Yesterday’s WaPo article by Carrie Johnson on the Obama administration’s approach to the contentious hiring issue for faith-based organizations (FBOs) receiving public funds tells you what you need to know–up to a point. To wit: It’s a really complicated issue, there are partisans on both sides, and the Justice Department has placed it firmly on the back burner.
That said, there are a couple of things that require looking into. First, since the administration has said that the questions will be dealt with on a case-by-case (and now, it seems, program-by-program) basis, has anyone out there actually raised a question and received an answer to whether a particular FBO operating a particular program with public funds is free to hire only its own co-religionists?
Second, what about finding someone who supports a compromise solution? Between strict separationist Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va) and World Vision’s “it’s our right to hire our folks” Steven McFarland and Richard Stearns, you’d think there was no middle ground. There is. Come to think of it, maybe this is an issue for the commongroundniks to explore.
