Obama Proposes Buying Off Evangelicals

Barack Obama thinks the way to the hearts of evangelicals is through their social program wallets:

CHICAGO (AP) - Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans that would expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and - in a move sure to cause controversy - support their ability to hire and fire based on faith.

While this might be attractive to liberal evangelicals, conservatives like me aren't impressed. I don't think the government has any right to be throwing money at these things, money that's not theirs in the first place. You can bet that much of this spending will be aimed at organizations that meet a certain political goal more than a social goal.

If we let people keep more of their own money there would be more giving to social organizations and fewer people would need government handouts.

UPDATE: The AP report is barely out and they're already backtracking:

The Obama campaign says the AP's first report this morning that Obama supports "their [faith-based organizations'] ability to hire and fire based on faith" is incorrect. In fact, Obama's plan, they say, would prevent organizations from discriminating based on faith.

Note: The second version of AP story says Obama would support "some ability to hire and fire based on faith."

The change is of one word, from "their" to "some."

But the campaign says the second version is still inaccurate.

Huh??