 9:16 PM
Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs.
There's not practical way to separate the money like this. When churches receive money for charitable causes, they can use more of their own to proselytize. For all intents and purposes, they receive government grants to promote their religion.
Posted by: Neural Transmissions | July 1, 2008 9:32 PM
If it were my call Kel would win the thread with this near perfect line:
"It's a shit position, having to pander to idiots in order to gain support even though it violates the law of the land."
Yep. That just about sez all ya need to know.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | July 1, 2008 9:35 PM
Does that mean no more federal funds for the Boys Scouts?
Posted by: QueenoftheHarpies | July 1, 2008 9:37 PM
It's amusing to see all the leftists contort themselves to pretend that Obama's latest idiocy doesn't matter. It shows that what they want more than relief from Bush's religiousity is socialism, which they think Obama will give them.
Obama talks a great show but when you come right down to it, his ideas are half-baked. He's terrible on economics and very dubious on religion.
I'm sure the first knee-jerk reaction of many of will be: he's better than McCain. What they really mean is that they want the anti-success (anti-business, anti-wealth) programs he'll usher in, and don't much care what it takes to get it.
Posted by: MB | July 1, 2008 9:37 PM
My mother, a Christian, runs a faith-based initiative. Her company provides education to poor children. They've helped thousands and thousands of kids.
She wouldn't hire me because I am a gay. She probably turned down 3 out of 4 applicants because they did not agree with who SHE thought Jesus was. She won't hire gays, lesbians, atheists, Muslims, Catholics (yes--Catholics), Jews, agnostics, pagans, Hindus...Every employee has to sign a statement of faith--a statement that says, "I believe in Jesus, the trinity, sin, heaven and hell, God as the creator..." etc.
I'm glad she's helped the children, but it's angering that it has come at the expense of tax-payers dollars when it is a discriminatory group.
Funny enough, I work in Logistics so when she needed some help with setting up a transportation network for their summer camp...guess who they came to?
Posted by: Chris (in Columbus) | July 1, 2008 9:41 PM
Here is my post on a diary dealing with this on DailyKos, for which I was skewered mercilessly:
"I strenuously object to a single dime of my tax payments going to religiously-based organizations. This is supposed to be a secular republic, not a theocracy. The secular government agencies that are supposed to handle disasters and provide help to the poor could make a rapid return to health given the opportunity and funding. The churches can help as well, but with donations, not with our tax dollars.
It is absolutely critical that our society come to grips with reality and quit pinning our hopes for the future on prayers to one of any number of imaginary, omnipotent, supernatural beings that humans have dreamt up over the years."
Posted by: ChemBob | July 1, 2008 9:51 PM
This initiative is wholly unnecessary. Religious organizations have always drawn government funds, provided they set up a secular organization to receive, administer and report on the use of the funds. In other words they could not use the funds for anything related to the religious side. If they could I can guarantee that most would siphon off at least 50% for "administrative overhead." Among the rationales offered by Bush when he initiated his program was that setting up a secular organization was too much of a burden for small churches who didn't have the resources to run two separate sets of books and keep religious and charitable functions. In other words, let's give the little churches some walking around money to get them to vote for the Republicans.
If you haven't already, let the Obama campaign know this is unacceptable. I have but I've yet to get a reply, even though I've given close the limit this spring to his campaign and planned to do the same this fall, until this initiative surfaced last night.
Posted by: Keanus | July 1, 2008 10:05 PM
PZ, if you ever find yourself wavering on who to vote for, just close your eyes, click your heels and repeat the following: "it's all about the Supreme Court, it's all about the Supreme Court, it's all about the Supreme Court."
Every other issue pales in comparison to the fact that the next president will shape the face of the Supreme Court for the next 20 years.
Posted by: rich (richmanwisco) | July 1, 2008 10:07 PM
This stupidity, he voted for the FISA bill that gave retroactive immunity to the telcos' and he won't end the occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan. Why should I vote for this dweeb? Only on reason really, that he will appoint moderate conservative judges and not reactionary loons like Alito and Roberts. I'll still probably vote for him but campaign? No my time and money go into keeping marriage equality a reality in California
Posted by: Natasha Yar-Routh | July 1, 2008 10:11 PM
Obama could talk all day about his faith, go to church every Sunday, and end every speech with those mindlessly spoken three words, but establishing a religious council in his administration is going way too far. The Hitch is probably smirking somewhere right now.
