There are two questions here that should concern us:

Is this idea Constitutional?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There's the passage we should be concerned about. I will not pretend to be a legal expert, and I know that the Court has made a broad interpretation of the Establishment clause. We see this in the Lemon Test, from the case Lemon vs. Kurtzman in 1971.

  1. The government's action must have a secular legislative purpose;
   2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
   3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.

Here, we do have a secular legislative purpose - funding community programs, such as summer learning. I think it's also fairly self-evident that this will not have the "primary" purpose of advancing or inhibiting religion. The last question is trickier.

It relates to the "wall between church and state" that Jefferson is quoted on, and the "Freedom from Religion" that others were talking about. In this case, I do not think that there is an excessive entanglement, because the government is interfacing with a program that must not proselytize. These are programs like the ones that Obama was a part of when he first came to Chicago, working under funding from the Catholic Church.

Folks, the US doesn't have secular non-profits anywhere. Even some "secular" non-profits (like the one I used to volunteer at) were formed by a church or churches. The policy advocated last night on Countdown by Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State was to keep the money in the hands of those non-profits, founded by churches.

I don't see a huge difference between a community program run by a non-profit run by a church/churches, and a community program run by a church. They have the same potential for abuse, but it sounds like some people here would rather no money go anywhere near a church, because churches and religions are fundamentally bad.

The original reason I got involved in politics is to end this sort of polarizing nonsense. Anytime you find yourself saying, "Everything involving X is bad," you've gotten polarized. That's not good. As a result, I found my arguments in other threads responded to with accusations that I sounded like Bush, and not with ideas about my own thoughts.

There is a reasonable discussion to be had here, and I don't think the idea that all religions are evil should enter into it.
You have a right to an opinion on where your tax dollars go. That opinion doesn't mean that you can claim that a program you don't like in unconstitutional.

Is this idea good public policy?

Here, we run into a different issue, because there are very real potentials for problems when government and religion interface at all. My argument here is that we don't have secular non-profits everywhere. Churches have and will do good community work, like Trinity Church in Chicago.

I want the money going to the best programs. As another commenter said, the money Obama is making available will not come close to the money available to secular non-profits already. Right now, we might be withholding money from good programs because of the organization they exist under.

I know there is potential for abuse. That exists for many government programs, which have been screwed up by the Bush Administration. That doesn't mean we should get rid of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Wing, or the EPA, or the Consumer Products Saftey Commision. It means we need an Executive Branch that will run those offices and progras right.

I think Obama, as a former Constitutional Law professor, can do that. What do you think?

Update [2008-7-2 13:52:53 by Falsehood]: If you didn't already see it (it's on the rec list with good reason), there's another good diary on this subject. Click: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/7/2/112339/2028