The Family Research Council has released a statement “Thanking President Bush” for his executive order today:

WASHINGTON, March 8 /U.S. Newsdesk/ — Yesterday, President Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security to establish a center for faith-based aid which will be tasked with integrating faith-based groups into federal disaster response efforts.

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins released the following statement:

“I thank the President for acting quickly to establish a faith-based office in the Department of Homeland Security. A faith-based office will make progress in eliminating the red-tape barriers which have plagued FEMA’s efforts to coordinate with faith-based groups. I know from personal experience during Hurricane Katrina that churches and para-church ministries played an important and irreplaceable role in the relief and recovery from that unprecedented storm.

“The President’s orders should improve the government’s response in future natural or man-made disasters. The order will hopefully replace the prevailing mindset in DHS that the wall separating church and state prevents government from working with churches and synagogues to help our citizens.“

That last line I highlighted is the one that gets me. Katrina showed us that the faith based and other groups worked fine to get in and help out victims. The “wall” was between federal and state/local officals. We heard reports of firefighters and paramedics being turned away while people were still trapped and dying.

The FRC of course is an advocate to remove the separation of church and state and they will exploit whatever they can to get that democracy saving principle abolished.