The AP is reporting that members of the council will include the Rev. Joel Hunter, the megachurch pastor who has prayed with President Obama and is one of the evangelicals leaders of the Come Let Us Reason Together coalition; Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the first female bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, who I am told is a "solid progressive;" the Rev. Frank Page, past president of the right-wing Southern Baptist Convention; Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; and Judith Vredenburgh, president and chief executive officer of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America.
This summer, Obama promised that his faith-based office would be constitutionally sound and not permit employment discrimination, saying that he "believe[s] 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.”
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is calling on Obama to rescind the Bush executive order on employment discrimination. Its executive director, Barry Lynn, says, “It’s disappointing to see President Obama beginning to roll out his faith-based program without immediately putting in place civil rights and civil liberties safeguards. It’s wrong to expand a program without first fixing the policies that promoted job discrimination, forced religion on vulnerable people and became mired in partisan politics.”
But a source identified only as a "religious leader knowledgeable ofthe plans for the revamped office" told the AP: "You can do a lot ofthings without rescinding those orders. That's not a necessary step tomake changes." The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the NationalHispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and another evangelicalmember of the CLURT coalition which says it is working to defuse the"culture wars," told the AP: "I believe it's not practical and it's not going to happen — and the president knows the backlash from the faith community would be egregious . . . . To push the envelope on that, to say, for example, 'You're going to have to hire gays and lesbians' ... that would be unprecedented."
The National Prayer Breakfast at which Obama reportedly will announce the composition of the advisory council for the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership will be headlined, according to Roll Call, by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Dan Gilgoff reports that "the event will also include scriptural readings -- and brief interpretations in light of current events -- by newly appointed New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Georgia Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson, Missouri Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton, and Missouri Republican Reps. Todd Akin and Jo Ann Emerson. Each speaker selected his or her own scriptural reading." But don't worry about all that separation of church and state stuff.
--Sarah Posner
