Homeland Security gets religion

Thanks to a DailyKos diary, we learn that the Prez, in his covert role of Pontifex Maxinus for the religious right, signed an Executive Order yesterday established a "Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives" at the Department of Homeland Security.

The Center shall be run by a director reporting directely to to the Secretary of DHS, and the latter is to choose the director in consultation with the "Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (WHOFBCI Director)".

Why? Well, here's what the Executive Order says:

The purpose of the Center shall be to coordinate agency efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the provision of social and community services.

So DHS now does "social and community services"? What happened to The Terrorist Threat? (Is Pat Robertson going to get to set up a commando wing and take out Hugo Chavez? Will James Dobson be empowered to act against those anti-war Quakers whose subversive meetings The Regime has been spying upon?)

Or is this supposed to be a way to improve upon FEMA? FEMA is not even mentioned in the order, nor is any actual responsibility of DHS. At best this reflects a weird example of further bureaucratization of the federal government (WHOFBCI already exists, for better or worse). At worst it is one more example of The Regime's pandering to its religious constituency. A new hurricane season is almost upon us: is this really the best priority for DHS right now?

Perhaps they have taken the recent electoral success of Hamas to heart?