September 18 - Over 50 Groups Call for End to Faith-Based Hiring Policy

Nearly 60 groups are pressing the Obama administration to put an end to a Bush-era policy that allowed federally-funded faith-based groups to hire only fellow believers. In a letter sent Thursday, the 58 groups – which include the ACLU, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Human Rights Campaign – asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., to direct the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to review and ultimately withdraw a 2007 memorandum that they say "threatens crucial religious freedom protections."

The hiring policy of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has been a source of controversy since Bush established the office in 2001 and Obama had vowed on the presidential campaign trail to reverse the hiring policy so that groups receiving federal money would no longer be allowed to discriminate based on religion.

"As someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state," Obama said last July in a speech about expanding Bush's office of faith-based initiatives. "If you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help, and you can't discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion."

In the meantime, until a better solution can be found, Obama’s new and expanded faith-based office was to deal with complaints against faith-based groups receiving federal funding on a case-to-case basis.