Bush’s faith-based plans find another door_102003

Posted: 10/17/03

Bush's faith-based plans find another door

By Robert Marus

ABP Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (ABP)–Continuing a trend of piecemeal implementation of his plan to provide government money to religious social-service organizations, President Bush expanded his “faith-based initiative” through regulatory changes Sept. 22.

Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, informed reporters Bush had finalized regulatory changes in two cabinet agencies–and announced new regulatory changes in four other departments–that expand the government's ability to fund social services through religious groups, including churches.

The regulatory expansion follows similar announcements since last December, as well as several recent efforts by Republicans in Congress to attach provisions to routine spending bills that expand faith-based-organization funding in the federal programs they govern.

The initiative has been the centerpiece of Bush's domestic social agenda. Supporters argue that faith-based groups are more effective at providing social services than governmental or secular providers and therefore should be funded by government.

“Today, the real winners are addicts that are trying to access and have choice to a range of programs, and the homeless that can now enter a HUD program that can receive funds,” Towey told reporters. “And the real winners are ultimately taxpayers that can see their money spent in a good program.”

But critics have said providing direct government funding to religious groups violates the Constitution's prohibition on government establishment of religion. Some also contend that government encroachment on the freedom of religious groups will follow on the heels of government funding–and that debates over whether a particular group, such as a Muslim group, receives funding will create religious strife in the civic sphere.

Although Bush tried to get Congress to implement the faith-based initiative shortly after he took office in 2001, opposition based on such concerns killed the legislation in the Senate.

The first wave of regulatory changes came in a December 2002 announcement. The most recent action essentially achieves the same goals that Bush's original faith-based legislation would have–but bypasses Congress.

The process has “been done piecemeal, but these are the last pieces,” according to Chris Anders, the American Civil Liberties Union's head lobbyist on the faith-based issue. “They're just basically putting the faith-based imitative in place through executive order rather than through the legislative process.”

Among the most controversial aspects of the regulatory changes are provisions that explicitly allow religious organizations receiving government funding to discriminate on the basis of religion in their hiring practices. Asked if Bush was doing an end-run around Congress, Towey said the provisions simply affirm the long-standing exemption to hiring-discrimination laws under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act that churches and other pervasively religious groups enjoy.

“It preserves a civil right that has existed for three decades,” he said.

Towey noted that secular non-profit groups that contract with the government–such as Planned Parenthood–can discriminate in hiring on the basis of ideology.

“In any employment decision, there's discrimination,” he said. “The World Wildlife Fund will make discrimination based on people they hire who share their tenets and beliefs. Universities hire smart people.”

However, the Supreme Court has not issued a definitive ruling on whether religious groups receiving federal funding can discriminate in hiring for positions that are either partially or wholly funded by federal dollars.