It has been suggested that Sen. Obama is a "natural" for the Catholic vote. Ryan Anderson argues here that, in fact, the Catholic-vote "natural" is Sen. McCain. And around we go . . . .
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Who's the Catholic-vote "natural"?
Obama's Faith-Based Plan and Evangelicals
If Obama's faith-based plan was intended in part to woo evangelicals, it's going to face a major obstacle:
Mr. Obama’s position that religious organizations would not be able to consider religion in their hiring for such programs would constitute a deal-breaker for many evangelicals, said several evangelical leaders, who represent a political constituency Mr. Obama has been trying to court.
“For those of who us who believe in protecting the integrity of our religious institutions, this is a fundamental right,” said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. “He’s rolling back the Bush protections. That’s extremely disappointing.”
Rich Cizik is one of those centrist evangelicals who's broadened the public policy focus to include issues like global warming. If he (understandably) finds the hiring-rights issue a deal-breaker, most evangelical leaders and social services will as well. Of course, some evangelical voters may overlook that issue and respond positively to the general plan, and nudging a few more toward Obama may be all that his campaign expects politically.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Obama's Faith-Based Initiative
Barack Obama is giving a speech today committing to expand the federal "faith-based initiative" in terms of the amount of federal funding for religious and other community-based social services. But unlike Bush, Obama would not allow an organization to "use [the federal] grant money" to "discriminate against ... the people [it] hire[s]" on the basis of religion. The AP story is here; an advance text of the speech is here.
Providing greater funding to this effort than the Bush administration did is, as I've argued, a good and necessary thing. But, as several of us here have argued, an organization hiring employees based on religion to carry out its mission should not be seen as practicing improper discrimination; and excluding those organizations is likely to undercut the breadth and effectiveness of the program. Obama's speech also mentions that "directly" funded programs must remain secular in content. This is a feature of the Bush initiative too; and Obama's language suggests perhaps that programs serving individuals receiving federal vouchers (i.e. programs that are "indirectly" funded) may have religious content. More details to come, no doubt.
UPDATE: Here are the details of the plan from Obama's website; positive comments on it from former Bush faith-based czar John d'Iulio; and a critical analysis from Greg Baylor of the Christian Legal Society, which defends the right of religious organizations to hire on the basis of faith considerations.
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