Thread: Faith-based Service

Faith-based Service
By Ronald J. Sider
Nothing in the U.S. Constitution or their party history requires Democrats to oppose faith-based initiatives. They should look for ways to support them.
Table of Contents
Much of the Democrats' recent talk about embracing moral values has focused on abortion and family. But there is another crucial area where Democrats could demonstrate that they are both "faith-friendly" and an effective voice for poor Americans: the faith-based initiative. Taking the right position on faith-based initiatives could enable Democrats both to advance the interests of their own core constituency and to reach out to red-state voters.

David Kuo, former deputy director of President Bush's White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, recently wrote a blazing critique of the Bush administration. Kuo deplored Bush's failure to provide any significant funding for his "compassionate conservatism," forcing faith-based social service agencies to "make bricks without straw." But Kuo also deplored the Democrats' knee-jerk opposition to the new faith-based initiative. A modest change would enable the Democrats to dare the Republicans to implement their own rhetoric. Or, more hopefully, it would make possible a bipartisan effort that would genuinely help the working poor.

There is nothing in earlier Democratic policies or the Constitution that requires the recent opposition of Democrats to Bush's faith-based initiative. President Clinton signed four separate pieces of legislation that contained the crucial provisions popularly called "Charitable Choice." The 1996 welfare reform bill sought to level the playing field so that effective faith-based social service providers could acquire government funds in a way that protected both the religious identity of the organizations and the religious freedom of their clients.

At the heart of Charitable Choice was the specific provision that faith-based organizations that received federal funds retained their right to hire only employees who shared the organization's religious beliefs. In the 2000 election, Vice President Al Gore embraced Charitable Choice and promised to make faith-based approaches central to his administration's battle against poverty. Unfortunately, when Bush sought to expand the Charitable Choice provisions that Clinton had earlier signed into law, the Democrats reversed themselves and denounced as "discrimination" the hiring right that is at the core of Charitable Choice.

There are very good policy and constitutional reasons for allowing faith-based organizations to hire people who share their moral and religious beliefs. The 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly allowed religious organizations to hire on this basis. At the urging of Sen. Sam Erwin (D-N.C.), who wanted "to take the political hands of Caesar off the institutions of God," Congress expanded this right in 1972. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld this hiring right (Amos, 1987). A number of lower court decisions have held that this right is not lost when a faith-based organization accepts government funds. The Supreme Court has ruled that private organizations that accept government funds do not thereby become "state actors;" a faith-based organization's hiring decisions remain private actions, not government decisions.

Strong policy considerations support the hiring right. It is a positive act of freedom, not shameful intolerance, for Planned Parenthood to retain its freedom to hire employees who agree with its ideology, even when it receives a government contract. The same should be true for Jewish, Muslim, or Christian faith-based organizations that serve the needy. If government funds only secular or nominally religious private social service providers, it clearly engages in viewpoint discrimination and undermines society's diversity and pluralism.

Excellent results. In an article supporting Charitable Choice, President Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, the Rev. Andrew Young, pointed out in 2001 that excluding faith-based organizations hurts the poor. "Why," Young asked, "should the [faith-based] organizations that are best at serving the needy be excluded from even applying for government funding?"

In many of our poorest, most broken neighborhoods, faith-based organizations are almost the only surviving social service organizations. They also often achieve excellent results -- in part, they believe, because people are both material and spiritual beings and therefore need both socioeconomic and spiritual transformation. Charitable Choice allows government to pay for the first while insisting that private funds must pay for the second.

Democrats should offer the Republicans a deal: Democrats would agree to extend Charitable Choice language to most federal funding of social services, in exchange for Republicans putting real dollars behind their slogan of "compassionate conservatism." By returning to the position of Democrats like Sam Ervin, Andy Young, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore, Democrats could demand that Republicans raise the minimum wage by perhaps $2 per hour and eliminate the marriage penalty in the Earned Income Tax Credit (this important, highly effective tax credit for the working poor is the only major place in the federal tax code where Bush has not eliminated the marriage penalty). Republicans could agree to make the Child Care Tax Credit refundable so that it benefits the working poor, not just the middle class.

Still another possibility: The administration could agree to substantial Individual Development Accounts -- say, $1,000 for every child born into a poor family -- plus a government match of up to $500 per year until age 18. These funds would be invested in conservatively managed low-risk mutual funds and could only be used for college tuition, a first house, or retirement.

A large block of evangelicals (who voted 78 percent for Bush in 2004) would probably support this bipartisan effort. After all, a wide cross section of evangelical leaders (including Southern Baptist Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission) recently wrote to Bush urging him to do more to overcome poverty in the next four years. The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 30 million American evangelicals, has also called for vigorous action to defeat poverty.

A new Democratic offer of bipartisan cooperation would be a powerful statement about Democrats' commitment to moral values and faith-friendly strategies. It would underline their insistence that overcoming poverty is a moral demand. And it would enable Democrats to deliver benefits for a core constituency by empowering the working poor.

Ronald J. Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action, has published more than 25 books, including Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and Just Generosity: A New Vision for Overcoming Poverty in America.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=115 ... tid=253464

This president's faith based initiatives was a SCAM on America!!!

Money, tons of money, are going to so-called faith based orgs that are ANTI-AMERICAN, Muslim, Hispanic, etc. etc.


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