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Randy Brinson says he "almost fell out of my chair" when he heard that expected Democratic nominee Barack Obama had chosen Zanesville, Ohio, as the setting for a recent speech in which he embraced the concept of using faith-based groups to help carry out government social service efforts. It wasn't that Zanesville struck Brinson as an odd locale. Quite the opposite. It was that Obama had clearly figured out something that Brinson already knew. "Zanesville is Ground Zero for conservative evangelicals in Ohio," says Brinson, who, as founder of the voter registration organization "Redeem the Vote," knows a thing or...

As a state senator from the South Side, Barack Obama once arranged for a $200,000 state grant to jump-start an urban venture capital fund for a non-profit group run by Rev. Jesse Jackson. The grant was the very sort of faith-based initiative now at the center of an uncomfortable rift between Jackson and Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. The money was spent, but the promised investment pool for job-poor neighborhoods never materialized, an example of the mixed record for Obama and other officials in getting results from such programs. Obama's embrace of this approach, championed by President George W....

It is not the place of the pastor or priest to tell anyone who to vote for, but when politicians propose policy involving faith and morality, clergy have not only the right, but also the special obligation to put these proposals to the test. Here I go: You might assume by last week’s headlines Senator Obama has found something in common with Senator McCain and his conservative base: the value of providing government funding to both faith-based and secular social services, as long as they get the job done. ---snip--- To calm the torment, a spokesman for the Obama campaign...

Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy -- support some ability to hire and fire based on faith. Sen. Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio, at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services. "The challenges we face today ... are simply too big for government to solve alone," Sen....

Obama to rename Bush's faith office By: Mike Allen July 1, 2008 10:55 AM EST Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) plans to slam President Bush’s faith-based program as “a photo op” and a failure on Tuesday, and says he would scrap the office and create a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that would be a “critical” part of his administration. Obama, unveiling a plan to overhaul and expand Bush’s faith-based program during remarks at a community ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, said the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives — which Bush founded during his second week in...

Sen. Barack Obama did patriotism yesterday, today it is faith and by the end of the day both speeches will have been done in back-to-back states that swing: Missouri and Ohio. The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator plans to go to Zanesville, located in eastern Ohio, to visit a church program that provides food and clothing assistance to those in need.

Today the President made statements regarding North Korea and legislative agenda, he also spoke at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast and the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives' National Conference. He then went to Camp David to meet with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. For more details of these and other events visit the White House website Click here Pray for President Bush -- Day 2843 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Japan Defense Secretary Robert Gates held a news briefing

Conference Will Explore Initiative's Impact Aiding Millions In Partnership With Nonprofit SectorOn June 26 and 27, President George W. Bush will deliver remarks at the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) "Innovations in Effective Compassion" National Conference in Washington, D.C.  Attended by members of the President's Cabinet, OFBCI Director Jay Hein, and more than 1,000 public and private-sector leaders, the Conference will explore and expand the ways the Faith-Based and Community Initiative is transforming government's approach to human need, in partnership with faith-based and community organizations, to solve problems from addiction and homelessness to malaria and HIV/AIDS.Conference...

Obama’s Ex-Church Has Won $15M in Federal Grant Money by FOXNews.com Monday, June 2, 2008 By Jeff Goldblatt Across America seven days a week, parents drop their kids at day care centers, which are supported by funding from the federal government. But what makes one facility noteworthy in inner city Chicago is that it’s run by Trinity United Church of Christ. It’s the same church whose former head pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, drew widespread scrutiny after he cursed the U.S. government for its treatment of African-Americans. FOX News has learned that over the last 15 years, Trinity has received at...

My apologies for being so late for the Dose. We had an emergency come upPresident Bush flew with Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao to Baltimore MD this morning to discuss the Jericho Faith-Based and Community Initiative Program TranscriptAs promised last night, President Bush signed an executive order Protecting American Taxpayers from Government Spending on Wasteful Earmarks This evening President Bush met in the Cabinet room with Joint Chiefs and Combatant Commanders THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, we're glad you're here. The Vice President and I welcome you all. One of the highlights of my year...

