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By SEAN MUSSENDEN and MARY GIUNCA
Media General News Service
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Thursday tapped a Wake Forest University specialist on the separation of church and state to advise him on faith-based social service programs.
Melissa Rogers, a lawyer who directs the Center for Religious and Public Affairs at the Wake Forest University Divinity School, was one of 15 secular and religious leaders appointed to a council overseeing the newly renamed White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Obama issued an executive order Thursday that brought several changes to the office, which supervised President George W. Bush’s contentious effort to give church groups a larger role in providing taxpayer-funded social services.
Critics of the office under Bush said it blurred the legal separation of church and state by favoring religious groups over secular groups in awarding grants and contracts, and allowing religious groups that received government funds to discriminate in hiring.
“The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups,” Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. “It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.”
In an interview, Rogers, 42, said she believed she was selected for the unpaid position because of her years of experience working on Constitutional issues surrounding the separation of church and state.
“There has to be a reconciliation of two fundamental values – the desire to meet pressing community needs balanced against the need to protect Constitutional guarantees,” she said of the challenge facing the faith-based advisory council.
Rogers is the author of a book on religion and law. Before joining the Wake Forest divinity school, she served as executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and was general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, both in Washington.
Rogers lives in Northern Virginia, where she attends a Baptist church, and teaches classes for the divinity school in both Winston-Salem and Washington.
Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest divinity school, said she is perfectly suited to advise the faith-based office.
Besides her legal background, "She is herself a church woman and she knows the issues that arise in the give and take of the average congregation,” Leonard said.
In December, Rogers co-authored a report for the divinity school and the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan think tank, recommending several changes to the Bush-era program.
Some of those recommendations were rolled into the changes Obama announced Thursday, including the creation of the advisory council and the need to review and clarify church-state rules.
On the campaign trail, Obama said he was opposed to the Bush policy that allowed grant recipients to discriminate based on religious views in hiring.
The executive order issued Thursday did not reverse the hiring policy, but set up a new legal review process to address it and other issues with the program that tested the boundaries between church and state.
In the December report, Rogers said she opposed religious discrimination for jobs funded by government grants, but said more information was needed on the actual hiring practices of religious groups.
Critics of the program under Bush – including one who worked for the Bush White House – alleged that the White House gave grants to favored religious organizations instead of more qualified secular ones.
Changes in the review process are needed to ensure that does not happen, Rogers said.
“We have to be evenhanded, and not put a thumb on the scale to put one religious group over another, or a religious group over a secular group,” she said.
(Sean Mussenden can be reached at smussenden@mediageneral.com or 202-662-7668)
Media General News Service
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Thursday tapped a Wake Forest University specialist on the separation of church and state to advise him on faith-based social service programs.
Melissa Rogers, a lawyer who directs the Center for Religious and Public Affairs at the Wake Forest University Divinity School, was one of 15 secular and religious leaders appointed to a council overseeing the newly renamed White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Obama issued an executive order Thursday that brought several changes to the office, which supervised President George W. Bush’s contentious effort to give church groups a larger role in providing taxpayer-funded social services.
Critics of the office under Bush said it blurred the legal separation of church and state by favoring religious groups over secular groups in awarding grants and contracts, and allowing religious groups that received government funds to discriminate in hiring.
“The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another – or even religious groups over secular groups,” Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. “It will simply be to work on behalf of those organizations that want to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state.”
In an interview, Rogers, 42, said she believed she was selected for the unpaid position because of her years of experience working on Constitutional issues surrounding the separation of church and state.
“There has to be a reconciliation of two fundamental values – the desire to meet pressing community needs balanced against the need to protect Constitutional guarantees,” she said of the challenge facing the faith-based advisory council.
Rogers is the author of a book on religion and law. Before joining the Wake Forest divinity school, she served as executive director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and was general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, both in Washington.
Rogers lives in Northern Virginia, where she attends a Baptist church, and teaches classes for the divinity school in both Winston-Salem and Washington.
Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest divinity school, said she is perfectly suited to advise the faith-based office.
Besides her legal background, "She is herself a church woman and she knows the issues that arise in the give and take of the average congregation,” Leonard said.
In December, Rogers co-authored a report for the divinity school and the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan think tank, recommending several changes to the Bush-era program.
Some of those recommendations were rolled into the changes Obama announced Thursday, including the creation of the advisory council and the need to review and clarify church-state rules.
On the campaign trail, Obama said he was opposed to the Bush policy that allowed grant recipients to discriminate based on religious views in hiring.
The executive order issued Thursday did not reverse the hiring policy, but set up a new legal review process to address it and other issues with the program that tested the boundaries between church and state.
In the December report, Rogers said she opposed religious discrimination for jobs funded by government grants, but said more information was needed on the actual hiring practices of religious groups.
Critics of the program under Bush – including one who worked for the Bush White House – alleged that the White House gave grants to favored religious organizations instead of more qualified secular ones.
Changes in the review process are needed to ensure that does not happen, Rogers said.
“We have to be evenhanded, and not put a thumb on the scale to put one religious group over another, or a religious group over a secular group,” she said.
(Sean Mussenden can be reached at smussenden@mediageneral.com or 202-662-7668)