Unbeknownst to me, apparently Tony Dungy was offered a place on Obama's newly created White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Am I the only person that remembers that there is supposed to be a seperation of church and state? Cause this seems to be crossing the line a bit.
The phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State"First Amendment to the United States Constitution --
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."Justice David Souter, writing for the majority [of the sumpreme court], concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion"
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I totally agree that this blurs the line, and I have serious reservations about it... but to play devil's advocate (in a sense), it seems as if all this bill will do is give faith-based organizations a means to apply for federal support when doing service to the community. If they do it the way *I* would do it, the major effect of such a bill would simply be:
a.) an avenue for religious organizations to be reimbursed for providing services to all members of a community (regardless of THEIR faith) in a non-preachy manner (although this can be an issue!).
b.) the ability for these same organizations to apply for federal grants for specific, non-faith-based projects. In this case, ALL money must be spent funding the project, and not contributing to anything religious in nature at all.
If this were all that happened, then it could theoretically save the government money and effort, as a lot of people will be more likely to volunteer for their church than for the feds. There are also areas that some religious organizations hold a lot of expertise in, and it could be redundant to fund both a secular and non-secular version of the same thing (a good example of this could be something like an emergency shelter for survivors of a natural disaster... a lot of religious groups currently run homeless shelters already, and it might make more sense to use their expertise at a time of crisis).
That said, I think it is dangerous territory, and it scares me a little. Even if the religious organization is not discriminating who they provide services to, we cannot stifle their free speech rights; because of this, there is a lot of room for "let's pray before you eat your free food" or "Thank Ganesha for your vaccinations, children!" which is akin to prayer in public schools, which is already outlawed (but often ignored).
So, in short, I can see why one would choose to form this type of committee for practical reasons, but I also think that it can be short-sided. The housing crisis was in part started b/c Clinton wanted to give poor people an opportunity to buy homes. Of course, this was intended for responsible, yet non-wealthy, individuals purchasing small homes, but it was exploited to be the sub-prime mess that we have on our hands now. Likewise, I have little doubt that Obama (in his democrat-idealism way) will uphold separation of church and state during *his* time as president. But what about when someone like Sarah Palin who is power-hungry AND religious (and corrupt?) gets in power [and though I don't think she will EVER be president, I wouldn't put it past America to elect someone similar]? I only hope that if this thing does get established, Obama has the foresight to put in NUMEROUS checks and balances.
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