In an ideal world, I would like to see Bush’s “faith based” initiative shut down by whomever becomes our next president. Yet yesterday, one of our presidential candidates, Barack Obama, announced a proposal to expand faith-based funding. I must admit I was disappointed by the news. I hope that if Obama is elected, as a former teacher of constitutional law, he will remember the importance and necessity for separation of church and state.

Yesterday, he promised he would. He insisted that he would bar government-funded proselytism and religious discrimination in hiring when tax dollars are involved. That’s certainly a big step in the right direction. Tax dollars should never subsidize evangelism, and Americans should never be denied a government-funded job because they have the “wrong” beliefs about religion.

The Bush administration took the opposite approach, repeatedly insisting that religious charities can discriminate on religious grounds in hiring staff when running publicly funded programs. There were also disturbing reports of bias in selecting religious charities for funding, and well-documented examples of misuse of the initiative to advance partisan political goals.

Religion does best when left alone by the government. Ministries should be supported by private donations, not public funds. If religious charities seek public money, they need to be prepared to play by the same rules that everyone else does. Fortunately, Obama seems to be on board with that view.

–Sandhya Bathija, Communications Associate

Permalink | Comment on this post (1)

By Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Politics, Presidential Campaign .