AP: Bullying Bloggers And Lying About Democrats!

It shouldn't be too surprising that Barack Obama, who started his community organizing career working for a local church helping displaced steelworkers, would see some value in faith-based initiatives. And Bush's iteration of this policy was to talk about faith-based anti-poverty policies and then hand out cash to rich megachurches who did no such thing, so if money would legitimately be channeled to fight poverty I don't really care about the conduit. Where I drew the line is if Obama supported the ability for churches to fire workers based on their faith, as this AP article asserts.

According to Obama's own speech, that's not true:

"Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea - so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them - or against the people you hire - on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work."

Churches already have a place in many communities, so they're an efficient conduit for these types of programs. Soup kitchens are often in church basements, and even as a secular humanist that doesn't make me jittery. If Obama is true to his word here, he's showing a respect for those church organizations who work to improve the lives of those in their community, as well as respecting the letter of the law.

The AP isn't getting their facts right. I know the blogosphere is in a mode where they assume the worst about Obama, and certainly it's merited in some cases. But while you can argue with this policy, he's not allowing discrimination.

UPDATE: Digby disagrees. I understand that she considers tax-exempt status to be a quid-pro-quo relationship for charity work. My preference would be to either codify that or to eliminate the tax exemption, something we'll never see. I don't know, this just doesn't bug me all that much.

UPDATE II: And now Steve Benen, who worked on this issue for Americans United Against the Separation of Church and State, weighs in. If he thought it was problematic he'd have no problem saying it. The first paragraph is notable:

The notion of the government contracting with religious ministries to provide social services is not, on its face, scandalous or unconstitutional. Groups like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services have partnered with public officials for decades, almost always without incident. There have always been safeguards in place to protect church-state separation, the integrity of the ministry, and the rights of those who receive the benefits.

If Catholic Charities is truly prosyletizing and threatening to end their charity work if they're not allowed to hire only Catholics, that's one thing. But it's important to note that legally, there's not much recourse. The Supreme Court ruled 15 years ago that discrimination in the withholding of funds based on religion is unconstitutional. Government has to remain neutral in funding non-religious activities between secular and religious organizations. Some of it might be creative accounting, but that happens to be the law.