Obama backs faith-based social work
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A day after vowing to fight slurs against his patriotism, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Tuesday turned to faith, promising to boost religious groups carrying out community work.
The Illinois Senator said modern day challenges, including global warming and poverty were too complex for the US government to combat alone, venturing onto policy ground important to religious voters in the heartland.
"I'm not saying that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular non-profits," Obama said, in remarks distributed before his visit to a community ministry in Zanesville in the battleground state of Ohio.
"I'm not saying that they're somehow better at lifting people up. What I'm saying is that we all have to work together -- Christian and Jew, Hindu and Muslim; believer and non-believer alike -- to meet the challenges of the 21st Century."
President George W. Bush formed an Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to fulfill his vow to govern as a "compassionate conservative" but critics derided the plan as a political sop to evangelical voters.
Obama said the president's initiative underfunded programs for the poor and needy, and said he would spend 500 million dollars to train faith-based groups on how to run effective programs.
Some critics of providing government money to faith-based organizations have worried that the practice dilutes the constitutional barrier between church and state, but Obama promised to provide careful safeguards.
"As someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state," he said, adding that he would not allow public funds to finance proselytizing.