How is expanding the role of faith groups in the federal government a relief from Bush religiosity? How is terminating their place in government akin to socialism?Posted by: aratina | July 1, 2008 10:43 PM
My take on this issue is that these initiatives can be a decent thing. I read a book by Jim Wallis, who had a lot of great ideas, including how to get faith-based initiatives to work. I think that you could secularize them and they would still work, but in this country the altruists among us are going to go for what we can get.
Posted by: matt | July 1, 2008 10:51 PM
What Zeekster said (#11).
Posted by: Jeff Chamberlain | July 1, 2008 10:52 PM
Here's the sad, sad truth folks, the secular vote is pretty small, nearly non-existant to really matter in American politics. Despite the right-wing's stereotype of "godless liberals", the average Democrat is just a likely to be a church-going believer as any Republican. He has to keep his own "Christian Left" in check as well as try to snag the evangelicals who are apparently leaving the GOP. In short, Obama can afford to tell us atheists to play in the traffic while pandering to the religionists on his side of the spectrum and the middle.
Me? Since I find that both parties are run by authoritarian control freaks and greedy sellouts, I don't have a horse to back in either case. Therefore, I'm witting in my own name on the ballot this November. At least I'd be voting for someone I actually agreed with.
Posted by: Mark A. Siefert | July 1, 2008 10:58 PM
Here's an interesting charity that would probably fall into the category of "faith based":
http://www.metrowestfreemedicalprogram.org/
http://resources.rj.org/Articles/index.cfm?id=1118
I suspect that this is the kind of operation that Obama has in mind. Could this have been done by a secular organization? Sure. In this case, however, it wasn't. For those who don't want to follow the links, they are about a program in Massachusetts that provides free medical care at a walk-in clinic to people without health insurance. I like how they combine care with advocacy to try and change our health care policies so that this medical program will no longer be needed.
Posted by: Jeff Alexander | July 1, 2008 10:59 PM
I have just the guy to administer it. :-)
Posted by: Orac | July 1, 2008 11:21 PM
OUCH!
does Eneman use "the force" in order to administer an 800 lb. enema?
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 1, 2008 11:23 PM
I don't know for sure what Obama's personal beliefs are, but I suspect I do. So I say pander, pander , pander! Join the Klan if it will get you votes. Obama can't change anything if he's sitting on his ass at home. If you have a problem with pandering, try thinking of it as "pretending for the greater good".
Posted by: Jose | July 1, 2008 11:25 PM
...would an 800 lb. enema administered by Darth Eneman result in the loss of many midichlorians?
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 1, 2008 11:25 PM
Death penalty for rapists.
Faith-based initiatives.
Glorifying the military.
Nowhere to be found on FISA.
I'm feeling left out in the cold!
Brrrrrrrr!
Posted by: CalGeorge | July 1, 2008 11:27 PM
The word we are looking for is "fungible." The money they get from us means that the money they get from their church-goin' donors can be used elsewhere. No matter what controls are in place, the dollars get laundered because it's fungible. FBI money directly supports the faith.
Posted by: homostoicus | July 1, 2008 11:41 PM
The other problem with faith-based initiatives is that there isn't a growing pool of money; the extra they're getting is being stripped away from secular organizations that already have a track record of success. Many social workers are in the position now of taking a job with a religious organization they may not agree with and keeping their mouths shut about it or not working at all. This is a bad, bad, bad government policy.
Posted by: Carlie | July 1, 2008 11:52 PM
Others have mentioned the Supreme Court. Iran's another good reason. How would you like paying about $10 bux a gallon once Hormuz is sealed off? I think concern about an attack on Iran is part of the reason ahl ("oil" to you non-Texans) is so high. A barrel would probably drop back around a hundred once an attack on Iran is out of the picture.
Posted by: Bacopa | July 1, 2008 11:56 PM
I am actually impressed with most of the comments here. I fully expected to see a lot of "still better than McCain" comments with a moiety of ditto heads.
Ann (#13), very well said. There's some critical thinking, people. Rich (#30), Supreme Court-appointments is very much my hot button issue. Only, which one does that mean you are voting for? MB (#26), that's a little harsh, but the sentiment is right on. Spunky Hussein Tuna (#7 - nice handle, btw), that camel smells really bad. I've no appetite for it.
I can't trust Obama on his faith position. Remember that church he attended for 20 years until it suddenly got noticed by the press? It sure makes McCain's faith seem timid. And at least McCain has some history fighting for campaign and lobby reform. If I had to vote today....
