You’ll get no argument from me. I volunteer on a board overseeing federal block grants to local social-service agencies, and plenty of them go to religious charities, with proper scrutiny, of course (and this stuff long predates Bush.) To me, Obama’s plan sounds like taking things back to where they were before Bush screwed it up, while co-opting Bush’s language to attract the portion of people fooled by Bush who were actually well-intentioned.

I would rather that the state distanced itself as far from these faith-based organizations as possible, largely because I don’t trust the organizations themselves not to proselytize. That’s not really a slam on the organizations—their underlying purpose is to gain new adherents, and it’s generally a function of their belief system that it’s their prime goal, so I get the difficulty in separating the two functions. And some of them manage to do a very good job of keeping the two separate.

Yes, but not all religions are proselytizing religions.  This is a problem that Christian and Muslim groups face, and then that’s pretty much it.

But too many of them don’t. Plus there’s the fact that non-christian groups get shafted in this deal.

I haven’t read the fine print, but how do you know that’s the case?  I’d assume, at the very least, that a variety of Jewish groups qualify.  For instance I noticed recently that one of the Reform synagogues near where I live has some kind of daycare center/headstart program for low income families, the sort of thing I guess we’re talking about when we talk about faith based community services.  Why would that be ineligible for federal funding, while an identical program run via a church would be eligible?

The problem I have is…  From my understanding, the organizations are only not required to follow federal hiring guideline with services using the government funds.  If they have divisions that are not accounted as using federal funds, those parts do not have to follow federal guidelines.  It just seems that it would be impossible to monitor because the accounting can just juggle the money around and avoid regulations.  And as Incertus said, “faith-based” seems to mean “christian”.  If the faith-based money was spread out among all faiths, I suppose I would find it a little less disconcerting, but only a little.

Eh, in the town where I live the local soup kitchen, DV shelter, homeless shelter and I think the food bank as well are all run by the same organization, Bread of Life Ministries.  This freaked me a bit until I figured out it wasn’t a fundy front but an ecumenical organization (supported by both the local Unitarian Universalist Church & the local Catholic combined parish and probably everyone between them at very least.)

If they’re going to fund “faith-based” orgs, I’d rather see them fund ones like this than sectarian causes, if only because it’s a lot harder to get stuck on any one denomination’s specific theological agenda when you’re in a (comparatively) diverse ecumenical group.

(Caveat, I don’t know of any congregations in this town that aren’t some flavor of Christian for variously strict or loose definitions thereof, with my UU’s being about as close to the fringe as we get around here - the nearest synagogue I know of is in a town twenty miles one way and the nearest mosque about forty miles a different direction, so “diversity” is relative.)

And as Incertus said, “faith-based” seems to mean “christian”.  If the faith-based money was spread out among all faiths, I suppose I would find it a little less disconcerting, but only a little.

And again, what evidence do we have that this is not the case?

I mean, I’m sure it’s the case that there are more Christian groups applying for this type of aid, simply because there are more Christians in the US than all other religions (and atheists) combined.  I’m also sure it’s the case that in a lot of smaller cities and towns in Teh Hartlayund, there’s not going to be that nice Synagogue in the neighborhood with the federally subsidized daycare center, because there aren’t any Synagogues, because there aren’t any Jews. 

But a lot of other very legitimate religions have a strong tradition of community service, and I haven’t seen anything that suggests that those religious nonprofits would be ineligible.  I mean, sure, when you get to shit like “Jedi” where you’re really talking about 1000 or so d00ds out there who so far have not gotten together to provide services to their communities in an observable way, maybe you have a point—but then if those Jedi d00ds ever got a real nonprofit together, sure they should be eligible just like anyone else…

But a lot of other very legitimate religions have a strong tradition of community service, and I haven’t seen anything that suggests that those religious nonprofits would be ineligible.

See, I’ve always seen the point of religious service that you give of yourself to those less fortunate, rather than giving taxpayer money to help those less fortunate. It’s tied up in sacrifice, and sacrificing someone else’s resources doesn’t seem like a sacrifice to me.

I’m not saying they would be ineligible—just that they would be ignored, or their applications inexplicably lost, etc. The Jewish groups would be the exception, basically because they have political clout. But how much clout do Muslims have in the US?

I’m sorry, but I think that’s bullshit.

Not so much because I think it would never happen, but because I don’t think “well some people might be bigots…” is a good reason not to allow a perfectly worthwhile proposal (if one thinks faith-based nonprofit funding is otherwise worthwhile, which I’m not entirely sure that I do, actually).  I mean, can you imagine someone saying, “I think the public school system should be abolished because some teachers or administrators might be racist”?  B U L L S H I T.

I found myself very wary this morning when I heard that Obama was talking about faith-based social services. But then I thought of my grandmother living in a Lutheran-run retirement community that probably has more Jewish residents than Christian ones (the chaplain is Jewish, which cracks me up because you’d think they would have a Lutheran or at least a Christian chaplain). And for all its anti-gay politics, I have done some work with the local Salvation Army chapter in December and they made late December happy for about 500 local children with zero proselytizing. (My part was tiny - collecting from some people and delivering the toys and clothing to their headquarters, but it was interesting because I also got to see their process of taking in gifts, logging what they had, and sending them out for delivery to families in need.

See, I’ve always seen the point of religious service that you give of yourself to those less fortunate, rather than giving taxpayer money to help those less fortunate. It’s tied up in sacrifice, and sacrificing someone else’s resources doesn’t seem like a sacrifice to me.

