Opinion: Examining Obama’s Plan to Help Religious Groups

Senator Obama’s plans to expand President Bush’s effort to help religious groups has drawn criticism from both liberals and conservatives, but the plan could work if it required religious groups that receive government funds to work with religious communities from faiths different than their own, write Matthew Weiner and Travis Rejman in The Huffington Post.

This would allow the program to keep religious groups from proselytizing, or serving only their own, and would keep the spirit of church and state separation, because it would keep any one church from exerting too much influence over the government, write Mr. Weiner, who is director of programming at the Interfaith Center of New York, and Mr. Rejman, who is executive director of the Goldin Institute, in Chicago.