Posted by: homostoicus | July 2, 2008 12:02 AM
I think this is a case where the devil is in the details. On the bad side, Obama seems to be supporting and perpetuating an incredibly stupid policy. On the other hand, depending on how he implements his ideas, he could be putting any church that wants to take federal dollars in the position of having to do all the work of establishing a 501(c) (as commenters #5 and 29 above rightly observed that anybody can do anyway) in terms of regulatory compliance, reporting income, etc., but with none of the benefits of having a crony deal with the Bush White House in the bargain.
In which case we might see churches choosing to return to the old way of doing things, letting "faith-based initiatives" die a quiet death. It's not as satisfying as having a presidential candidate stand up and shout "faith-based initiatives are bullshit" from the rooftops, but that's not going to happen anytime soon anyway.
It might also be possible to leverage a faith-based initiatives program into a broader program for giving federal funds to local social services in general, especially if Obama were to decide at some point that no such program can really limit itself to discriminating in favor of churches (just has he says churches can't discriminate in their hiring and the distribution of services).
That's the optimistic view. On the other hand, Obama *has* just reversed himself on FISA, so he might just be doing the traditional thing of turning into a humongous tool before our eyes.
Posted by: Marvin | July 2, 2008 12:32 AM
McCain: "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."
Obama: ????
You guys can fill in the question marks. I can't remember anything of note on the subject from Obama.
Posted by: Jams | July 2, 2008 12:46 AM
If anyone's worried that Obama is somehow compromising his ideals here, don't forget that Bush & Co. pretended to be Christian in order to get elected, and they have never wavered from their true ideals. Of course, those ideals involve bathing in a Scrooge McDuck type money pit.
Scrooge McDuck
Posted by: Jose | July 2, 2008 12:51 AM
So, Jams, that must be why McCain has visited with Falwell.
Posted by: Tulse | July 2, 2008 12:52 AM
I've been predicting this would happen for years. Bush discovered that he could buy votes by funnelling taxpayers' dollars to religious groups. Wow! A new roof for the church! Thanks Mister President!!! And, as I predicted - rather than shut it down - the Democrats are promising to keep the money valve jammed open.
Bread and circuses.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 2, 2008 1:04 AM
Yeah. Not to mention John Hagee.
McPander, McPander, McPander.
Posted by: Kseniya | July 2, 2008 1:11 AM
"So, Jams, that must be why McCain has visited with Falwell." - Tulse
Do you know what "defined by" means?
Americans have a difficult choice. They can vote the Democratic party farther into the religious fold, or they can vote the Republican party out of it. Said another way, they can slide the Republicans left, or the Democrats right. Make no mistake... when Obama says he can "cross the isle", he's talking about religion. Did you think he meant something else?
Posted by: Jams | July 2, 2008 1:26 AM
They can vote the Democratic party farther into the religious fold, or they can vote the Republican party out of it.
talk about your false dichotomies.
uh, by voting the Republican party "out of it", surely you were thinking towards the election in 2012?
because you sure aren't thinking about John "I changed my very religion to placate the fundies" McCain.
Look, Jams, I think this has been mentioned to you sometime previously, but if a candidate placates religious fundies by doing what they want, it doesn't fucking matter if they "really" aren't fundies themselves.
when Obama says he can "cross the isle", he's talking about religion. Did you think he meant something else?
actually, yes, considering that typically that phrase means the candidate is technically willing to work with the opposition party.
it has nothing to do with religion on the face of it.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 2, 2008 1:34 AM
McCain: "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."
btw, IIRC, he said that during the 2000 election, where he blamed not getting the primary nod on his attacks on the religious right.
a mistake he seems bound and determined to "correct" in this election cycle.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 2, 2008 1:36 AM
Blah blah blah. Would anybody be complaining if Obama'd said nothing about faith-based initiatives? I doubt it. His position is better than the status quo. What more can one reasonably ask for? Baby steps, folks. The society of tomorrow appreciates your patience with regard to this matter.
Posted by: John | July 2, 2008 1:38 AM
Oh, come on and stop being so doctrinaire. Whatever you or I think about magic sky fairies, churches do server social functions that are only loosely fantasy based. What he's proposing is essentially using the existing organizational structure to accomplish social goods. As long as it's separated from the spread of woo, seems to be to be a very small camel to swallow for the potential good.
Loads of money went to things like alcoholics' anonymous, which include "accept your higher power" as one of the crucial steps in their doctrine. It's stealth religion.
