February 5, 2001
Bush's faith-based funding proposals
draw mixed reviews, face challenge
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Making good on a campaign promise to increase the role of faith-based institutions in public policy, President George W. Bush laid the groundwork Jan. 29 to allow religious organizations to receive government money in exchange forfighting poverty, addiction, homelessness and a range of social ills.
PRESIDENT BUSH, surrounded by members of faith-based groups, speaks after their meeting at the White House Jan. 29. Standing at Bush's right is John DiIlulio, whom the president last week appointed to head his new White House Office for Faith-based and Community Initiatives. Bush highlighted his desire for more private and federal money to flow to religious, charitable and community groups to help them do more to combat problems like alcoholism and drug abuse. (Reuters/RNS)
___After a White House meeting with nearly three dozen religious leaders, Bush announced his new White House Office for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, a clearinghouse of sorts for programs that promote faith as a means to deliver social services.
___The next day, Bush asked Congress to make it easier for faith-based groups to compete with secular agencies for government dollars and for more rank-and-file citizens to receive tax deductions for charitable donations.
___"We will encourage faith-based and community programs without changing their mission," Bush said. "We will help all in their work to change hearts while keeping a commitment to pluralism."
___The day after that, he elaborated some on his ideas in a meeting with 45 Roman Catholic leaders.
___"There's no way that government can create love," the president told the group gathered in the Indian Treaty Room of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House. "But what government can do is fund and welcome programs whose sole intent is to change lives in a positive way."
___For example, "we must reform the tax code ... to allow non-itemizers to deduct charitable giving off their income," Bush told the leaders. "Our mission in the White House is to say we welcome you, we welcome your love, we welcome your finances, we welcome your compassion."
___Tax relief is part of a three-pronged effort included in Bush's faith-based agenda. The other two aspects of the faith-based agenda are plans to eliminate "improper federal barriers to effective faith-based and community-serving programs" and to present models of cooperation between federal entities and faith-based and other community groups to address social needs such as after-school and literacy programs and services for children of prisoners.
___But before Bush could unveil his new program, civil liberties groups were promising to challenge some aspects of the program in the courts as an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.
___"The First Amendment was intended to create a separation between religion and government, not a massive new bureaucracy that unites the two," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, who called government funding of religious charities a "constitutional nightmare."
___Bush tapped Princeton University professor John DiIulio, a Roman Catholic and intellectual dean of the faith-based movement, to head the new White House office and appointed former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, a Jew, as a special adviser on faith-based initiatives.
___The president also signed an executive order telling five Cabinet departments--Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Labor and Education--to investigate ways to make it easier for faith-based groups to compete for government contracts.
___Bush did not elaborate on how funds would be distributed or who would qualify for them, but his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said concerns about church-state separation would be addressed as the proposal works its way through Congress.
___"The government shouldn't walk away or leave people languishing on welfare because some people will raise questions about faith-based groups," he said. "Faith-based groups can often be the answer that helps people get off the street and back into life."
___Fleischer said Bush would seek to fund only the "community service aspects" of faith-based organizations and not the "religious aspects." He said it would be up to federal departments to decide which groups were "appropriate," but left the door open for everyone from evangelicals to the Nation of Islam to apply.
___The new office could channel as much as $24 billion over 10 years to the private sector to handle everything from prison and drug rehabilitation to homeless feeding programs, welfare-to-work programs and efforts to combat illiteracy.
___Some reaction to the proposals was predictable, with conservatives praising the idea and moderate-to-liberal groups concerned about proselytizing and government coercion.
___"This is a creative and constitutionally sound approach that should be embraced, not shunned," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, the advocacy firm founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. "It is clear the president's plan recognizes the power of faith in our lives (but) it does not endorse a particular faith or religion."
___The intent of the new programs received support from most sectors, but several groups that advocate a strict separation between church and state said the new programs could be dangerous for both government and religion.
___"President Bush is trying to do right, but he's going about it in the wrong way," said Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee.
___That view was echoed by Phil Strickland, director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission.
___Tax dollars going to the ministries of "pervasively sectarian" organizations is not only bad public policy, but also a bad policy for churches, Strickland said.
___"Government funding will neuter the passion for churches to support their own ministries," he said. "Churches will find little passion for giving or serving when they become government contractors."
___Charitable choice also puts various churches and faith-based ministries in the role of competitors for available dollars, he noted. "This competition will be destructive to the faith community."
___When tax dollars go to church ministries, it leads to unconstitutional entanglement of church and state, Strickland warned. Government rules and regulations inevitably follow government funds, he observed. "Shekels have shackles."
___Other religious leaders involved in social relief efforts expressed mixed views of Bush's proposals.
___"We're heartened that President Bush says he wants faith-based organizations to have a place at the table, but we hope the government will not vacate its essential seat at the table," said Joanne Negstad, president and CEO of Lutheran Services of America.
___The executive director of Catholic Charities in Los Angeles--the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese--welcomed the program but said government cannot attach too many regulations to its funding of faith-based organizations.
___"Faith-based groups are wary that they will have to surrender some of their religious beliefs, as well as be inundated with more paperwork once the government becomes involved with their service delivery," said Monsignor Gregory Cox.
___The Muslim community, which enjoys a warm relationship with the Bush White House, said the president's plan codifies in an official way what Muslims already believe about helping the less-fortunate.
___"Islam is the religion of social services," said Imam Hassan Qazwini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Michigan, who attended the unveiling with Bush. "Allah has charged his followers to actively work toward the betterment of society through compassion and social responsibility."
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