Obama Expands Mission Of Faith-Based Program To Include Muslim Outreach, Abortion Reduction

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Obama Expands Mission Of Faith-Based Program To Include Muslim Outreach, Abortion Reduction

FEBRUARY 5, 2009 Faith-Based Program Gets Wider Focus

By LAURA MECKLER
WASHINGTON -- When President Barack Obama launches his version of the faith-based initiative Thursday, he will expand the mission to include abortion reduction and outreach to the Muslim world. He will also try to avoid the thorniest constitutional issues that beset the program for years under his predecessor.

Mr. Obama's goal, much like President George W. Bush's, is to harness the power of churches and other religious groups to solve some of the nation's toughest social problems. But almost from the start, the Bush plan was ensnared by constitutional questions about the separation between church and state, most notably whether an organization that received tax dollars can make hiring decisions on the basis of religion.

As a candidate, Mr. Obama came down firmly against such hiring. But on Thursday, he will take a more nuanced position, saying that these issues should be decided on a case-by-case basis, said Joshua DuBois, the 26-year-old former campaign adviser who will be named to head the White House Office for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

"The president found one of the problems with the previous initiative was that tough questions were decided without appropriate consideration and data," Mr. DuBois said in an interview Wednesday. President Obama, he said, "doesn't have an interest in rushing questions that are so complex."

Instead, the president will sign an executive order making clear that the director of the new office should seek guidance from the Department of Justice on specific legal issues regarding "how to respect the Constitution" and nondiscrimination laws, Mr. DuBois said.

The same case-by-case approach will govern another tricky question: whether federal funds can pay for secular portions of programs that also include proselytization, he said.

That approach will likely anger some on the left who were hoping for a clean break with the Bush policy. In a speech last July, Mr. Obama presented a more clear-cut view of how to draw the constitutional line. "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," he said then.

But the new approach will please people like David Kuo, who was deputy director of the Bush faith-based office, and who says that too much energy was spent on questions that have little impact in the real world. He said that very few charities actually discriminate in their hiring.

"Bush tried to say, 'OK, we're going to open everything up to hiring' and got caught up in this massive Washington fight," Mr. Kuo said. "My fear is Obama will take the opposite view and he'll get embroiled in the same swamp."

In unveiling the office Thursday at a morning prayer breakfast, Mr. Obama will set out a structure that is similar to the Bush program: a White House office supplemented by offices in 11 federal agencies. He will add a new 25-member advisory council made up of a diverse group of religious and some secular leaders.

The office will be given four specific missions, including an administration effort to reduce teen pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion. The goals, Mr. DuBois said, will include ensuring access to health care and support for adoption.

The office also will also be asked to encourage interfaith dialogue "at home and, more pressingly, abroad," he said. He said the president he won't necessarily single out any particular part of the world, clearly outreach to Muslim nations will be part of the mix. In addition, the office will be asked to engage organizations in helping people deal with the economic crisis, and addressing fatherhood issues, a longtime interest of the president.

Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123379504018650159.html