But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Faith-based initiatives will be inherently skewed based on your dogma. Under the Bush administration's faith based initiatives, the US Taxpayers "donated" over $500 million spent on programs to TEACH ABSTINENCE AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO SAFE SEX TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF AIDS. That little bit of criminal irresponsiblity was entirely faith-based; nobody but a sexually hung up christard would cook up a dumb ass idea like trying to tell teenagers not to experiment with their bodies.
The basic problem with faith based whatever is that it will adopt the stupid parts of the faith where they conflict with common sense. Perhaps it would be clearer if the taxpayers spent $500 million on a hindu-based program that taught that AIDS really isn't a problem, since you're going to get reincarnated anyhow.
I don't know if it's still on there but if you followed the links from whitehouse.gov to the faith based initiatives site there was a PDF of where all the money has been going. A new church roof for a mega-church in texas. Missionary groups going to help the poor starving africans (no, no, surely they won't try to preach at all!) etc. Make sure you are sitting back from your keyboard so that you don't fucking vomit into it. It's that horrifying.
Jesus is such a cunt; why can't he just blinkblink up a couple tons of gold bars for his followers to do thier good works with? Or maybe he could repeat the loaves and the fishes trick? It's just so bizzare that churches are always so concerned with money money money in the here and now, isn't it? And if someone says "the lord DID provide: in the form of the US taxpayer" I will reach across the internet and bitch slap you, so don't do it.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 2, 2008 1:38 AM
...and I am correct, you dishonest little shit.
McCain did indeed say that in 2000:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0002/28/se.01.html
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 2, 2008 1:38 AM
As I read the comments on this thread, I see people trying to make excuses for our venal, corrupt, cowardly, helpless presidential candidates. Isn't it pathetic that america has not been able to offer its people a choice other than 'the lesser of two evils' for decades?
And, on the flip side, the most recent president who stands by his convictions is, unfortunately, convinced that the executive branch is more like the "monarchy branch" and openly admits he gets advice on foreign policy from his imaginary playmate. So just color us screwed; we either have cowards or nutbags, crooks or crazies, panderers or ranting loons, inflexible psychos or wishy-washy poll-whores.
I'm going to go downstairs and drink a big glass of scotch and burn my voter's card.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 2, 2008 1:47 AM
Making observations and excuses aren't always the same thing
Posted by: Kel | July 2, 2008 2:00 AM
The problem with this whole thing is not so much the idea of giving moneys to faith-based programs. I mean it is, of course, but the point Obama is trying to make is that the moneys given will be given only to certain programs and there will be oversight. How is that oversight achieved?
There certainly could be strict regulation of these programs and serious oversight. The government doesn't currently have the money to fund these kinds of things and there likely isn't much motivation to create the kind of agency power to do this effectively. And even if that were to be enacted, there is the point of accountability. In the long run, the only final check on this kind of program is the courts. What happens if the oversight fails (which it will in some instances)?
The courts are the only recourse. The problem then becomes the usual problems of dealing with legal proceedings. It costs money to take things to the courts. The ACLU does a wonderful job (along with Americans United, Barry Lynn is phenomenal), but they have limited resources. The final issue, of course, comes down to having a reliable complainant in a civil action. When dealing with these sorts of things it can be hard to find someone who is willing and able to take it to the courts.
A perfect example is court enforced Alcoholics Anonymous attendance. There is little to no evidence that AA actually works very well. There is also little ability for other forms of treatment to take hold in broad manners because the courts can just toss someone into AA with little oversight or expectation of success. They've had this sewn up for decades.
Certainly AA works for some people. But they won't share their numbers as to how many people actually are helped and there's an assumption that only a few will be helped and that's just the nature of the illness. But the courts send people to AA. What happens if an alcoholic can't except the faith-based assumptions of AA? Well, they have no recourse. Unfortunately, alcoholics can be very unreliable complainants. Thus AA stays the only game in town in large parts of the country. And this is an obvious civil liberties violation.
It's best to avoid any of these kinds of entanglements from the beginning. Obama should know this.
Posted by: phat | July 2, 2008 2:09 AM
You cannot rationally evaluate Obama's plan without reading his fact sheet:
http://i.usatoday.net/news/mmemmottpdf/obama-faith-fact-sheet-july-1-2008.pdf
Note that it's called "President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships", and the fact sheet says "Barack Obama believes that our problems require an "all hands on deck" approach, and the government should enlist effective faith-based and community groups to help solve them."
