President Barack Obama’s faith may not be clearly identifiable, but he’s willing to usurp the U.S. Constitutional principle of a strict separation of church and state when it comes to using American taxpayer dollars to restore Muslim holy places.

tehrantimes | According to the Houston Chronicle, “the good will tour of the Middle East by the imam behind the proposed mosque near ground zero is just part of the U.S. government’s efforts to reach out to the Muslim world.”

The Obama administration, this year, will spend almost $6 million to restore 63 cultural and historic sites that include mosques and minarets, in 55 countries, as revealed by State Department documents.

In 2001 under a program created by Congress, the department will fund a minimum of five projects in as many nations at a cost of more than $271,000.

The contributions include the 16th Century Grand Mosque in Tongxin, China at $76,135 and $67,500 for the 18th Century Golden Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. Additionally, $62,169 will be spent on restoring a 19th century minaret in Mauritania’s ancient city of Tichitt; $50,437 for the Sundarwala Bay, a 16th Century Islamic monument in New Delhi, and $15,450 to restore the 18th Century Gobarau Minaret in Katsina, Nigeria.

As reported by the Chronicle, ‘the amount spent on mosque restoration projects is a fraction of the total in the 2010 Ambassadors’ Fund for Cultural Preservation, which also will fund projects to restore Christian and Buddhist sites as well as museums, forts and places.”

The U.S. government has spent nearly $26 million on the program to finance approximately 640 cultural preservation projects in more then 100 nations