On Closing the Faith-Based Office (7-23-04)

Kudos to Dr. Welton Gaddy and the Interfaith Alliance for initiating dialogue with Presidential candidates about eliminating the faith-based office. They are doing our country and our constitution a great service by calling for a return to a government that is benevolently neutral toward religion.

There is evidence that the faith-based office in Oklahoma began with the intention of serving majoritarian faith groups while neglecting those of minority faiths. The Oklahoma office has been plagued with bad advice and muddled thinking from the beginning. The federal office is equally as ill-advised.

The truth is, faith-based offices are little more than inefficient, paper pushing bureaucracies siphoning away resources that used to go directly to aid the poor (in Oklahoma funding came from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families [TANF] funds). Their chief accomplishment is to drive a bulldozer through the wall separating church and state.