Sounds like the mixing of education and faith-based initiatives. Would it be OK if Will Smith’s scientologically based school provided this service to inner city and/or underperforming students?

Scientologists, Wiccans, Buddhists… bad or good, they’re out. Abrahamic tradition is in. For now.

Which of course, puts federal government in the business of elevating some religions over others. I believe Jefferson had something to say about that.

But if President Obama decides to “approve” Scientology, he would allow federal grant recipients to hire only Scientologists. Our Constitution has something to say about about that too.

NYT— “… In another sign that his campaign is reaching out to evangelical voters, Senator Barack Obama plans to announce his support for expanding President Bush’s faith-based programs in a speech on religion he will deliver at Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio this afternoon.

The Associated Press previews his remarks and notes that Mr. Obama will say that he supports allowing religious organizations to hire and fire employees based on faith: …” — http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/…

respect for Constitution and separation of church and state and our non-discrimination laws? none.

public money for Christian orgs that discriminate and try to convert? yep.

no belief in govt as the structure that is supposed to help people in need? yep.

crony capitalism? yep.

accountability? nope.

…

“Musings on Pollsters: Confessions of a Former Gallup Study Director…”

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5xjfed

As a former Gallup study director, I view the polling of Zogby and Gallup in non-technical terms…and recount some of my own experiences witnessing manipulation of data…

Also, see my recent posts on Obama and his religious meeting in early June…
With and without pastors, parts I and II

Also, earlier post asking “what is he giving away” per the same meeting…
So, What’s Obama Going to Give Away to Conservative Religious Leaders and Constitutional Law Profs Who Work with Ken Starr??(Just Say No Deal)

http://tinyurl.com/3fq6ld

at HuffPo:

johnqdemocrat

I hate to break it to you, but this move by Obama is BRILLIANT! ..It has become increasingly more difficult for churches to fund some of their social programs and community outreach initiatives…

Obama ’08!! posted 07/01/2008 at 09:03:31

In a diary this morning, “Obama’s “Move to the Center”:

After Senator Obama’s decision to forego public financing came the FISA mess, then the Supreme Court decisions on the death penalty and handguns, then his comments on General Clark’s criticism of Senator McCain, and now his statement to evangelicals that he will not only preserve but expand the Faith-Based Initiatives program instituted by President Bush.

Each of these positions has upset many progressives, who see these acts as proof that Senator Obama is “just another politician,” “betraying his base,” “caving in to Republicans,” “Republican-Lite,” and the like…

If Senator Obama is “moving to the center,” that is true only through the lens of the previously prevailing media narrative about him: that he was “the most liberal candidate in the race.”

I don’t know if Wiccans are approved for the funding, but US soldiers who are Wiccan can now have pentagrams on the gravestones.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

it should be upsetting him, but i guess the kool-aid was laced with some really potent stuff.

is there anything kos actually believes in anymore beyond “Obama-Using the Constitution as toilet paper just like Bush”?

Another diarist at DailyKos.

the others will try to spin this?

“… ’A past director and a past deputy director of the president’s faith-based office have testified that it is and has always been a program designed to gain political advantage rather than to increase help to those in need… …
” …” — Interfaith Alliance

Everyone knows that religious people are the best people.

defense of Obama’s statement about using death penalty for child rape? I heard Jeffrey Toobin on two or three different programs yesterday saying that Obama’s disagreement with the child rape death penalty decision was NOT a flip-flop or change of thinking.

He quoted something from one of Obama’s books, where Obama said he agreed witht he death penalty for egregious crimes, such as murder and child rape and murder. Question: Did Obama write this as two catagories (which were really one, bcz both required a murder to merit the death penalty)? Or three? Murder (seemingly of an adult?, rape of a child (but not an adult), and then murder of a child who had been raped by the murderer?

I’ve been looking for the exact quote, since it seems to say that murder must be involved—and it is a change to say, well, just raping a child should merit the death penalty.

However, Brian Lehrer repeated the Toobin statement at least twice in saying, well, Obama really isn’t a flip-flopper.

BTW, iirc, Mara Liasson also mentioned his long standing take that child rape merited the death penalty.

It is rapidly becoming Mainstream Corporate Media Conventional Wisdom (MCMCW)that Obama does not flip-flop; he judiciously reviews issues and comes to new conclusions. Or he has simply always been that way and no one noticed. See, it’s all good? Move along, folks; no problems to see here with The One.

If someone has found a link I’d like to see exactly what Toobin is hanging his hat on. t/u.

his “faith-based” expansion plan—another shameful similarity to Dubya.

I know that candidates usually run toward the center during the general, but, damn, they don’t usually run all the way to the opposite goal!

“… In a brief video shown at the beginning of meetings with religious voters, Mr. Obama says he is “blessed” to help lead a conversation about the role of religious people in changing the world. He speaks of poverty and war, health care and unemployment, and says that addressing these problems “will require not just a change in government policy but a change of heart and a change of attitude.” — Obama Courting Evangelicals Once Loyal to Bush

it’s not in this one, but should be there somewhere — http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/06/25/…

Reading sites like Pandagon, not only defending him but casting aspersions on those who won’t vote for him.

