Obama To Sistah Souljah The Constitution?

Update: This report was dead wrong, Obama said the opposite in his speech. "First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion." I really thought it was out of character for Obama to support something like this, and lo and behold, I was right.

/end update

I'm cool with him voting for FISA, got no problem with his support for the Heller decision, I'm glad he's toning down his rhetoric on NAFTA...but this?

Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans that would expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support their ability to hire and fire based on faith.

I don't particularly mind Federal dollars going to private "faith-based" charities, but to allow them the opportunity to fire people based on their beliefs, is just going way too far.

So say someone works at a Pentecostal charity, and a co-worker asks them their thoughts on speaking in tongues, and this person (who is a Pentecostal themselves) says they don't believe God is speaking jibberish through them...now they should be allowed to be fired?

If we allow private charities, which receive Federal dollars, to hire and fire based on religious beliefs...why not all companies? Should we allow them to hire and fire based on gender, race, sexual orientation, etc?

While I think most who would be opposed to this decision will still probably vote for him in the fall (in fact, I'm sure I'll forget about this within the next month), he probably should be concerned about alienating his base in light of his decision to rely on us to fund his general election campaign. With the economy worsening and prices soaring, its going to put a bigger squeeze on the average low-dollar contributor, who might be less likely to give their money or time if they feel they are being ignored in pursuit of various factions of the 2004 Bush electorate.

Either way, I'll be interested to read his full speech on the matter to see what his reasoning is for this decision.