Critics have claimed since the start of the Bush Administration that his faith-based initiative – a program to help religious groups receive federal funding to support social service programs – blurs the line between church and state. Under Bush’s plan federal dollars could be used to help build religious facilities and faith-based agencies receiving federal money would be exempt for some federal civil rights laws. That means they could discriminate in hiring practices against gays and women, for example, if it went against their religious practices to hire such groups. Many religious groups oppose the Bush plan (including the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society and the United Church of Christ).
Yesterday an editorial in the Atlanta Journal Constitution raised new questions about the proposal. Last week the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives was asked if every religious group would be eligible to receive federal funding – even pagans. His response:
"I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor!"
The editorial points out that there are actually pagan groups involved in social service efforts. More important though, the paper makes important observations that need to be taken into account in this debate:
Towey's remark underscores the problems inherent in the president's program and a similar plan being pushed in Georgia by Gov. Sonny Perdue. Both men have said government agencies discriminate against civic-minded religious groups, but there's little evidence to support that claim.Overall, faith-based groups sponsor more than two-thirds of the nation's federally funded elderly housing projects. Christian-centered organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity and Lutheran Services of America, for years have done exemplary work and received sizable government funding.
The arrangement works because of the explicit understanding that these groups will stick to their respective missions without proselytizing their clients.
Given those historical precedents, it's unclear what the president and governor's faith-based initiatives hope to accomplish except, perhaps, to extend the influence of a specific religious creed in the public square.
While that may seem like a worthwhile goal to some, it would aggravate religious discrimination rather than minimizing it. The natural tendency would be to ostracize groups such as the Wiccans, about which Towey admittedly knows very little.
Government bureaucrats would, in effect, become bishops -- endorsing some religions while penalizing others.That's exactly what the First Amendment was intended to prohibit. It also underscores why the constitutional wall erected by the Founding Fathers more than 200 years ago to separate church and state must remain intact.
