WASHINGTON (ABP) — Yet another fight over expanding government grants to religious groups is likely to erupt in the House of Representatives this week.
The full House is scheduled to take up a bill Sept. 21 extending the Head Start early childhood education program. The program — initially established in 1965 as a way to provide additional educational opportunities to poor children — has always been open to faith-based providers.
Since 1972, federal law has barred Head Start providers from discriminating in their hiring practices on the basis of religion. Supporters of President Bush's “faith-based initiative” to expand government support for religious charities have asserted such language in the Head Start authorizing documents discriminates against churches and other potential providers who hire people only of their own faith.
The House Education Committee approved the bill, known as the “School Readiness Act of 2005,” on a bipartisan vote of 48-0 in May. It included no alteration of the 1972 employment-discrimination ban.
But two Republican congressmen — Rep. John Boehner (Ohio) and Rep. Charles Boustany (La.) — have indicated that they will fight to amend the bill on the House floor to allow religious Head Start providers to begin discriminating in hiring.
Boehner is chairman of the Education Committee that approved the unamended bill. His press secretary, Don Seymour, told Associated Baptist Press that Boustany will offer the amendment.
Seymour pointed an ABP reporter to a statement in support of the amendment on the Education Committee's website. It read, in part, “Faith-based organizations have a federally protected right to maintain their religious nature and character through those they hire. These organizations willing to serve their communities by participating in federal programs should not be forced to give up that right.”
But opponents said the amendment attempt would create needles controversy. “It destroys the bipartisan goodwill of the negotiated bill that was voted unanimously out of committee, and it does it by adding the most contentious part of the faith-based initiative,” said Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “No one should be denied a federally-funded job because of their religion.”
The Bill is H.R. 2123.