Huckabee is a political inconvenience, a destroyer of stereotypes. He is probably best known as the fellow who lost 100 lbs. in a year, and made living well through exercise and good nutrition one of his signature issues as Governor. But the real significance of Huckabee--and, to a lesser extent, Brownback--is that he represents the introduction of a new constituency into the political process: "Second Commandment" Christians, those more interested in salvation than damnation, people like the California pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life. Huckabee says, "Our church in Little Rock is very similar to Rick Warren's....

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – When Rick Warren takes on a problem, the scale often seems limited only by the size of the planet. Five years ago, his wife, Kay, responded to a sobering magazine article about the plight of 12 million AIDS orphans in Africa, and now their 22,000-strong Saddleback Church in upscale Orange County, California, has completed its third annual "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church," drawing figures such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, United Nations officials and President Bush's global AIDS coordinator to unite against the pandemic. Warren says the problem of AIDS, with an estimated 33 million...

In recognition of World AIDS Day, President & Mrs. Bush traveled to the Calvary United Methodist Church in Mount Airy, Maryland where they met with faith-based groups and thanked them for their efforts in fighting the disease around the world.(Transcript) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia. Shultz served as secretary of state under President Reagan. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

A controversial Church of Scientology treatment used on World Trade Center emergency responders is being used in Utah to "detoxify" cops who raided methamphetamine labs in the 1980s and 1990s. The Utah Meth Cops Project is treating around a dozen former and current police officers at taxpayers' expense, using a regime devised by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard at a Bio-Cleansing Centers of America facility in Orem, Utah. State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff brought the project west after seeing it used to treat emergency workers in New York who were injured working at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001,...

A months-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling quickly weakened the ability of taxpayers to sue government for violating the separation of church and state, legal experts say. The court ruled in June that taxpayers could not sue over executive branch spending that allegedly promoted religion. The 5-4 decision dismissed a lawsuit by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation that challenged President Bush's faith-based initiative.Taxpayers only have the standing to sue when Congress specifically authorizes money for religious purposes, Justice Samuel Alito wrote. Otherwise, courts would be clogged with cases complaining about the day-to-day activities of government employees, he wrote. At the...

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Two state officials have been added to the list of defendants in a lawsuit filed by the nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics. The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation says that referrals to the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, which serves troubled children, are funded by taxpayer money and that staff at the ranch facilities in Minot, Fargo and Bismarck indoctrinate children with religion. The Boys and Girls Ranch, which is affiliated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and state officials dispute the foundation's claims. The group initially...

Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory says he wants to "ensure that students from the widest range of faith and cultural backgrounds are part of public education." Many Ontarians have interpreted this to mean that Mr. Tory would provide public funding for religious schools of all types -- not just Catholic schools, as under the current system. While the status quo may be flawed, providing more government funding to religious schools would only make matters worse. Such a plan would further ghettoize religious communities -- especially the Muslim community, which is already quite insular. Conservative Muslims may support Mr. Tory's...

The U.S. Supreme Court limited the power of taxpayers to challenge government actions as unconstitutionally promoting religion, throwing out a suit aimed at President George W. Bush's faith-based initiatives office. The justices, voting 5-4, said a group of taxpayers lacked the legal right to sue over White House-sponsored conferences designed to help groups compete for social-service funding. The suit contended the sessions promoted religious organizations over secular ones. ``If every federal taxpayer could sue to challenge any government expenditure, the federal courts would cease to function as courts of law and would be cast in the role of general complaint...

Justice Alito for the Court [Jonathan Adler] Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for the Court in two 5-4 decisions handed down today, according to SCOTUSBlog . . . . More to follow. UPDATE: In the first of these two Alito opinions, the Court held that the Endangered Species Act does not trump other federal environmental laws. In the second, the Court held that taxpayers lack standing to challenge the federal government's faith-based initiative. A taxpayer group had sought to argue that the faith-based initiative violated the Establishment Clause. 06/25 10:19 AM

A US evangelical Christian minister has been appointed to lead a million-dollar program to tackle gang violence in Los Angeles, the city's mayor said. Reverend Jeff Carr, a minister in the Church of the Nazarene, was named director of gang reduction and youth development programs for the city. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa promised to name an anti-gang "tsar" as part of a crackdown earlier this year. There are an estimated 40,000 gang members in LA. Mr Carr will co-ordinate an anti-gang strategy unveiled by Mr Villaraigosa in April, and lead an audit of the 23 gang-prevention programmes already operating in LA....