Obama Team Brings in Faith Groups

By GottaLaff

I'm not comfortable mixing religion and government. Separation of church and state and all, remember that? I understand the intentions here, but it still makes me queasy. Religion Action Center of Reform Judaism Director David Saperstein:

"This is the most extensive outreach and listening tour that I've ever seen a new administration take, and that is certainly true of their outreach to the faith community," says Saperstein, who has worked with presidential transition teams going back to Jimmy Carter's. "It's quite remarkable."

Obama has met with Saperstein/members of his his group about a dozen times, on everything from domestic poverty to the plight of White House faith-based initiatives to foreign policy challenges like bringing peace to the Middle East.

The effort is noteworthy not only for the number of Obama transition team meetings with religious groups—about 15 so far—but also because top Obama policy aides have joined the powwows. Melody Barnes, who will be director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, and Heather Higginbottom, who will be the council's deputy director, have participated in some of the meetings.

"There is the feeling that these are not perfunctory meetings but serious meetings with people in policymaking roles who know the process well," says James Winkler, general secretary of the public policy arm of the United Methodist Church, who says that he or his staff have attended nearly a dozen meetings with the Obama transition team so far. "This is not something meant to bring in the faith community to keep them happy but to solicit our views and ideas."

Winkler said that during George W. Bush's tenure, "we were never contacted by the administration" after an initial meeting with the White House Office of Public Liaison, which traditionally handles outreach to religious groups and other constituencies. Though Bush is a Methodist, a group of Methodist bishops was unsuccessful in repeated attempts to meet with the president in the run-up to the Iraq war, which the United Methodist Church opposed. [...]

Interviews with 10 participants in the Obama transition team's faith-based meetings paint a portrait of Obama aides recording priorities and concerns of representatives from religious denominations and advocacy groups, mostly of the left-leaning variety. Their policy priorities include economic relief for the poor, new protections for organized labor, a stepped-up campaign to combat global warming, improved access to healthcare, and guarantees that the United States will forgo torture in its war on terror.

Some of the faith-based groups have also pressured the transition team to make a serious attempt to reduce demand for abortion by improving sex education and expanding government services for pregnant women.

Spokespeople for the social conservative advocacy group Family Research Council and for the Southern Baptist Convention—a huge, mostly conservative evangelical denomination—meanwhile, said that their organizations have not received invitations to meet with Obama's transition team.

He has corresponded with them, though.

Transition team meetings with faith groups focused on planning for a Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Obama's version of the faith-based initiatives office that President Bush launched during his first term. The meetings have included advocates of strict church-state separation, who have traditionally criticized such programs.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State Executive Director Barry W. Lynn:

"It would only bother me if [Obama] starts implementing the policies of religious groups that are inconsistent with guarantees of the Constitution, and I haven't seen that yet." [...]

"We're glad to have a good seat at the table and that [the Obama transition team] is listening to all sides," says Tanya Clay House, director of public policy for People for the American Way, which has expressed concerns about the propriety of federal faith-based initiatives. "The old administration listened to just one side of the argument."

If nothing else, Obama is a good listener. I'll give him that, despite my mixed feelings about his bringing religion groups into politics. He also gets kudos for including the separation of church and state advocates. Now it's wait and see time.