I read Pandagon every day before the pie fight started and the CDS kicked in, and a main point of almost all the discussions there, from abortion feminism racism and religion, was that the Dems didn’t need to reach out the evangelicals. If we even considered reaching out, they were gonna make us give up women’s equality as a condition for teaming up, and WE DIDN’T NEED TO GO THERE. Amy Sullivan’s ideas were (rightly, IMO) ridiculed.

But now Obama’s doing it, and it’s all okay.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

and it further sets us down the path to an officially Christian country—which should be anathema for all Democrats.

Democratic platform, too— http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/…

With Herculean effort and massive compartmentalization, I’d just finished hauling myself into the “tepid Obama voter” ranks.

I spent a good deal of energy on threads like VastLeft’s “What It Takes” thread to enumerate in good faith what Obama could do to upgrade my status from tepid-noncampaigning-nondonor-voter-whose-subconscious- may-allow-the-car-to-run-out-of-gas-on-Election-Day.

What the hell do I do now?

I now have precisely zero energy to beg and plead further. He already knows precisely what we want, and he already knows what he’ll give and take away. He laid the trap, the party walked in.

It would defy physics as we know it to overcome the inertia of getting the party to change its nominee.

Our party leaders have opened the gates to a GOP Trojan horse.

We’re trapped.

from “Audacity of Hope”:

“While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes—mass murder, the rape and murder of a child—so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment.”

http://tinyurl.com/4krgaf

The syntax/punctuation and the word “and” indicate “mass murder” and “rape and murder of a child” are being held equivalent in terms of the penalty they merit (i.e., not just the rape or just the murder of a child, but both together, the rape of a child that ended in murder).

If I had copy edited the book (I’m a copy editor by profession), I’d have queried the author to make sure that’s what he meant. If not, it should have been “the rape OR murder of a child.”

But we’re clearly in WORM territory here. Sully’s correspondent argued that Obama meant rape OR murder of a child, the “and” that he actually wrote notwithstanding; Sully later published another email arguing the opposite.

This has been my greatest fear, although I’ve been trying to suppress that thought…
Still, I have to admit that seeing it verbalized like that was quite a bit shocking.
Thanks for being brutally honest, and… I hope (or at least, I want to hope) that you’re wrong…

I’m not strictly sure of that. We’re uncool, ignorant bubbas. I’m not sure he thinks it’s worth his time to understand what we want.

Me too, Inna.

I mean, who would want to work with racists?

Come on, people, let’s be reasonable, here.

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

pathetic. Toobin was good tho (us Jews all know this is terrible and wrong—all non-Christians do, really.)

omfg— “Barack Obama said Tuesday that if he were elected president he’d have his own version of President Bush’s office of faith-based initiatives that would “help set our national agenda” and inject morality into policy debates about everything from AIDS to genocide. …” — http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/428…

how dare mr. death for rapists and run away from Muslims and us gays dare speak of morality? ugh.

I automatically assumed when I read that line that Obama was referring to our moral obligation to the victims of AIDS.

But I realized later it may also have been a dogwhistle to the religious right. Unthinkable of any Democrat, and yet…

I think I’m about to get a lot more cynical than I ever have been before.

The agenda-setting line unnerved me, too.

It’s shameless, in-your-face pandering!

is basic proselytizing.

So un-first amendment.

” (us Jews all know this is terrible and wrong—all non-Christians do, really.)

This remark is insulting to Americans of any ethno/religious background who are disgusted by this assault on American tradition.

This W.A.S.P. male, Christened in a Methodist church, is as furious if not MORE furious than you are about this obscene breach of the first amendment.

Stop trying to make this ethnic.

Your inplication is revolting.

You know, Jews who live in a country where their relatives were refused entry during the Holocaust because no one official wanted to make waves, EVEN THOUGH WE WERE AT WAR WITH THE MURDERERS, kinda gives them a place at the table when we talk about certain religions getting Federal favor, ne?

In short: Unclench.

as a religion?

get atoms on their gravestones… after a big battle.

take offense—and if you’re taking offense, direct it at those who always inject only Christianity into our laws—from School Boards up to DC….always and only.

that probably means nothing to you, but it does to us.

“… Obama plans to spend all week in the run-up to Friday’s July Fourth holiday focusing on American values — choosing a different theme each day and traveling to a mix of battleground states, including Missouri, Ohio and Colorado, and traditional Republican strongholds such as North Dakota and Montana. On Friday — also the 10th birthday of his oldest daughter, Malia — his wife and two children are to campaign at his side. …”

Faith-based funding is not about Jews or Muslims or Hindus or atheists or agnostics, etc—it’s about Christians. Jewish and Catholic charities/service orgs have always either forgone federal funding or created wholly separate entities—Christian ones don’t and don’t think they have to.

Because they can….

[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.