A week ago, the Rev. Barry Lynn wrote this article on Huffington Post. He also wrote a shorter article right here on Beliefnet.

Today comes the news that his words did not fall on deaf ears:

The President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships has voted to recommend to the president that houses of worship receiving federal funds for social services be required to form separate, independent corporations, in order to curtail religious discrimination and maintain the separation between church and state. [...]

The President’s Advisory Council voted 13-12 to recommend that the president require houses of worship that receive federal funding for social services through the Faith-Based Initiatives and Neighborhood Partnerships program to “establish separate corporations as a necessary means for achieving church-state separation and protecting religious autonomy, while also urging states to reduce any unnecessary administrative costs and burdens associated with attaining this status.”

This is definitely a positive step.

I agree with Bear. As long as the churches or their "separate" corporations are allowed to discriminate in hiring as they are now, I believe their receipt of Federal money is unconstitutional. Faith based initiatives were started by a evangelical fundamentalist POTUS who saw the Constitution as a barrier, not the law of the land. The best thing to do is eliminate the program.

Feb 14, 2010 -- 1:40PM, Summer813 wrote:

Feb 13, 2010 -- 11:30AM, Tpaine wrote:

I agree with Bear. As long as the churches or their "separate" corporations are allowed to discriminate in hiring as they are now, I believe their receipt of Federal money is unconstitutional. Faith based initiatives were started by a evangelical fundamentalist POTUS who saw the Constitution as a barrier, not the law of the land. The best thing to do is eliminate the program.

The article states that the corporations WILL NOT be permitted to discriminate in hiring. That's the positive step I am referring to.

I'd just as soon see the whole faith-based initiative idea go away as well, but until that happens, at least making this change is better than leaving things as they were.

As usual, we agree Summer. Any improvement helps.