Source: Religion News Service
WASHINGTON, DC, November 17, 2010: President Obama signed an executive order today that reforms the White House’s faith-based office in a bid to improve transparency and clarify rules for religious groups that receive federal grants. The nine-page order reflects numerous recommendations made more than six months ago by a blue-ribbon advisory council charged with streamlining and reforming the office created under former President George W. Bush.
“The recommendations that they’ve put forth make really concrete and tangible improvements to the government’s relationship with faith-based organizations,” said Joshua DuBois, director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The executive order, however, does not address controversial questions of whether grant recipients can hire and fire based on religion. Administration officials have said those questions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
DuBois and others said the new order gives better legal footing to public-private partnerships. “It … clarifies that decisions about financial awards must be free from political interference or the appearance thereof,” DuBois said. In particular, the order reflects the council’s special concern about the treatment of people who receive social services from a religious group receiving federal funding. “The government has a responsibility to give a referral to a nonreligious program if the beneficiary objects to the religious program they’re in,” DuBois said in explaining the order.
Obama’s order implements most of the dozen reform recommendations crafted by the council’s task force on internal reform, which included a former Bush administration staffer and church-state separationists. With the new order in place, DuBois said “well over half” of the council’s total 64 recommendations — on topics ranging from poverty to interfaith relations — will have been implemented.
Other council members, who represent both conservative and liberal religious organizations, said they were pleased with the order.