Interfaith Alliance President Welton Gaddy has been a strong and reliable voice against the government funding of religious organizations. Now, the White House has asked him to join the Faith Advisory Council's task force looking into ways to reform the Office of Faith-Based Partnerships. Dan Gilgoff at USNews interviewed Gaddy about the role:
You still oppose the office's existence?
I have thought all along it would be best not to have such an office, and I still have that opinion. But if there's going to be an office, I want to do everything I can to see that it is constitutional in nature and that it operates both legally and in the spirit of protecting the First Amendment's historic separation between religious institutions and government institutions.
Meanwhile, the head of the Office, Joshua Dubois, discussed the program at a Pew Forum event yesterday. Georgetown professor Michael Kessler was pleased to hear Dubois repeatedly refer to the "responsible partnerships" the President is seeking between government and faith-based organizations. CQ Politics also covered yesterday's event.
[Corrected: This post has been edited to correct my mis-reading of the original story. Gaddy is not a member of the Faith Advisory Council itself, but has been appointed by the White House to the Task Force to Reform the Office, as has the Baptist Joint Committee's Brent Walker.]
