Obama's Sister Souljah Moment

A Magdalene Laundry ca. 1900

I have to apologize to Barack Obama for what I said in an earlier post:

The faith-based initiative was risky from the start, and it was only by the grace of God (sorry) that Bush was tight-fisted enough not to give the program the money he promised. There are plenty of non-religious, non-profit orgamizations doing what the government should be doing. And there are a host of people waiting to volunteer their time and efforts who don't need to say, "First tell me Jesus is your personal savior, then you can have your bowl of soup." And who will the bulk of the money go to? Only churches big enough to have a grant proposal writer, a promotion director and a glossy introduction kit. Megachurches will get bigger and small churches may go the way of the Dodo. Question: does Joel Osteen really need more money? And just where is Rod Parsley going to come up with an agency to feed the poor instead of himself? He'd have to agree to some kind of transparency - something many megachurch/televangelists are loathe to do. Something stinks in the Obama campaign.

It now looks like Obama will not tolerate proselytizing nor will he tolerate discriminating hiring practices for those programs that the government will help to fund. In other words, he wants to expand faith-based initiatives but without the faith-based hypocrisy. Someone told me to look up the work of Catholic Charities because they closely adhere to the kind of faith-based initiatives Obama wants to target: (from wikipedia)

Catholic Charities is a worldwide network of charities whose aim is to "reduce poverty, support families, and empower communities." It is one of the largest and most respected charities. Catholic Charities traces its origin to an orphanage founded in 1727 in New Orleans, Louisiana by the French Ursulines Sisters.

Catholic Charities, however, has hit a snag in the department of "support families" department:

Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley and leaders of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston formally announced the agency will terminate its adoption work, abandoning its founding mission after the Massachusetts state legislature passed a law requiring that homosexuals be allowed to adopt children, and refused to make an exception for religious organizations, even after appeals from both the Governor and the Archbishop of Boston.

So, will Obama's administration of funds tolerate such kind of homophobia? It looks like Archbishop O'Malley would rather the children needing parents become Duplessis Orphans than give them over to loving same-sex couples. Yeah, better to give the kids lobotomies than to do that! Or what about going back to the old system of the Magdalen Laundries?

Obama: PLEASE tell faith-based agencies that they can't have their cake and eat it too.