Obama's Drift to the Middle & Church Funding

RPA, Little Rock: In Case You Missed You Missed It: Pat Lynch is featured today in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's opinion section . He uses the space to bring-up a good observation: Obama's new "policy" just doesn't agree with his policy. In other words, he says one thing - but in reality has no intention of honoring anything other than the most liberal ideological agenda in our nation's history. Pat Lynch, "Obama's Drift to the Middle:"

The latest thing to get the blogosphere in an tizzy is Sen. Barack Obama’s supposed drift to the political middle ground. (…) Specifically, in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling, he has announced support for individual gun ownership. He also has come out backing continued federal financial subsidies of so-called faith-based programs.

Although these intriguing developments are perfectly suited for stimulating commentary, let us deal first with a few foundational issues. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is going to be the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It may be close, but he will find a way. . . Although it is not much comfort for committed Democrats, we should all keep in mind that there is more wrong with this country than one man can fix by himself. . . .

Now that everyone clearly understands that this is a theoretical discussion, we can move ahead to analyze Obama’s centrist strategy. . . . It may be that Obama sees this business of helping religious organizations from a perspective that is unfamiliar to social liberals, and entirely foreign to the rigid Republican right. Perhaps an illustration would better explain what he might have in mind. Stay with me.

These kinds of expectations must necessarily be filtered though personal experience. In parts of the South, for example, members of certain prevalent denominations could never imagine being outnumbered by people from a different, and perhaps hostile, culture. Growing up as a Roman Catholic in Alabama, let me tell you that it is no fun being on the wrong side of the majority denomination.

My friends on the left are in equally unfamiliar territory since Obama’s suggestion on helping church-sponsored social ministries, and there also is an aspect of this which has, so far, generally escaped conservative thinkers. Now this is a complete hypothetical, offered in good clean fun for the sole purpose of provoking serious reflection, but what if a future Obama administration began doling out lots of federal tax dollars to the left-leaning, old-school, mainline Protestant denominations? Those are the ones that have espoused every imaginable liberal political cause from gay marriage to immigration reform and abortion.

Very often, how you see things depends on where you sit. If a Democratic president started handing out government money to the church social programs of the religious left, we would rightly expect the most energetic opposition. Right-wing activists might even call out the ACLU. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Based solely on principle, government funding should never go to any church. It’s bad public policy and destructive of religious liberty. No matter which political polarity comes out ahead at the moment, it’s just plain wrong. Once those on the religious right figure that out, they might also try remembering who it was that opened the door for Obama in the first place.

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