Obama To Expand Faith-Based Programs

Obama, in a major speech on religion today, is set to announce an expansion of faith-based programs, and one provision may start off a controversy here on Dailykos, which is the ability of these organizations to hire and fire based upon faith. Obama supports that.

There's more in the AP article here:

CHICAGO - Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans that would expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support their ability to hire and fire based on faith.

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.

He also proposes a $500 million per year program to provide summer learning for 1 million poor children to help close achievement gaps with white and wealthier students. A campaign fact sheet said he would pay for it by better managing surplus federal properties, reducing growth in the federal travel budget and streamlining the federal procurement process.

Obama does not support requiring religious tests for aid recipients nor using federal money to proselytize, the official said.

While this may set off a firestorm on the left, I think of this as being politically pragmatic in appealing to the religious voters that John McCain has paid very little attention to. This may very well put McCain's campaign on the defensive in appealing to religious voters. This policy approach is also designed to boost Barack Obama's credentials on faith in the light of the viral e-mail smears about his faith, and many of the proposals are also designed to help boost progressive churches.

He is going to be talking very bluntly about religion and the role of faith in Zanesville Ohio, at 1PM. I'll be adding more to this diary later on if I get a copy of Barack Obama's speech on this issue.

And here's another snippet from the article to quiet down the hyperventilations:

Obama does not see a need to push for a law to make this program work as Bush did, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.

Here's more from the Obama campaign memo:

Obama will create a President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

As Barack Obama has said many times, he believes that change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. And many of the challenges we face today—from saving our planet to ending poverty—are simply too big for government to solve alone. We need all hands on deck.

That’s why Obama will help draw on their strength of these groups through the creation of a new President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Obama does not believe that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular nonprofits, or that they’re better at lifting people but. But what he does believe is that we all have to work together to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Obama’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will help empower grassroots faith-based and community groups to help meet these challenges.

The partnership will not endanger the separation of church and state—but will harness the energy of these critical groups

The new partnership will not endanger the separation of church and state, so long as a few basic principles are followed. First, if an organization gets a federal grant, it will not be permitted to use that grant money to proselytize to the people it serves, and the group will forbidden to discriminate against them on the basis of their religion. And groups will be required to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws in their hiring practices—including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques will only be allowed to go toward secular programs. And Obama will ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.

Innovative new programs: training larger organizations to support smaller ones, and expanding summer learning programs to serve one million students

Barack Obama will work with the hundreds of religious and community groups that understand the process to train the thousands of groups that don’t. The Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will "train the trainers" by giving larger faith-based partners like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Services—and secular nonprofits like Public/Private Ventures—the support they need to help other groups build and run effective programs.

And the Council will target key challenges like closing the achievement gap. Obama will expand nonprofit summer learning programs to serve one million students by developing partnerships with faith-based and community groups. This partnership won’t just help children learn—it will help keep them off the streets during the summer so they don’t turn to crime.