Posted on 01/30/2009 11:18:08 AM PST by lewisglad
Josh Dubois, the 26 year-old who ran religious outreach for Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, has been tapped by the new president to head the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, a White House aide tells ABC News.
Dubois, who previously worked as an associate pastor for a small Pentecostal church in Massachusetts, was drawn to Obama in 2004 when he heard the future president tell the Democratic National Convention that, "We worship an awesome God in the Blue States."
After hearing that line, DuBois tried to work on Obama's US Senate campaign but was rejected. Following Obama's election to the U.S. Senate from Illinois, DuBois kept pushing for a job and got hired as a Senate aide.
Part of his job was focused on building relationships with religious leaders, especially evangelical Christians who were dissatisfied with the GOP's approach to economic justice, the use of force, and environmental protection.
The progressive religious community, which has worked closely with DuBois, learned about the pick a few days ago. Initially, the president's staff was declining to comment but the White House is now confirming the selection.
One key question DuBois will have to help Obama address is whether the new administration should rescind a legal memorandum from the Bush administration which allows religious organizations that receive public funds to hire only those who share their faith.
During his presidential run, Obama said that those receiving government funds should not proselytize the people they help nor should they discriminate in hiring practices on the basis of religion.
Where there are state or local laws prohibiting hiring decisions from being made on the basis of sexual orientation, Obama has said he would support those laws being applied to the federally funded portion of the faith-based programs.
DuBois, whose stepfather is a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, has lived in several places including Maine, where he was born, Massachusetts, where he spent his first few years, Tennessee, which he considers his home, and Ohio, where he attended high school.
He earned his bachelor's degree from Boston University and his master's degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was enrolled in law school at Georgetown University's Law Center when he left to work for Obama in his Senate office.
As detailed in a Boston Globe profile of DuBois which ran this past summer, his social and religious activism was sparked as a 17-year old freshman at BU when a New York jury acquitted four police officers whose 41 bullets had killed an unarmed immigrant named Amadou Diallo.
DuBois wrote "NO MORE" on a placard and stood in front of a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., in Massachusetts, for 41 hours to draw attention to the 41 shots which were fired.
Close. Try the Gamaliel Foundation, the religious equivalent of ACORN, and another organization with which Obama has been deeply involved.
It's long, but this article by Stanley Kurtz at NRO pretty much lays it all out:
Senator Stealth - How to advance radical causes when no ones looking.
Did you SEE the quotation marks around the phrase?
Sheesh.
I agree with you. Too many people do NOT think about how the things they support when a Republican is in power will work when a pure Socialist comes in. I try to point out the same thing to liberals — things may sound great when they “trust” the one running it, but they never think about human nature, and how the power they give will eventually be used against them.
(Incidently, I still feel bad about accusing you of being a troll shortly before the election. Many of your posts that I’ve read over the last few weeks I’ve agreed with. So, again, my apologies to you for that.)
Thank you for sharing that passage. Being forced into “good deeds” helps no-one. You cannot learn the lessons of generosity and such by being forced to do things.
Never fear — even if they are not held responsible by MAN, they will have to answer for their actions when it REALLY counts — when they come face-to-face with He who made us... Sometimes remembering that is the only thing that gets me through the day.
I’ve discovered that most of God’s laws are for our own benefit,
including the command to work and give the first 10th of your earnings to charity, willingly.
Forced “sharing of the wealth” doesn’t do your heart/soul any good at all. But, it does make those who pat themselves on the back for “caring” feel better about themselves.
“Did you SEE the quotation marks around the phrase?”
Are you unfamiliar with the old “of which you speak” game? My response was not aimed at you so much as at people who take things like seperation of church and state for granted. It’s fun to pretend that other people’s beliefs are outlandish.
Try it sometime. When someone brings up the “wall of seperation” in casual conversation, you respond by asking, with a straight face, “Where did you get such strange ideas? Can you recommend any books on this subject?”
That’s fine, but you don’t need to play that “game” with me because I already know that no such mandate exists. And I THOUGHT my post made that pretty clear.
“And I THOUGHT my post made that pretty clear.”
It did. This wouldn’t be the first time someone used somebody else’s post to make their own point.
That. And more.
“Does he cling to his religion?”
Yes, but only with one hand. The other one has to be free to take your gun...and your money...
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