"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."
-Theodore Roosevelt
(Surely, then, this same reasoning can be applied to a major party nominee? Obama is a public servant - a Senator, and auditioning for a larger role as President of the United States.). It is in the spirit of "degree of support" and the "good/bad conduct" dichotomy I am forced to wonder about this.
For me, one of the appealing talking points in favor of Barack Obama's Presidency is his record as a constitutional scholar.
So it goes without saying that Senator Obama is vastly more learned than I at interpreting the Constitution. It is, however, difficult, to me, to reconcile the plain language of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States with the Federal Government appropriating money for religious institutions:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
As referenced above, this is not the first time Obama has been in hot water over religion from the idiotic right or the uncomfortable left.
People on the left have been routinely mocked and derided for finding Obama discomfiting on the religion-in-government plane. I count myself among the discomfited.
Should this stated wish of Obama's to continue Bush's so-called "Faith Based Initiatives" reassure us? Should we be mocked now? How much is too much?
So without further ado, on to my questions:
Question 1:
Senator Obama, as a constitutional scholar how does funding specifically faith based programs by the Federal government not flatly violate the 1st Amendment?
Question 2:
In 2006, Obama said:
"This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason."
-Barack Obama
Senator Obama, if you believe that it is imperative for religiously motivated people (one presumes this includes people running for a government post - one that is inherently non-religious as if that needed to be said!) then, how is your proposal consonant with universal, non-religious values?
You are not running for President to be the country's First Preacher, sir, as you yourself have said several times. And as you yourself have said, in so many words, if you cannot justify a stance based on secular reasoning, then it is fair to wonder if you can justify it at all.
Question 3:
According to our Constitution, it is for Congress to appropriate money for programs, not the President.
Senator Obama, as President, will you adhere to the requirement that if there is to be a continuation of the White House funding religious institutions, you will obey funding requirements as passed by Congressional law, and not executive fiat, as Bush has done?
And what if courts decide this program you wish to create is unconstitutional, as I believe? What is your commitment to subjecting your program to court scrutiny?
Question 4:
By many accounts, the Bush administration's Office of Faith based Initiatives has been an abject failure. But I want to particularly reference the following:
"A former top official in the White House's faith-based office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant under pressure from two senior Bush administration appointees, according to current and former DOJ staff members and a review of internal DOJ documents and emails."
Senator Obama, you have been very clear that the definition of "religious" does not necessarily mean "Christian".
How will you prevent abuses in terms of religious discrimination (favoring one kind of religion over another) when running this program? Are we to trust you, and take your word that Federal money will be equally available to religions of every stripe? What about your subordinates who are tasked to run this program. Are we to be assured they too will follow your vision for the program?
Question 5:
"Obama does not support requiring religious tests for recipients of aid nor using federal money to proselytize, according to a campaign fact sheet. He also only supports letting religious institutions hire and fire based on faith in the non-taxypayer funded portions of their activities, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy."
Senator Obama, if a religious institution proselytizes with one hand, and receives federal money with the other hand, how can you seriously posit that institution is not "using taxpayer funds to proselytize" ?
Money is money, and taxpayer funds are funds that religious institutions would not have otherwise. Whether they rob Peter to pay Paul and use funds they would not otherwise have to do proselytizing they would not have had the money to do otherwise, does that matter? You're still giving money to people from the taxpayers.
On the same plane, we have Senator Obama assuring us that no federal money will be used to fund hiring-and-firing discrimination. In other words, programs that have taxpayer funding may not discriminate. But, how is this to be remotely true, if it is a bucketing issue?
In other words, say I am a religious organization and have $4000 (we'll keep the amounts here small). Currently, I use all $4000 to feed the needy. And within that program, I refuse to hire homosexuals.
Now the government gives me $4000 with the stipulation that I may not discriminate in that program.
So I start another program and take the original $4000 (that I no longer have to use to fund program A) to start program B, which continues to discriminate on sexual orientation and religion. PLUS I add another $1000 to Program B and cut Program A to using only $3000 of the federal funding.
This is not the federal government using taxpayer money to discriminate? How is that more than a fig leaf?
Question 6:
"The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone," Obama said.
Ok, this one is going to require a little bit of explanation. Your statement here, Senator, with all due respect, has me flummoxed.
Whatever its overall truth (and I would tend to agree, in a vacuum, that "government" cannot do everything), you said this in reference to your desire to give money to religious institutions.
If the government gives taxpayer funds to a religious institution, how is that different from the government simply using those self-same funds to accomplish the same goal?
Explain to me, please, Senator, how a zero-sum game winds up benefitting people more? If the federal government helps the poor using taxpayer funds, how would giving that money to a religious organization instead help those same people more than if the federal government did it?
Question 7:
Senator Obama's proposal is here.
A COMMITMENT TO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Barack Obama's new summer learning program will cost about $500 million per year. He will finance this program without increasing the deficit by cutting wasteful spending in government procurement and management. By better managing surplus property owned by the federal government, reducing growth in the federal travel budget and implementing the GAO's recommendations on streamlining the federal procurement process, Barack Obama's plan will cut several billion dollars in wasteful spending from the federal budget each year.
So here's my question:
Senator Obama, you are proposing using half a billion taxpayer dollars per year on Faith Based Initiatives - is that correct?
So you are using my taxpayer dollars, and that of many other people, to fund programs run by people with whom we may have severe RELIGIOUS disagreements.
How, then, Senator, do you justify this in light of your status as a constitutional scholar and the First Amendment? Isn't taking money out of my wallet to fund a religious program a form of religious discrimination to begin with?
Question 8:
Where, Senator, is your secular, logical justification for increasing and expanding such a program? I want details, not just opinion based statements to the effect of "the government cannot do it alone".
Beyond reaching out to people for your election (which is not a legitimate reason to justify a program), why are you doing this?
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So that's it. I'm not interested in people telling me that McCain will be a worse President than Obama will (I already accept that).
I'm also not interested in arguments to the effect that any questioning weakens Obama. These are serious issues revolving around how well respected our Constitution will be under a President Obama.
There is no valid argument, as far as I am concerned, regarding the timing of legitimate questions of this magnitude. |
