On March 23, the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources heard testimony on the legal and practical issues of President Bush’s faith-based and community initiative, which allows faith-based and community service organizations to compete for federal grants.
In his opening remarks, Chair Mark Souder (R-IN) touched on a number of issues that would be discussed during the hearing, including the ability of faith-based organizations to hire members of the same faith. “The government is acting in an even-handed way when it permits all organizations it funds, religious as well as secular, to hire staff devoted to their respective missions,” he stated. “Abortion rights organizations do not lose their ability to screen out pro-life applicants when they accept government funds. In the same way, faith-based service groups should not lose their religious staffing liberty if they accept federal grants. Keeping religious staffing legal is the only way to ensure equal opportunity and effectiveness for all organizations and to respect the diversity of faith communities that are part of our civil society.”
Addressing the “charge of discrimination” by opponents of the initiative, Nathan Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America expressed his concern that faith-based organizations would lose their identity if they were forced to hire outside of their faith. He cited a recent California Supreme Court decision that declared Catholic Charities of California, as a matter of law, is not a religious organization. “This question came before the court as a result of a state law enacted to require any employer offering prescription drug benefits in its employees’ health plans to include coverage for prescription contraceptives,” he explained. “Although the legislature provided an exemption from this law to religious employers, for an entity to qualify as such, it must be a non-profit corporation which: 1) has the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; 2) primarily employs only people of the entity’s faith; and 3) serves primarily people of the entity’s faith.” He added further, “In other words, Catholic Charities in its homeless shelters, job training programs, soup kitchens, AIDS hospices, child care centers and countless other agencies must only employ Catholics to serve Catholics and seek to convert its non-Catholic beneficiaries into Catholics.”
Wilson Goode of Public/Private Ventures described a faith-based program called AMACHI, which is designed to mentor children of prisoners. Contending that 70 percent of these children also will end up in prison, he stated, “We know from research that mentoring is a proven tool of intervention. We believe that targeting this group of children and youth can change neighborhoods and communities across the country.” Mr. Goode explained that the program brought together religious groups and secular organizations to implement the mentoring program. Due to its success, the AMACHI program has now become a model for programs in 37 states and 105 cities.
Testifying on behalf of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Barry Lynn said that the employment rules contained in the faith-based and community initiative “threaten a cornerstone principle of our nation’s civil rights laws that federal funds and support will not go to persons or organizations that discriminate against others.” He explained that there have already been attempts to insert the initiative into federal programs, including the Workforce Investment Act and Head Start. He argued that the initiative could allow religious organizations to require that their employees adhere to the religious practices of their organization, and could “create a conflict with the enforcement of civil rights laws protecting persons against discrimination on the basis of characteristics such as race, gender, pregnancy status, sexual orientation, or marital status.” He noted that a number of organizations have already claimed a religious basis for discriminating against others based on gender and pregnancy status, citing Boyd v. Harding Academy of Memphis, Inc. In that case, the court found that a religiously affiliated school could dismiss an unmarried, pregnant teacher because premarital sex is against the church’s teaching.
Mr. Lynn also noted that while the administration has stated that the government should not discriminate against faith-based providers because of their faith, “they are doing just that; they are making judgments about which faiths should be eligible for funding and which should be excluded.” He pointed out that in 2003, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded $8.1 million to 60 organizations, but “not a single grant went to a non-Christian religious organization.”
Explaining that no additional funding has been allotted specifically for the faith-based and community initiative, Mr. Lynn stated, “It is taking money from established programs that rely upon government grants and shifting it to religious organizations, forcing established programs to cut back on their services or to close their doors.” He also pointed out that there have been no studies indicating that programs operated by faith-based organizations are more effective than other programs. Mr. Lynn explained that when President Bush was governor of Texas he instituted a similar faith-based initiative under which religious child care providers were exempt from state regulations. He cited a study by the Texas Freedom Network that found “the rates of confirmed abuse and neglect at religious facilities are 25 percent higher than at state licensed facilities” as a result of the exemptions. In 2001, the Texas legislature chose not to renew alternative accreditation programs for religious child care providers.
