Another Broken Obama Promise

The pile of broken promises is getting larger, and Obama has only been in office a few weeks.

During the campaign, Obama promised to reverse Bush's executive order allowing religious groups who receive money in federally funded "faith-based" programs to discriminate on religious grounds. Obama signed his own executive order revamping the programs, but left out a key change that he had promised to make. During the campaign, Obama promised, “First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use the grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them — or against the people you hire — on the basis of religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples and mosques can only be used on secular programs.” But none of that language found its way into the new executive order. Obama was well aware of that oversight, it seems. As the New York Times pointed out in a recent editorial, Obama signed the order in private. So much for the new openness

Mr. Obama's choice to lead the faith based initiative, Pentecostal Minister Joshua DuBois, said that Obama's executive order allows for a case-by-case review to decide if grants to faith-based organizations are consistent with the law. But without the changes Obama promised, the law still allows a blurring of church and state.

I cannot figure out this broken promise. Obama either doesn't want to piss off religious groups, or doesn't want to piss off the Republicans. But he sure pissed me off. And I am not the only one. Check out this LA Times story about Liberals frustrated with Obama campaign promise amnesia.

Also, PolitiFact has a great ticker that tracks Obama's promises and where they stand.