Church-State Separatists Disappointed, Not Panicked, Over Obama Plan

by Josh Gerstein
Tue, 1 Jul 2008 at 2:41 PM

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A wave of concern spread among activists for church-state separation this morning as reports circulated that Senator Obama was planning to announce a faith-based initiative that would permit faith-related groups to fire and hire on the basis of religion while operating government-funded programs. However, Mr. Obama's actual pronouncement was less alarming to critics of the Bush Administration's faith-based policy, as the presumptive Democratic nominee made clear that non-discrimination rules would follow tax money and religious groups couldlimit hiring to their own faithful only on privately-funded programs.

"There was a bit of panic around here when the first reports came in," a spokeman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Robert Boston, said. However, the panic has subsided as it became clear Mr. Obama did not intend to allow religious-based discrimination with taxpayer money. "It's not full-blown like we first thought," Mr. Boston said.

During a news conference following his speech in Zanesville, Ohio today, Mr. Obama was asked to clarify his stance. "If a church or a synagogue wants to hire using its own money for its own membership, they can obviously hire people of their own faith. That makes perfect sense If they are getting federal money to run programs that are providing services to the public, then both in the provision of those services and in the hiring they have to abide by Title VII rules," he said. Asked about hiring gays in such programs, Mr. Obama noted there is no federal law against sexual-orientation discrimination, but he said religious groups would have to abide by state laws which bar the practice.

In a written statement this afternoon, the executive director of Americans United, Reverend Barry Lynn, described Mr. Obama's faith-based foray as misguided. "I am disappointed," Rev. Lynn said. "This initiative has been a failure on all counts, and it ought to be shut down, not expanded." However, the church-state separation activist welcomed the presumptive Democratic nominee's talk about enforcing the anti-discrimination rules. "It is imperative that public funds not pay for proselytizing or subsidize discrimination in hiring," Rev. Lynn said. "Obama has promised that he will not support publicly funded proselytism or discrimination in hiring, and that's an important commitment."

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