(March 11) -- Why does President Barack Obama support a policy that lets a Baptist homeless shelter take tax dollars and then refuse to hire Jews, Hindus or nonbelievers to change the sheets or ladle out the morning oatmeal? Particularly when it violates a clear campaign promise.

In 2008, candidate Obama told an audience in Zanesville, Ohio, that he would make major changes in the way religious entities were funded. Under President George W. Bush's "faith-based" program, government grants and contracts went to religious groups to provide social services, even when those groups insisted on discriminatory hiring practices -- applicants could be denied federally funded jobs, based solely on religious affiliation or beliefs.

During his presidential campaign, Obama specifically promised that "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."

But the Obama administration continues to appease the Religious Right via inaction.

Last September, 58 of the nation's civil rights organizations asked Attorney General Eric Holder to rescind a 2008 legal memorandum that specifically permitted the relief group World Vision to maintain its "Christian only" hiring policy, a regimen that includes requiring employees to sign a statement of belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. This memo gave the group unfettered access last year to nearly $300 million of taxpayer money.

Lynn has more -- and I hope others will write about this and raise the matter with elected officials.

Here is something we might ask them: If a Democratic president who was a professor of Constitutional Law at a major university cannot bring himself to bring federal policy into conformity with the Constitution and federal civil rights laws, who will?