Subscribe to Breaking NewsVanasco: What does the DuBois appointment say about Obama and gays?
Josh DuBois might be called a New Evangelical. He is a Pentecostal pastor who believes Jesus is his personal savior. But he also seems to put more weight on the social gospel (that is, that Christians should take care of the poor and the disenfranchised) than on the old Evangelical hammers of gays and abortion.
And now the 26-year-old has a new position: head of the new President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Under Bush, this was called the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, and it spent a lot of money pushing abstinence-only programs.
Obama’s idea is different. His office will increase spending on social services – it will also forbid religious organizations from sexual orientation discrimination in hiring in any services that are taxpayer supported.
What it seems like to me is this: Obama’s religous outreach is not witchhunting or targeting gays in any way. But it also is not looking at us as important religious partners. Newsweek columnist Sally Quinn says that DuBois was the person who first floated Rick Warren’s name as a possible inaugural speaker; DuBois, who was in charge of faith-based outreach for the Obama campaign, also put together the program that featured Donnie McClurkin, an “ex-gay” gospel singer who has said that “homosexuality is a curse.”
DuBois is young. I don’t think he did these things to send a message to gays and lesbians – I think he did those things because he doesn’t figure us in at all.
Gays and lesbians have given religion over to the right. This is not good. There are many religions that have denied us our personhood; there are many of us who have been hurt by the religious traditions we grew up in. But gays are a diverse people, and there are many of us who are religious or spiritual – and we should not be ignored by a national program that should serve the whole country.
My hope is that gay religious organizations will approach DuBois’s office about funding their valuable social service programs that assist homeless queer youth, people with AIDS, and other disenfranchised LGBT communities.
Any President’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships should not only be reaching out to Evangelicals – it should also be reaching out to us.
I agree with Vanasco, we need to get some gay religious organizations in the spotlight, for some very important reasons. Number one, it undermines the religious extremist insistance that it is morally wrong to be gay if we demonstrate there are people who have reconciled religion and homosexuality.
Number two, to Dave and the others who are saying just get religion out of government, that STILL leaves out gay people who are religious, so how is that is not a solution to the problem? I get a bit annoyed when people suggest that not making laws respecting an establishment of religion means we need to make atheist the government religion, and that is exactly what outlawing religion entirely does in my opinion.
Jennifer, why ask for gay religious organizations to apply? Why not simply community organizations?
I agree with many posters here…why the religion in our government? If they do good work, fine, we all know how well funded they are by the hand-wringers in the pews.
The right question to ask here is why is our government continuing to fund religion? Does anyone believe so called “faith based” organizations do community service work for the good of it? They are prosyletizing/brainwashing.
We have a secular government as dictated by our constitution. If we as “the opposition” or simply citizens do not require our government to remain secular, we will end up letting them take away our liberties just as Bush was successful in doing.
There is a very good argument for secular community service. Giving in by suggesting gays can have faith based funding too is rolling over. I’d like to see gay community organizations apply for funding and religious organizations get out of government. We all know what that leads to.
Thanks to Oterb for pointing out that Buddhists exist. I’m not a Buddhist, but there are a lot of Asians in America who identify with Taoist, animist, Buddhist (Tibetan or other) traditions, and it’s odd that Obama almost went out of his way to exclude them in his inaugural. The inauguration itself was a festival of various forms of evangelical Protestantism. Oterb, you’re not the only one who felt left out.
I would really have liked to see Obama recognize a diversity of spiritual traditions instead of just another narrowly focused christian viewpoint. It is iscouraging to be left out both as a lesbian and a Buddhist. Dedication to the dharma principles of interdependence and compassion would be of benefit to all sentient beings, most especially the McCLurkins and Warrens of the world.
We just need to keep an eye on the goings on of this office and make a little noise when the line is crossed.
Jay Bakker, yes, the son of Jim and Tammy Faye has done really good faith based and neighborhood projects at the expense of funding to his church. He came out in total support of LGBT persons and welcomes them into his fold. He’s a smart, nice person and he follows principles and not edicts or mandates.
