WASHINGTON (ABP) — A March 23 congressional hearing designed as a celebration of President Bush's faith-based initiative served as a platform for a Baptist lawyer to recite the dangers she believes it poses to religious freedom.
Several religious-freedom experts and government officials testified before a subpanel of the House Government Reform Committee on Bush's plan to expand the government's ability to fund social services through religious charities.
Although Bush has met with opposition to the idea in Congress, he has instituted many of its aims in piecemeal fashion through administrative actions such as executive orders.
Subcommittee chair Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) and its ranking minority member, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), heard testimony from a panel of six witnesses, including Holly Hollman, general counsel for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.
In her opening statement, Hollman claimed Bush's initiative encourages funding of religious entities without regard to current legal standards that prohibit government funding of “inherently religious activities.” She also discussed the legal conflict inherent in Bush's plan that she said threatens both the principle of non-discrimination in government-funded employment and the autonomy of religious organizations.
Ultimately, Hollman argued, executive orders by the Bush administration are plunging ahead too quickly without resolving questions on the legality of the venture.
“How can claims of success be sounded when there is so little known about how much money is being given and where the money is going?” Hollman asked. “The success of the initiatives cannot be assumed when there is such limited oversight of the participating organizations and limited information about how the money is being spent.”
Two types of discrimination questions dominated discussion. First, is the administration guilty of bias when deciding which religious organizations receive federal funding? And second, should religious organizations retain the right to discriminate in their hiring practices (a right that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act secured for them) even after receiving taxpayer-provided federal funds?
Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told the subcommittee he believed the administration's plan as implemented thus far encourages government to play favorites among religions and allows discriminatory employment practices at the cost of taxpayers. Any language by the administration to safeguard against such threats, Lynn claimed, has so far proven to be nothing more than “mere verbiage.”
For his part, Cummings — who is African-American — seemed to agree. “I have endured this discrimination and I know the painful, painful effects of it. I know the good these groups do. But what is the good at the expense of the law when a faith-based organization hires only a certain race or religion?” Cummings asked. “I don't take a back seat to anyone in being a humanitarian, but part of that humanity dictates that I cannot allow for anyone to be discriminated against.”
Wilson Goode, who utilized faith-based organizations to great success in his former capacity as mayor of Philadelphia, acknowledged the potential for such problems, but asked that those concerns not be used to derail a program that could be highly beneficial to the poor: “If [religious organizations] discriminate, take the money away from them. But deal with that separately. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
Chair Souder, however, strenuously objected to what he claimed were hypocritical assertions that religious organizations should not be allowed to maintain their autonomy over whom they choose to hire to run their services. “Abortion-rights organizations do not lose their ability to screen out pro-life applicants when they accept government funds,” Souder said. “In the same way, faith-based social-service groups should not lose their religious-staffing liberty if they accept federal grants.”
-30-