Obama Should Keep Promise to Fix ‘Faith-Based’ Initative
Church-State Watchdog Group Urges Obama To Keep Promise To Fix ‘Faith-Based’ Initiative
On One-Year Anniversary Of Obama ‘Faith-Based’ Plan, President Should Ban Government-Funded Religious Bias And Proselytizing, Says AU
February 2, 2010
President Barack Obama should honor his pledge to reform the “faith-based” initiative by banning job discrimination in tax-funded programs and making it clear that public funds cannot support proselytizing, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
In a letter sent to Obama today, Americans United urged the president to reverse Bush-era faith-based policies that remain in effect today and follow through on reforms he proposed when he was a candidate.
“We’ve waited long enough,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “The faith-based initiative has serious constitutional defects, and it’s time for a fix. Billions of federal tax dollars are going out the door without adequate religious liberty and civil rights safeguards.”
In a July 1, 2008, speech in Zanesville, Ohio, Obama promised to end Bush administration policies that allowed publicly funded faith-based social services to proselytize and discriminate in hiring on religious grounds.
Read the full press release at www.au.org
Hrafnkell Haraldsson is the author of A Heathen’s Day, which since 2005 has addressed the life and thoughts of a modern day Heathen. He is also the founder of the Mos Maiorum Foundation (www.mosmaiorum.org) which is dedicated to the study and support of Paganism as ethnic religion and writes for PoliticusUSA (www.politicususa.com) 
Back in 1964, I voted for Johnson because I believed that if Goldwater were elected he would escalate the war in Vietnam.
I imagine that the people who voted for Obama must be feeling much the same outrage that I did when Johnson proceeded to do all, and more than all, that we had feared that Goldwater would do.
I remember my parents talking about that business with Goldwater and Johnson. I was 7 at the time. Barry Goldwater is not a name I’ve thought about in a long time!
And yes, as a person who voted for Obama I am not entirely happy with how things have fallen out. I don’t believe he is really a progressive, for example. I think he’s more of a centrist. While I loved how he doled it out to the GOP at the Q&A the other day, I’d like to see more than just rhetoric. But that’s a post for another day – and another blog.