Alex, I couldn't agree with you more. The key of course is striking the right balance so as not to run afoul of First Amendment problems. I am sure that the "further left" in both the GLBT community and otherwise will not be all that happy, but I continue to say: would you rather have the next Supreme Court vacancy filled by Barak Obama or John McCain? Oh, yeah, I guess Ralph Nader would do the right thing, and he's a shoo-in, isn't he?

Unsurprisingly, hearing about this caused a rush of anger at Obama. However, after thinking about it a bit more, I can't see how this can be anything but good for forcing religious organizations to be more tolerant of groups they don't like.

For all the lip service religion pays to god(s), they ultimately worship money. Tie in the money provided by government to good behavior in terms of tolerating and accommodating groups that the religion doesn't like and see how fast their god's own word gets re-written. It happened in Europe. The only reason that fundamentalism has flourished in the US was because of the separation between government money and the religious institutions. Couple them together and this makes it even easier to change religious doctrine by government bribes.

This gets two big thumbs up from me as a roundabout way to water down religion.

Hes doing what every good candidat should do reach out to folks who have not already declared for him and will vote for him no matter what.The general camoaign has begun folks so watch for him to reach out to all kinds of groups that some of you have dismissed as not worth your time.Senator McCain is doing the same thing but when he does it nobody realy pays attention as they will when Senator Obama does it.

No, he's doing what every "good" democrap candidate does today.....bait and switch anyone progressive, turn further right than many repugicans and then, since we are now stuck with him, we are supposed to hold our noses and vote for him as "not as bad as the alternative".

Bull....I'm not doing that again.

Whether it is lunch for elderly and shut ins, day care, drug abuse clinics, and more these "faith based groups" provide more value to the recipient than any government alternative per dollar spent. I do not like organized religion(s) at all, but I have to give them this.

Thanks for the post Alex.

James, it is called "means testing." You have to have a charitable history already to get the money.

I'll step out and say "I don't like it one bit."

Yes, Catholic Charities has gotten money for ages. They also stopped providing adoption services in Mass when they realized they'd have to do them for gay couples too. What was in the best interest of the children they served came second place to their compelling need to discriminate.

You also run the risk of putting that much money and power into the hands of the government to (pardon the pun) lord it over religion. Bush's evangelical-turn has led to how many evangelicals occupying the office Bush created? And what percentage of the charities supported are evangelical?

Would there be a connection between the evangelical in office as President, the one in the faith-based initiatives office, the evangelical dominated military (including harassment for not being evangelical at the academies) and the courts deciding things like same-sex marriage, pro-choice/pro-life, death penalty, adoption rights, gun control, and other important issues while evangelicals are soaring through the judicial confirmation process of the ever more evangelical Congress?

Surely not. All of the extras Bush gave us and Obama wants wants will just give us more occasions for violations of that separation of church and state. Better not to have the temptation available.