Mastodon
RNS logo

Gerson, disarmed

Mark Silk

Michael Gerson, who’s sort of an unreconstructed pre-9/11 compassionate conservative, likes the Obama faith-based plan. He elides the hiring issue with this probably willfully ignorant sentence: “Obama is characteristically opaque on the issue of hiring — seeming to promise that religious parent institutions can select employees based on their beliefs, while denying this right (depending on local law) to their social service adjuncts.” (The parent institutions have always gotten to hire employees based on their beliefs. Their publicly funded service adjuncts always, pre-Bush, didn’t get to do so.) Obama has put faith-based back on the table, and the reaction thus far is right where he should want it to be.

No paywalls here. Thanks to you.
As an independent nonprofit, RNS believes everyone should have access to coverage of religion that is fair, thoughtful and inclusive. That's why you will never hit a paywall on our site; you can read all the stories and columns you want, free of charge (and we hope you read a lot of them!)

But, of course, producing this journalism carries a high cost, to support the reporters, editors, columnists, and the behind-the-scenes staff that keep this site up and running. That's why we ask that if you can, you consider becoming one of our donors. Any amount helps, and because we're a nonprofit, all of it goes to support our mission: To produce thoughtful, factual coverage of religion that helps you better understand the world. Thank you for reading and supporting RNS.
Deborah Caldwell, CEO and Publisher
Donate today