Frances Kissling argues that President Obama must strengthen the separation of church and state rather than continue to increase religion’s influence on policymaking:
Obama has confirmed that the funding role of the faith-based office will continue; during the presidential campaign, he promised to increase funding. He has also renamed the office and greatly expanded its role. What is now called the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will be led by a 27-year-old Pentecostal pastor, Josh DuBois, and it have a wide policy advisory role. Not only will it continue to guide religious groups through the grant-making process, but it has also assembled a 25-member Presidential Advisory Council to serve as a policy advisor to the president on some of the very issues where religion has been more of a problem than a solution: gender, sex and reproduction. The council is already busily working on the first four issues the president laid before it: supporting women and children, addressing teen pregnancy, reducing the need for abortion, and promoting peace in international relations. A new mandate has been added, and the council can now meddle in environmental policy as well. The executive order establishing the council permits it to “request and collect information, hold hearings, establish subcommittees and establish task forces” that include both its own members and others.
[…]Designing a faith-based office that focuses on these kinds of issues, which rightly belong in the Department of Health and Human Services and in the White House Office on Women and Girls, makes no sense. It is wrong to cede issues related to sexuality, gender and reproduction to religious leaders who have been afraid to utter the word “sex” from their pulpits and who continue to discriminate against women within their denominations. It is frankly bizarre to turn to religions that have been fighting each other for centuries over which is the true faith and ask these ancient foes to mediate large-scale issues of ethical conflict.
Bill Clinton misread the American public on religion. So did George W. Bush, who never convinced anyone that he was a man of faith, but did eventually manage to convince everyone except evangelical Christians that they should leave the GOP. Obama is making the same kind of miscalculation. Find a church to worship in on Sundays, Mr. President, but get sectarian religious values out of the White House.
Read the full opinion piece at Salon.