When my sister was a teenager, she got involved with a synagogue project that provided the same kind of service as Meals on Wheels, but kosher meals for Jewish people who were home-bound or found cooking for themselves difficult. I have no idea how this group was funded. My guess is that it has a grant from a social services agency of some kind. A bunch of teenagers could not afford to buy ingredients to make meals for however many people they were serving. Their sacrifice was giving an afternoon after school each week to come to the synagogue and cook together in the kitchen there under the supervision of adults who were also volunteering their time. Other adults volunteered their time to deliver the meals.

The meals they provide happen to be for seniors or people with disabilities who have a desire for a kosher meal and are therefore typically Jewish, but the group will provide the meals to any person in their delivery area who asks for one. They don’t ask anyone’s religion, and Judaism is a non-proselytizing religion anyway. (In fact, officially we discourage converting from other religions though if someone wants to become Jewish there is a process.) Someone delivering a meal would only ask after seeing a mezuzah on the door and religious items inside, and then the question would probably be, “Do you have someone to spend the holidays with?” and not “Do you attend a synagogue?”

So I think social services can be completely separate from the religious aspect. Whether it’s a secular community action agency running the local food bank or day care, or the local church, it doesn’t matter so much to me as long as there is no discrimination in hiring (and we need that trans-inclusive ENDA now) and that all people with the need are able to benefit equally without hearing a single word about anyone’s faith. There’s no good reason a religious group can’t do a toy drive or meal delivery service or subsidized day care, but I think we’re all more than a bit suspicious of anything that has a hint of something the Bush administration threw its weight behind.

There doesn’t, and Obama’s proposal is actually for an office of “Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships,” so it seems to put both religious and nonreligious groups on the same footing. I suspect that the reasons for explicitly including “Faith-based” in the name is partly a recognition that religious groups do a large portion of this kind of work, and partly as an effort to seem inclusive to the well-intentioned people who were taken in by Bush’s bamboozling.

Are “faith based” partnerships not “neighborhood”?

Sounds like a marketing thing. Anything that introduces sanity in a way that SOUNDS acceptable to fundnuts, I’m in favor of.

MAJeff, would you preder it be called “Faith-Based and Non-Faith-Based Partnerships”? Or simply “Partnerships”? If it’s the same thing, why pick the name that will generate “Obama hates Christians” ads as opposed to “Obama isn’t a scary atheist afterall” ads?

Would a rose by any other name….?

Just writing to reinforce the questions about why a specific “faith-based” office is necessary. If it’s a matter expanding funding outside the standard pool of federal grant receipients, I’m sure there are plenty of small, secular organizations that could do a great deal of good, and could use a hand navigating the federal granting process. There’s no need to restrict the outreach and initiative to “religious” social services orgs. only. During the Bush years, the whole thing’s been little more than a way to channel money to BushCo insiders and enablers. It’s likely that whatever an Obama administration came up with would be vastly superior, if only because it would be honest. But still, those taxpayer dollars would be going to religious organizations. And then there’s the practical problem of oversight. How much would it cost the gov’t to ensure that there was no proselytizing or discrimination? It seems impractical in addition to all the other problems.

i’m somewhat conflicted about this whole issue.  in general, i’ve always in the past been not in favor of government funding of faith-based charities, because i’ve seen it as a subsidy for religion.

however, in the last couple of years i’ve become an active volunteer for habitat for humanity, which is a faith-based group at its core, though i’m not sure about its actual tax status.  (i’m an atheist, btw, but that doesn’t matter to HfH).  the thing is, HfH gets a lot of great press about how they build houses for low income people using volunteer labor, and it’s true that they do and it is a good thing, but -

i also know now that they rely heavily on government grant money that is set aside specifically for funding low-income housing projects.  and they’re out there doing the work - they’re getting people to donate materials and come swing hammers and the houses are getting built.

so it feels a bit hypocritical of me to be opposed to this process when, in fact, i’m heavily involved in it.

i don’t know.  i understand all the arguments about separation of church and state, and agree with them.  but then when i see the system working really really well, like it does with a group like HfH, it’s hard to advocate for cutting their HUD funding - and crippling them.

btw, the HUD funding is typically on a project-by-project basis, and applied for by local chapters and administered through local governments.  it’s not like the federal government cuts a great big check to Habitat for Humanity International each year for them to do what they please with.  there are very strict rules and a lot of strings attached for how the money is spent.

Are “faith based” partnerships not “neighborhood”?  That seems redundant.

Other way around—not all of the “neighborhood” partnerships are going to be faith-based, so you want to specify that the office is not only for faith-based organizations, though it does include them.

“I haven’t seen anything that suggests that those religious nonprofits would be ineligible”

You may want to search for articles about Prison Chaplains and the religious reich inflitrating the US Air Force Academy as well as the military in general.

Wasn’t there some flack about Pat Robertson’s charities getting money from the Bush faith based initiatives office but weren’t doing any charity work for Katrina disaster relief?

You should also look into what the guy who spearheaded the office a Mr. David Kuo said about how it became politizied and Bush fooled the religious people who wanted to do charity work and not prosteliyze.

Sorry but some groups should not get any funding whatsoever unless they get put under the proverbial microscope. If they screw up then the funding gets yanked and they have to pay the tax payers back from the coffers of the churches behind the group.

Also to get funding the groups must put up an equilvant amount say 50,000 to run soup kitchens with the goverment putting out another 50,000.

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