headstart_bill_81103

Posted: 8/8/03

Charitable choice component
slows advancement of Head Start bill

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)–The popular Head Start program is the centerpiece of another “charitable choice” controversy in Congress.

In a flurry of bills passed in the last week of legislative business before Congress' August recess, the House of Representatives passed the School Readiness Act of 2003 on a 217-216 vote.

Among other provisions, the bill contains a section that would allow pervasively religious groups to receive government funds for Head Start, a 38-year-old early-childhood-education program. However, it would allow the groups to retain the right to discriminate in hiring based on religion.

Although churches, mosques and other religious organizations have the right to take religion into account in hiring decisions with their own money, most federal social-services grant programs prohibit funding organizations that practice religion-based hiring.

The House passed the bill after representatives rejected an amendment offered by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., that would have stripped it of the employment-discrimination exemption. Woolsey's amendment failed on a 199-231 vote.

The bill is part of an ongoing effort by the White House and its ideological allies in Congress to expand government's ability to fund social services through churches and other pervasively religious providers. The plan is sometimes referred to as “charitable choice” or the “faith-based initiative.”

In May, the House reauthorized the Workforce Reinvestment and Adult Education Act of 2003, which included similar employment-discrimination exemptions for religious groups conducting federally funded job-training programs.

Church-state separationist groups decried the Head Start bill, as they did the earlier legislation.

“The House has just passed a terribly flawed bill,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “There is no justification for allowing employment discrimination in federally funded programs. This advances the Bush administration's 'faith-based' initiative at the expense of civil rights and civil liberties.”

Many religious leaders–including the Washington office of Bush's own United Methodist Church–opposed the bill, Lynn noted. But Bush has said such legislation is necessary to create a “level playing field” and prevent discrimination against religious providers in competition for federal social-service grants.

Bush and his supporters have argued that requiring religious providers to conform to the employment standards of other groups unnecessarily forces them to compromise their religious mission in order to receive federal funding.