Religious Right Wish List For Congress Includes Church Funding, Court Stripping, A Federal Marriage Amendment And More

Church & State, Jan 2005 by Boston, Rob

In the wake of November's elections, James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, is convinced that America is clamoring for a "faith-based" initiative now more than ever.

President George W. Bush, Towey told attendees at a conference on faith-based initiatives in Washington Dec. 9, viewed his re-election in part as a referendum on the faith-based plan. Now that the president has been returned to office, he intends to push even harder for the plan, Towey said.

"As he looks to his second term, President Bush is now reviewing several general priorities, but he is renewing his commitment to faith-based and community initiatives," said Towey. "I spoke with him last night, I saw him earlier, after the election. I think he feels very much that the election had, as part of the decision that American voters faced, [a part related to] his faith-based initiative. He very clearly staked out where he stood, and a majority of Americans supported that, and he will continue to do it in a way that is sensible and constitutional."

Later in the speech, which was delivered before a conference sponsored by the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, Towey vowed to fight "secular extremists" who oppose the Bush church-funding gambit. He singled out Americans United and the group's executive director, Barry W. Lynn, by name.

"Barry Lynn should send the president a dozen roses for all the fund-raising help this has given him," groused Towey.

The Bush push to fund religious groups with tax money is likely to get a lot of help from some members of Congress. Although Bush failed during his first term to win passage of a wide-ranging faith-based bill, his allies in Congress are promising this year will be different.

"We want to come back to it," U.S. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told the conservative Washington Times Nov. 26. "We've got a new Senate and a conservative mandate from millions of voters who said 'yes' to traditional values."

Pence claimed there is an "untapped reservoir" for Bush's church funding scheme.

With the 109th Congress going into session this month, Americans United and other defenders of church-state separation know they will have their work cut out for them. The re-election of Bush and the increase in Republican majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate have emboldened the Religious Right. The groups want action on their agenda, and they want it now.

To keep them happy, Bush is likely to move quickly this month on his long-stalled faith-based initiative to award tax money to religious groups so that they may provide social services.

Bush unveiled the far-reaching proposal shortly after taking office in 2001. It was his first major domestic policy initiative, and the president obviously had high hopes for it.

Under Bush's scheme, religious organizations would receive potentially billions in taxpayer subsidies to provide an array of social services, from helping drug addicts and persuading teenagers to forgo sexual activity to job training and providing beds and meals for the homeless. Bush insisted that proselytizing would not be part of these publicly funded efforts but then confused the issue by repeatedly visiting and praising groups that included heavy doses of mandatory religious activity, mostly fundamentalist Christian, in their programs.

A wary Congress refused to back the plan. A scaled-down version that mainly tinkered with the tax code to encourage more charitable giving passed the House and Senate but bogged down in conference committee. Frustrated, Bush issued a series of executive orders implanting as much of the faith-based initiative as possible without congressional approval.

Bush, however, is aware that executive orders have a serious vulnerability: They can be overturned with a pen stroke by a future president. He has pushed all along for faith-based legislation to make the program an enduring one. The new congress may be much more receptive to that overture.

Two sticking points remain: evangelism and religious discrimination in taxpayer-funded programs. Bush and his supporters in the administration insist that they do not favor allowing religious groups to take public funds and then require recipients of services to take part in worship as a condition of receiving help.

But critics say the president has repeatedly backed fundamentalist programs that do exactly that. These programs, opponents say, often assert that an alcoholic, drug addict or habitual criminal cannot overcome his or her problem without first making a life-changing religious profession - that is, converting to a "born-again" Christian.

Such programs, critics say, are essentially religious conversion efforts that cannot be funded with taxpayer money.

The issue of hiring on the basis of religion has also been contentious. Opponents say allowing a religious group to take public funds and then impose religious requirements on employees is wrong and a violation of the nation's civil-rights laws. Bush and his backers insist that religious groups must be permitted to hire and fire in accordance with their theological and moral tenets.