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My Meeting with the White House Faith-Based Office
April 27, 2009
Dear David,
I am writing to tell you about my meeting last week, along with other representatives of CARD (Coalition Against Religious Discrimination), with Joshua DuBois, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
I entered the meeting with very mixed emotions. Although I was glad that the Secular Coalition for America has the political connections to meet face-to-face with the person who runs President Obama's new faith-based office, I was saddened that this meeting was even taking place -- saddened that our new president has decided to continue the failed faith-based policies of his predecessor.
The meeting was an open and often lively discussion of our concerns -- and each of us clearly expressed our disappointment that the Obama administration had decided to continue Bush's faith-based program without first dealing with the critical constitutional and civil rights problems it presents: direct funding of houses of worship, religious discrimination in hiring, and entangling secular and sectarian program content.
I left the meeting with the same kind of mixed feelings I had going in. One the one hand, Mr. DuBois seemed sympathetic to our constitutional and civil rights concerns; on the other, it's clear we will have a long wait to see if and how these concerns are going to be addressed. Nearly three months after he was appointed to run it, DuBois told us the new faith-based office is still getting organized and they are just beginning their information collection and policy review.
Unfortunately, until this process is complete, faith-based programs will continue to operate under the Bush administration rules.
We face a very difficult challenge in getting this administration to address all our concerns, so we will continue to put pressure on the White House -- but this meeting did reinforce that we do now have a place at the table.
As the cover story in the National Journal recently reported,
In the past, politicians in Washington and elsewhere could largely ignore the Godless. But those days are over. With their numbers growing, nonbelievers are intent on pushing a political and legislative agenda governed more by cool reason than by faith.
Thank you for your support and efforts that have helped to make this and many other meetings possible.
Sincerely,
Ron Millar, Acting Director
Secular Coalition for America
P.S. The Secular Coalition for America represents the interests of atheists, humanists, agnostics, freethinkers and other nontheists in our nation's capital. According to the latest ARIS study, our community is larger than Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mormons and Jews - combined.
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What information is needed and what policy review ? I do not know DeBois, but it sounds to me like he has a big paycheck to protect and he will drag out this review as long as possible. How hard can it be to read a policy manual? This is totally against our laws to have such a program paid by taxpayer dollars, plus having it based inside the white house! If we outnumber them we should be able to stop this.
Bush, the compassionate christian, WAR CRIMINAL!
IBETT
Originally, the reason why "faith-based" programs were hailed by the Bush Administration was because "faith-based" organizations were on the front lines of their communities, and they seemed to know a whole lot more about the community's actual problems and needs better than government. G.W. Bush, realizing that handing over bushels of money to local "faith-based" groups could be more "cost-effective" in serving the needs of the community than creating yet another bloated Washingto bureaucracy, gave his blessing to the "faith-based initiative", and it's been pretty much become a part of American life, much to the delight of the members of the so-called "Religious" Right.
Now, because the ranks of the allegedly "Godless" appear to be growing, politicians in Washington and elsewhere can't ignore them, because the "Godless" also have access to money which is badly needed for the next political campaign, and naturally, the politicians would love to have those dollars flowing into their campaign coffers. These politicians are more than happy to meet with the "Godless", but they're also going to keep a watchful eye for those religious groups who argue that the "Godless" are not to be trusted to create or to help shape political policies or to create a just economic agenda, because their "god" is reason, which shuts out the possibility of the existence of an actual Creator-God, and would appear to negate the possibility of His direct intervention in the affairs of the humanity whom He (supposedly) created.
What should be noted here is the potential for a "gang/countergang" strategy by those who wish to see the U.S. destroyed, and the best way to do it is to pit the non-believers against the believers in a contest to see who will win -- the secular or the religious. The criticisms and attacks against "secular humanists", atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and other nontheists which are being waged by the members of the "Religious" Right will only increase as the death spiral of our economic, political and spiritual (cultural) systems enter into a new and even more accelerated phase, and those within the "Religious Right" who claim to have personal access to the Creator are terrified that they will be exposed for the charlatans and demagouges they really are, when the people who looked to them for "spiritual guidance" soon discover that they've been fleeced -- financially and spiritually -- by the "shepherds" who claimed to be caring for them, but who were interested in filling up the collection plate instead.