Bad Bush policies continued, part one

According to the Daily Women's Health Policy Report:

President Obama filled the remaining seats on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships this week, appointing an antiabortion-rights Pentecostal bishop among his last nine selections to complete the 25-person panel, the AP/Chicago Tribune reports. Bishop Charles Blake is a presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly black Pentecostal church with about six million members. At a Democratic National Convention interfaith service, Blake called on Obama to adopt policies to reduce the need for abortion and criticized those who show "disregard for the lives of the unborn." The White House has asked the council to address four priorities, which include economic recovery, reducing the need for abortion, "encouraging responsible fatherhood" and improving interfaith relations, according to the AP/Tribune.

Let's start out with the whole idea of "faith-based initiatives," which Obama decided to continue and expand. Regardless of what safeguards are supposedly in place to protect the separation of church and state, I'm not sure it's a great idea for religious organizations to receive federal money. Religious groups that want to engage in charitable work are already able to collect money tax free to use on those projects. Why should they also be also awarded taxpayer money to fund their programs?

I'm even less sure that it's a good idea for there to be a special federal office devoted to encouraging the charitable projects of religious groups. And what does it mean for the government to try to improve interfaith relations? This sounds a lot like government meddling in religion, which is at least as bad as religious groups meddling in government. It also sounds like the government trying to say, we don't care which religion you practice, as long as you practice some religion. The whole thing makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

And then there is the question of who President Obama has decided to appoint to the advisory panel. As Ann at Feministing points out, "he's stacking the panel with anti-choice men."

So maybe the more things "change," the more things stay the same?