The fact is that Obama is a Christian and believes all that nonsense. But he's also a community organizer and grassroots/bottom-up oriented. I could be mistaken, but I think he sincerely believes that this is a good and effective approach. It's fraught with all the obvious dangers, and Obama may be living in fantasyland to think that he can pull this off without it being abused ... but it's already being grossly abused under Bush and will continue to be under McCain, especially if he gets the opportunity to appoint yet another member of Opus Dei to the Supreme Court.
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 2:33 AM
Isn't it pathetic that america has not been able to offer its people a choice other than 'the lesser of two evils' for decades?
It's fun to blame 300-million member group nouns, but I don't see you running for office. And, "the lesser of two evils" is a tautology -- an intellectually dishonest one, as "the better of two choices" is equivalent.
I'm going to go downstairs and drink a big glass of scotch and burn my voter's card.
Truly a man of action.
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 2:37 AM
Time for an unreality check:
1) How much money has the Bush administration actually provided to faith-based initiatives?
"Billions has been promised - $8 billion in the first year alone. We were $7,969,000,000 short of that promise. This was halfway through the next year. There should have been $16 billion. All we had managed to get in the federal budget for the Compassion Capital Fund was $30 million."
As best as I can tell, it was mostly a vote-getting sham. Wikipedia on OFBCI talks about several $B going to faith-based organizations, but if so, it's pretty hard to find when rummaging around OFBCI or the COmpassion Capital Fund, which generally distributed roughly $40-$50m/year. it is nontrivial to figure out how much new money is actually going where ... which may be the goal.
Quote above is p.211 from Tempting Faith - Inside Political Seduction by David Kuo, who was Deputy Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives ... until he couldn't stand it any more.
Another quote, p.228:
"This approach allowed the White House to make grand announcements and then do nothing to implement them with impunity."
And, about the day he quit, he describes his exit meeting with Andy Card, ending with, p. 243:
"And finally sir, this thought. I don't know if you are aware of this, but your staff frequently refers to the faith-based initiative as the 'f*#$ing faith-based initiative.' That doesn't help."
Anyone who wants to talk about how this stuff does or doesn't work in the Bush Administration really needs to read this, plus look up John DiIulio. Atheists will have to get past some of the language, but Kuo's book is very educational.
=====
Hence, I offer another reason (beyond separation of church and state)why special Federal grants and such are probably a really bad idea.
I've seen a few churches actually perform useful, secular community services that nobody else was willing to do, usually because they could mobilize a little money, their physical facilities, and mostly, a lot of volunteer labor. I'd say their cost/performance was pretty good, and a kneejerk reaction that says such don't exist is out of touch with reality. I'd guess that both church and secular organizations are normally distributed like many other things - there are good ones, average ones, and bad ones.
Hence, in theory, I'd be perfectly happy if churches competed with other organizations for grant money, under the rules Obama describes.
BUT, I always recall the old saw:
"In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they aren't."
And Kuo's book, esp. p214-215 makes it clear that most organizations would never manage to get such grants, and that "Many of the grant-winning organizations that rose to the top of this process were politically friendly to the administration....
It was obvious that the ratings were a farce..."
I.e., I'd bet the effective organizations, who might actually help some people, would often lose out, having time and effort messing around with this.
In any case, for this type of activity, which is effective or not on a local basis, how can it make any sense to:
a) Tax people across the US, collecting a pot of money sent to Washington, DC.
b) Then, in Washington, put organizations through the hoops to get back a fraction of the total money paid in.
This totally violates the principle of subsidiarity, i.e., that one ought to do things at the lowest level of government able to do it. While many efforts may be appropriate for the Federal government, it's hard to understand why this is one of them, even if everything were honestly run.
For one thing, I would bet anything that state and local government people have much better calibration of which local institutions actually do useful work, or not, than someone hired in Washington to evaluate masses of paper proposals.
Posted by: John Mashey | July 2, 2008 2:40 AM
they can slide the Republicans left
Only by punishing their radical rightism by voting them out en masse.
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 2:44 AM
Isn't it pathetic that america has not been able to offer its people a choice other than 'the lesser of two evils' for decades?
spiral!
spiral!
:p
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 2, 2008 2:47 AM
If anyone's worried that Obama is somehow compromising his ideals here
These have been his ideals for a long time. See his "call to renewal" speech, http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/index.php, which he gave two years ago and which has been discussed at length here, and recently in the "news" because of James Dobson's attack on it.
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 2:48 AM
Indeed. As I noted at length in that previous thread, that is such a stupid argument ... I'm not surprised to see Ranum taking it up.
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 2:54 AM
actually, it just reminded me of the argument, and I should immediately clarify that I don't see Marcus extending the tautology in the same way as whathisname (already forgotten) did.
