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Don Monkerud ~ STWR Member

Senior columnist for WhatTheyThink.com

Religion in Government, Part I:
Bush Pushes Religion in Government-Sponsored Social Services

Although the so-called "morality vote" of the 2004 election disappeared under scrutiny, the religious right is making inroads in government at a record pace. Media reports have only brushed the surface of this unprecedented breakdown of barriers between church and state.

While government partnership with religious groups has a long history in the U.S., the process accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s when neo-cons became alarmed about a "social and moral crisis" and pledged to strengthen families and neighborhoods. Neo-cons claim that social problems lie beyond the scope of government and can be addressed more properly by faith-based groups, which will also lead to a reduction in government spending.

Clinton's 1996 welfare reform package adopted some of the neo-cons' concerns by enlisting greater participation of religious groups in government-funded social services. In 1999, Al Gore went farther, promising to make faith-based programs an "integral" part of his administration, if he were elected.

Nine days after his inauguration in 2000, President Bush released executive orders creating the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) and establishing Faith-Based Centers in five federal agencies. The plan immediately ran into difficulties.

The head of the OFBCI, John DiIulio Jr., a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, resigned in August 2001. He told Esquire magazine, "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

"Mayberry Machiavellis" was DiIulio's term for political staff, particularly Karl Rove, whom he describes as "the single most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political-adviser post near the Oval Office." Although it went unheeded, DiIulio's warning proves prophetic.

When Congress refused to pass additional Faith-Based initiatives in December 2002, Bush issued a set of executives orders, increasing funding, weakening traditional barriers between government and religious activities, and building a huge network of religious groups across the country. Since then, federal agencies finalized new regulations, including providing legal, logistical and technical assistance to religious groups seeking grants. The Bush Administration sponsored 13 regional conferences and additional meetings across the country to lobby religious organizations to apply for $50 billion in federal grants. Such organizing produced an email list of 13,000 faith-based groups, which would prove useful during the 2004 election.

In 2002, faith-based officials appeared at Republican sponsored events in six states. They held an event in South Carolina for 300 Black ministers and OFBCI Director Jim Towey made a 20-city tour, promoting the faith-based initiative.

During the 2004 campaign, The New York Times reported that the Bush-Cheney campaign conducted "a brisk schedule for legions of Christian supporters," asking "conservative churches and churchgoers to do everything they can to turn their churches into bases of support" for Bush's election. Bush officials countered criticism by saying their campaign workers were warned not to support candidates and violate their tax-exempt status.

When Bush visited the Vatican in June, he called on Catholic officials to push American bishops to speak out on political issues that would support him in the election. And a group of a dozen religious conservative lobbying groups are rallying support for changing the law to allow churches to campaign for political candidates. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., R-N.C., introduced the Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act, co-sponsored by 108 Republicans, including Tom DeLay and Dick Armey, both of Texas, plus four Democrats.

In August, the Rockefeller Institute of Government and the Pew Charitable Trust shed light on Bush's activities, The Expanding Administrative Presidency: George W. Bush and the Faith-Based Initiative, detailing inroads made by religion into government. The report concluded that Bush "weakened longstanding walls banning religious groups from mixing spiritual activities with their secular services" that "mark a major shift in the constitutional separation of church and state."

The most disturbing of these findings detail how federally-funded religious groups are now allowed: to consider religion when hiring staff; to convert government-forfeited property to religious purposes; to use government funds to build and renovate structures used for both religious and social services; to provide religious training for those with job-training vouchers who seek church jobs; and religious groups no longer need to certify that their programs exert "no religious influence." After these changes in 2003, the Departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development reported that faith-based organizations increased their grants by 41 percent. Five federal agencies granted $1.17 billion to faith-based groups.

Bush is moving aggressively by Presidential fiat to change regulations, fund political appointees, and conduct public outreach to install religious groups in government social service programs. Despite Bush's claims of improving results, there is no research whatsoever to show that religious groups are better at administering social services than secular groups. Considering Bush's use of churches in the past election, breaking down the barrier between church and state is a blatant ploy to gain votes and push a political agenda in churches that risks their tax-exempt status.

Copyright 2004

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