Ungluing the faith-based impasse?

THE STICKIEST questions facing the faith-based initiative of President Bush have yet to be peeled off the wall of church-state separation--despite a new broad-based search for consensus that yielded some points of agreement.

Liberal, conservative and moderate voices on the Working Group on Human Needs and Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which met in Washington, D.C., over several months, produced 29 recommendations in hopes of dislodging a legislative stalemate on Capitol Hill. Its report was issued January 15, prior to the late-month reconvening of Congress where the House had passed a controversial bill in July but Senate cosponsors are seeking a compromise bill.

The report, "Finding Common Ground," won qualified support from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "I am pleased at the number of actions we agreed can be taken in this area without raising constitutional issues," said Barry W. Lynn, the watchdog agency's executive director, who was on the 33-member panel. "I hope this is the direction Congress and the president take," he said.

Other groups represented in the panel, coordinated by Search for Common Ground, a conflict-resolution organization, ranged from the National Council of Churches, the ACLU, Reform Judaism and People for the American Way to the Southern Baptist Convention, Teen Challenge, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the American Muslim Council.

Among the 29 recommendations:

* Increasing charitable contributions by allowing nonitemizing taxpay ers to deduct donations and by easing tax restrictions on corporations, such as permitting deductions for transportation and storage of goods destined for charities.

* Creating an "EZ application form" for nonprofit groups, waiving existing filing fees and taking other steps to help smaller houses of worships or religious bodies create separate nonprofit agencies to run government-funded social service arms.

* Achieving "effective outcomes" by requiring all recipients of public money to operate "with high levels of accountability, and to have the ability to comply with rules and regulations intended to safeguard consumers and tax dollars."

* Making government agencies provide "plain statements" on eligibility and on restrictions relating to the religious nature of applicants.

Soon after his inauguration last year, President Bush assigned a high priority to a bill aimed at "leveling the playing field" for faith-based charities in applying for federal grants in competition with nonreligious organizations. In effect, it was an expansion of the older Charitable Choice legislation under which large social agencies such as Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services and the Salvation Army have been generally trusted conduits.

The report observed that "experience demonstrates that government can, under a variety of conditions, work with faith-based organizations, including churches, houses of worship and other faith-saturated organizations, to deliver assistance to persons in need."

But the panel danced around the hotly debated issue of religious preferences in hiring by those "faith-saturated" organizations, noting that when only private funds are being used some laws permit religious discrimination in hiring. When government money is used and requires that a charity's hiring policy be free of religious bias, that requirement applies only to those funded programs and "not to others within the same organization."

Some civil libertarian groups fear that that borderline may not be so enforceable. A second major concern is whether God-talk or outright proselytization might be forced upon unwilling recipients of charity, thus violating First Amendment prohibition of government support of religion. Conservative religionists contend that government oversight strips a religious organization of a distinctive edge in social service.

"Naturally, there were issues on which we were too far apart to reach consensus," said ex-U.S. Senator Harris Wofford, who chaired the bipartisan panel. The working group was formed last June by Wofford at the request of Senator Rick Santorum (R., Pa.), who defeated Wofford in the 1994 election. Referring to the work of the disparate panel members, he said, "We listened to each other with respect and learned from each other."

While the report's authors hoped their recommendations would be "a springboard" for compromise legislation, spokesmen for Senators Santorum and Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.) recently indicated to Religion News Service that the next step in the Senate is hard to predict. It is "hard to say" whether a vote on the measure will be held this year, said Lieberman spokesman Dan Gerstein.

Sources include:

Religion News Service (RNS)
Ecumenical News International (ENI)

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