surely Obama knows that most such organizations can’t handle the administration required for two sets of hiring standards, short of starting an organization from scratch specifically to take advantage of the govt. handouts

I was in and around churches for 30 years as a theist, and many of them were perfectly capable of running separate programs to do good works, funded in part by government. In fact, many Catholic churches (and fewer Protestant churches) have long traditions of doing this. They are already established in the poorest areas of cities, their congregations may be largely immigrant and in need of extra help, and they have the interest in providing that help as well as the connections and infrastructure to do so efficiently.

My former church formed a separate 501c3 to do community work that did not have any proselytizing element other than the fact that it was publicly acknowledged that the church was directly connected to the charity and most of its board and volunteers were church members. There was strict oversight in terms of metrics we had to set for expenditures and showing how many people we helped each year and exactly what was done. The books were audited to make sure funds were kept separate from religious activities funded by private donations.

There’s no reason this can’t work again under an Obama administration. I believe he is sincere in recognizing that churches are well-positioned in many areas to get services to their local populations, since he worked with churches during the time he was in community organizing. Return the controls that were in place before Bush obliterated the line between church-state and I don’t really have a problem with it.

The religious types who are criticizing him don’t like the idea because over the last 8 years they’ve been able to run amok with government money funding a lot of religious outreach that is way over the line. Specifically, they don’t like being held to a hiring standard that cannot require employees to be church members or even religious. But if it’s government money, hiring has to be completely non-discriminatory – yes, even if they have to (gasp) hire an atheist if s/he is the best qualified for the job.

ZANESVILLE, Ohio — Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush had fallen short on during his two terms.

“The challenges we face today — from saving our planet to ending poverty — are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Mr. Obama said outside a community center here. “We need an all-hands-on-deck approach.”

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02obama.html

What Charitable Choice and Faith Based I’s basically did was create a set of special rules for religious groups that allowed them to partially ignore regulations and laws on discrimination. They no longer had to keep two sets of books, and wall between religious functions and services.

Obama is basically turning things back to how they were, with a lot of fanfare about religion.

Remember, if you vote for the lesser of two evils, you still get evil in the end.

Whenever I hear someone repeat this sort of profoundly asinine “two evils” yak, I dock them 2 points. But for you, sir, it’s 3 points.

Guess what. You live in a representative party democracy. Know what that means? It means that widdle old you isn’t the sole determiner of what a candidate must be like and support, and thus, it’s highly likely that they won’t be exactly where YOU and generally you alone (on your total mix of preferences), want them to be on every policy.

Remember, if you vote for the lesser of two evils, you still get evil in the end.

How about a little post-moralizing, huh? Since we’re getting evil one way or another, which would you prefer? Damn, no wonder people hate atheists!

Money goes to religious groups.
Money goes to religious groups.
Money goes to religious groups. . . .

Neither political party is the friend of atheists. I cannot believe that you have been blinded by who knows what into slavishly accepting the blatant religious pandering by someone who has publically stated that his mission as President would be to “do His (i.e. God’;s) will.” A pox on the house of Democrats as well as Republicans.

Remember, if you vote for the lesser of two evils, you still get evil in the end.