Really, I wouldn't want to attach that particular idiocy to anyone in particular without them actually attempting to lay claim to it directly themselves, and wouldn't want to attach it to Marcus in this case.
guilty of using the tautology? yes.
Guilty of extending it into a "slope" argument? Naw.
It was just such a remarkably ridiculous argument, that forevermore when I see "lesser of two evils" I will end up recalling it.
Posted by: Ichthyic | July 2, 2008 3:04 AM
You guys can fill in the question marks. I can't remember anything of note on the subject from Obama.
How convenient, and dishonest. Present a specific statement by one person, and then say you can't remember the other person ever echoing it, shifting the burden onto others to rebut your unsupported position. But in fact Obama has spoken out against pandering many times, for instance on the gas tax nonsense. Beyond that, I'm not going to waste my time searching for something to fill in your ridiculous "????".
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 3:06 AM
I don't see Marcus extending the tautology in the same way as whathisname (already forgotten) did.
I agree that Phaedrus's "spiral downward" argument was particularly demented, but I don't think Ranum's "not been able ... for decades" isn't really all that different. The fundamental foolishness is in the "lesser of two evils" formulation, especially when we have managed to choose what is clearly the greater of two evils ... with some help from those who make the wrong-headed argument.
Speaking of tautogies: "america has not been able to offer its people ..." is an odd formulation ... which seems to rest on the same sort of passivity and victimhood that leads people to mistake not voting for action. People on this blog should be able to understand that "america" is a dynamic ecology, not some external agent separate from "its people".
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 3:18 AM
It's not being grossly abused by Bush. It's part of their plan. That's the whole point. You can say that a violation is an abuse, I suppose, but that's not really the case with any of Bush's faith-based policies. It's a concerted and specific plan to hamstring the Federal Government.
Claiming that it could be a good idea, when there are fundamental problems involved in the whole enterprise is an exercise in willful ignorance, straight-up ignorance or straight-out dishonesty.
These things do not work out well when held under the microscope of honest Constitutional scrutiny.
This may be a political ploy on Obama's part, sure. But what is the cost and/or gain of such a move?
I'll work my ass off to get this guy elected, in fact, I already am. But some modicum of criticism should be allowed in the process.
Otherwise, what's the point of reasoned discourse and the whole democratic experiment?
Posted by: phat | July 2, 2008 3:20 AM
Oh, and speaking out against "pandering" doesn't (and hasn't) stopped politicians from doing it.
I can tell you that I think it's bad to eat a Big Mac, for all sorts of reasons, that doesn't mean I haven't done it recently (although I usually go for the Jr. Cheeseburger deal).
Posted by: phat | July 2, 2008 3:27 AM
On the other hand, Obama *has* just reversed himself on FISA
That's misleading. Obama has consistently opposed immunity. The only thing he reversed himself on is his pledge to filibuster a bill that contains immunity; he has said that he will try to remove it, but that if he can't (and he has no chance of doing so) he will vote for it anyway. That's distressing, and the "security" language that he used to justify his stance is disturbingly familiar, but it's also a political calculation, as a filibuster is sure to fail and Obama is constantly fighting the "weak on security"/"traitor"/"muslim" memes, and must "act tough". It won't do any good for Obama to be pure if he isn't elected, and insisting on it too much starts to look downright autistic -- mistaking one's own beliefs for those of the population at large.
Posted by: truth machine | July 2, 2008 3:33 AM
"Barack Obama believes that our problems require an "all hands on deck" approach, and the government should enlist effective faith-based and community groups to help solve them."
Where exactly is the line drawn in terms of "effective"?
What happens when we add more bureaucratic nonsense to a policy? If we claim that faith-based policies are effective (something we don't know, as these policies in his plan aren't really listed in detail) what then do we expect from the oversight of these policies? There are specific rules that the Constitution mandates when dealing with religion. Why add more bureaucracy in terms of oversight? Why not just spend the funds in a more direct manner? Why not just let the various agencies use the same auditing procedures they use for everything else in government without having to audit a separate organization? That strikes me as a rats nest.
If you are of the opinion that the government can't audit itself effectively (which isn't unreasonable) why add yet another level of accountability with added rules?
Aside from the church/state issues, it strikes me as being even more impractical to add another level of accountability.
Churches have enough leeway to do what they do anyway and enforcing those rules (501(c)3 and such) isn't very easy.
More hoops to jump through doesn't make government's job any easier or more efficient.
Posted by: phat | July