Principle or Campaign Driven Support of Faith-Based Delivery of Social Services?

Barack Obama announced yesterday that he wants to continue Bush's Faith-Based Initiative program and, according to a New York Times story here, he may consider "elevating the director of his Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to a cabinet-level post."  Obama's speech is available on his website here.  A Washington Post op-ed by Michael Gerson that is not very sympathetic and touches on the politics of this policy can be found here.  I expect tomorrow's papers will have many more op-eds on the topic as writers react.  The following resources look at or touch on Bush's faith-based programs:

• John J. DiIulio Jr., Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future (2007). 
• David Kuo, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (2006)
• Martha Minow, Should Religious Groups Be Exempt from Civil Rights Laws?, 48 Boston Coll. L. Rev. 781 (2007) and somewhat relatedly: Martha Minow, Partners, Not Rivals: Privatization and the Public Good (2003).
• Office of Faith Based Initiatives, The Quiet Revolution: The President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative: A Seven-Year Progress Report (White House 2008). 

-E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu