As expected, the Religious Right is not happy with Obama's recently announced faith-based charity plan. Oh, they like the money just fine. And, at the moment, they are saying nothing about the requirement to not discriminate against clients. It's the employee non-discrimination thing that sticks in their throats. Richard Land, chief lobbyist for the Southern Baptist Convention put it this way:
"If you can’t hire people within your faith community, then you’ve lost the distinctive that is the reason why faith-based programs exist in the first place.”
Jim Towey, who was director of Bush's faith office declared Obama's plan, "unmanageable — and besides those folks want to hire people who share their vision and mission.” But what difference does the faith (or it's lack) of an employee make if he ascribes to the mission -- to feed the hungry and house the homeless? And if you can't keep proselytizing out of your service, there is always private money.
That is exactly what some religious commentators worried about when the office/plan was originally announced. I recall people like Jerry Falwell warning groups that to take the money of the government now would be to face changes that might not be palatable to them from future governments. I think Robertson was on that bandwagon at the time, too.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct in your point about hiring people and feeding the hungry, etc. But let's face it, for some groups this was about proselytizing while feeding, clothing, etc. They just wanted the government to fund such work.
an individuals faith has zero to do with helping out, this is part of their plan to make us a christian nation
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