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Obama's Faith-Based Office Decision Mirrors Brooking Institution Report

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Other companies that are not faith based, but who have supervisors or managers who follow this belief are also letting people go now because they don't follow the supervisor's religion. It seems to have started with the Faith based initiative. They ask if someone is a Christian behind closed doors so that the EEOC has no proof to take the case. It happened to me and I worked for a local government agency. I've found that it seems to be happening all over the country now. Where ever there is a large religious right community, there is also a very high unemployment rate. The areas that don't have such a high concentration of religious people, with more diverse communities have less unemployment. I checked it out and was very surprised.
We need to stop it in all circumstances so there is no question of whether it's legal. People who do not follow the religion are considered to not share the company's values and to be substandard employees, so they are taking some of the wording of the faith based discrmination practices to justify doing it themselves and hiding it behind closed doors to keep from getting turned in since they know it doesn't really apply to their business. People think that they don't have to stop this, because of the EEOC and don't know about this loophole.

Margie of CA 5:05PM January 07, 2011

I know Obama said he would keep the faith-based initiatives office open, but that is one of his campaign promises I wish he would break. Government money should not be spent promoting religion, and with many of these groups religion is closely tied into the services they provide. Not only that, they discriminate in hiring only persons who share their faith systems. Bush started this office because the Congress rightfully refused to fund religious activities; he did it to circumvent the law. Obama is wrong to continue this office. There is no evidence that religious organizations provide better social services than secular organizations do, and there are many of those around: Goodwill Industries and Volunteers of America just to name two. The faith-based initiatives office should be abolished. Those religious groups did fine before they got government grants and they have more influence than they should have in a secular democratic republic like our country is supposed to be.

Marian Hennings of VA 11:22PM April 29, 2010

Dan - Would that be the "left-leaning" Brookings Institution? I just can't figure out why you have such a hard time balancing out your stories? You have no problem deriding Focus on the Family for hiring Tim Goeglein, who you point out as someone who "plagiarized dozens of the columns," yet you failed to mention slow Joe Biden who was caught "plagiarizing almost word-for-word a speech given by British Labour politician Neil Kinnock." What gives? All most readers want is a balanced story. They'll figure the truth out themselves.

Deek56 of CA 10:12PM February 05, 2009

I don't blame the Obama people for slowing down and thinking before publishing a policy.
That said, there is one good reason I can think of for not ever allowing any organization to practice any religious discrimination in hiring IF THEY ACCEPT ANY FEDERAL DOLLARS. That reason is this:
Religious organizations that want to hire people selectively on their beliefs are ideology-driven. They can and will raise money from like-minded people to do whatever they do. There is no reason for government to be paying them to do something they'll accomplish anyway.

Muser of NM 11:37AM February 05, 2009