Obama slammed on faith based office

Monday, July 27th, 2009

It’s no secret that many liberals and church-state separation advocates are angry about  President Obama’s handling of the faith-based initiatives of his predecessor.

Although they’ve mostly kept quiet about it, the folks at the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee – which were hoping for much more of a rollback from policies of the George W. Bush administration – can’t be happy.

At the same time, Orthodox groups, which generally supported President George W. Bush’s push to expand the funding of services offered by religious groups, say the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships ( OFBNP)  has provided them unusually good access to a liberal Democratic administration.

In The Nation, Sarah Posner offers a comprehensive and unflattering look at the administration’s approach to faith based funding.

Among her conclusions:  “Obama’s OFBNP, while still a work in progress, is plagued by a lack of transparency and accountability and has seemingly already been exploited as a tool for rewarding religious constituencies with government jobs–exactly the problems that marked Bush’s faith-based initiative.

Read Posner’s story here.