Black caucus dunks ‘faith-based’ plan_72803

Posted: 7/25/03

Black caucus dunks 'faith-based' plan

By Hannah Lodwick & Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP)–As President Bush touted his “faith-based initiatives” to a group of mostly African-American urban leaders, a group of Congressional Democrats and leaders in the Congressional Black Caucus denounced part of his plan as discriminatory.

Bush spoke to a group of about 100 inner-city pastors and leaders of urban faith-based charities who had gathered in Washington to meet with White House officials. He also used the opportunity to link his faith-based plan with needs in Africa, where he recently visited.

“We ought not to fear faith,” Bush said. “We ought not to discriminate against faith-based programs.”

But that same afternoon, in a press conference at the Capitol, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and other Democratic legislators took issue with a Republican bill reauthorizing the Head Start early-childhood education program.

In particular, they opposed a provision in the bill that would allow pervasively religious preschool programs to receive federal Head Start funding while maintaining their right to discriminate in employment decisions on the basis of religious beliefs.

“We can't afford to let our children down,” Cummings said, pointing to six young children from a local Head Start program who came to the press conference.

The issue of employment discrimination with federal dollars has bubbled up in several legislative settings in recent months.

The Bush administration recently announced its official position is that thoroughly religious organizations receiving government grants for social services should retain the same exemptions to employment-discrimination laws as religious groups that do not accept federal dollars. Republican leaders in the House have attached such provisions to several federal spending bills.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said one of the problems faced by opponents of such employment discrimination is that people simply can't believe it is an issue. “The public, they just don't think this is possible in 2003, that this is actually being proposed,” Scott said.

Leaders of the Republican-controlled House repeatedly have disallowed floor votes on amendments offered by Democrats to remove the employment-discrimination provisions from the spending bills.

The bills often are those that re-authorize funding for popular entitlement programs–meaning even if legislators object to the employment-discrimination portion of the bills, they are still reluctant to vote against the whole package. Doing so could become a major political liability in an election year.

The faith-based program–an attempt to expand the government's ability to fund social services through religious providers, including churches and mosques–has been the centerpiece of Bush's domestic policy.