I guess if you are going to have an “office” like this then you need to appoint somebody, who even at an early age has at least commited to what they are going to represent.
There are tons of people who believe this stuff and just like I want mine they want theirs. If they can share the bounty and help poor people, sick people, and other worthy causes I have no problem with this happening.
I also don’t like this “faith infused” government but I’m just one of many. I am “waiting and seeing” what goes on. My rushing to judgements makes me about as open as I claim they are. I need to see what happens before I condemn anyone for anything.
I have never let anybody hijack God from my life. They’ll all find out what is up at some point.
We need to find ways of getting personal stories of triumph and hardship to this young man and if he is a faithful person he will do the right thing. If not, then we are still better off than we were.
I will still do what is right and will not wait around for the rest of the world to catch up. Donnie McClurkin and Mary, Mary are nothing but performers taking advantage of a musical market. People who know them have told me they are about as false as false prophets get. Rick Warren has a purpose driven life. Money, property, and prestige. Certainly about as far from God as a man can be.
There should be enough to keep the grammer police busy for a bit right here so everybody weigh in while I am being red penned.
Don’t forget the prominent GLBT publication in Chicago – Chicago Free Press – endorsed Clinton over Obama in the Illinois primary.
I love your columns, but I think you’re being too kind and forgiving to Mr. DuBois. Chicagoans have long been concerned about Obama’s true feelings about the GLBT community.
Where did you get the notion that Obama would “forbid religious organizations from sexual orientation discrimination in hiring in any services that are taxpayer supported”?
No such commitment has been made. The best that has been mentioned (and this is most definitely NOT a sure thing) is that faith-based money recipients might be asked/required to abide by any state law that bans employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Thirty states have no bans at all, and bans are not absolute in all the other twenty states.
This is a very big deal with the religious right, that they be able to discriminate against people of other faiths, and that they be able to discriminate against us — both of which Bush cheerfully allowed. It’s not at all a sure thing that Obama will change the Bush policy, at least not entirely.
“DuBois is young. I don’t think he did these things to send a message to gays and lesbians – I think he did those things because he doesn’t figure us in at all.”
And not figuring us in sends a message of it’s own, whether it was meant to be sent or not.
Before I get a citation from the grammar police let me correct my typo.
“communities” should have been “community’s”.
Please forgive.
I’m concerned that Obama is giving even more power to this man who has ignorantly or malisciously spat in our collective faces VERY publicly TWICE now in the short span of a few months.
This man needs to be educated on where he has gone off the “inclusion” rails with his picks of Warren and McClurkin. Frankly I think we’re beyond the “fool me twice” point. I fear that he doesn’t know, or worse, doesn’t care about the gay communities concerns, our issues or whether or not we are thrown under the bus.
This HAS to change if Obama is to be the President that he has promised the gay community and the country that he would be.
Gerry and Morgan both make interesting points. Like Morgan, I’m troubled by separation of church and state issues. Obama (not my favorite guy by any means) is a constitutional law professor – I wish we were privy to his thinking around this.
I also think, as Gerry says, that contracting out to non-discriminatory religious organizations doing social service work is very close to contracting with secular organizations. What I hope is that this new office – which includes “neighborhood” in the title – doesn’t prefer (i.e., fund) religious social service agencies over secular ones.
Does anyone have examples of religious social service organizations that they think are doing good work?
Thanks for the subordinating conjunction catch. Corrected.
I always wonder whether people can make cohesive, substantial arguments when they snarl about piddling copyediting errors instead of addressing the points at issue.
As always, I welcome thoughtful dialogue about all serious issues that affect the lives and politics of the LGBT community.
it will also forbid religious organizations from sexual orientation discrimination in hiring in any services that are taxpayer supported.
This is pretty meaningless. They can still discriminate all they want with the rest of their money.
Editor-in-chief needs to learn to proofread: “then” instead of “than”, orphaned subordinate clause, run-on sentence – all in the first paragraph. Why would one bother reading the rest??