Look What Bush Has Done

My wife forwarded this to me - from the SF Chronicle:


President Bush has gone "under the radar" and around the Congress to spread his faith-based initiative throughout the federal government, according to a new study released Monday.
The study, compiled by researchers at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., is one of the first comprehensive looks at the Bush administration's efforts to redirect government grants to churches and other faith-based groups.

"Religious organizations are now involved in government-encouraged activities ranging from building strip malls for economic improvement to promoting child car seats," the study states.

Branches in 10 agencies

Taken together, the report finds that the Bush programs "mark a major shift in the constitutional separation of church and state." "Few if any presidents in recent history have reached as deeply into or as broadly across the government to implement a presidential initiative administratively," said institute director Richard Nathan. The study focuses on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which has set up faith-based branch offices in 10 federal agencies ranging from the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bush administration officials say the
faith- based initiative is meant to merely "level the playing field" so churches and other religious groups can compete for billions of dollars the federal government hands out each year through government social service contracts.

Jim Towey, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said Monday that he hadn't had time to read the entire study. "But parts of it that I have read seem to lay out dark motives for what is happening," Towey said in an interview with The Chronicle. "What it shows is that the president is taking the steps he promised he would take to end discrimination against faith-based groups."
Religious groups such as Catholic Charities USA and Lutheran Social Services have long gotten government funding to feed the poor, heal the sick and house the homeless. But they were required to set up separate nonprofit agencies to run those programs and to operate under strict rules that forbid them to proselytize or limit hiring to employees of a particular faith or religious denomination.

So far, Congress has resisted Bush administration proposals to rewrite the rules and loosen long-standing restrictions against preaching in publicly funded poverty programs. What the new study by the Rockefeller Institute's Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy shows is how the administration has pushed its agenda through presidential fiat.

Study has 'point of view'

Anne Farris, a co-author of the report, said President Bush had promoted his personal beliefs "both in ideology and deeds -- in the workings of the federal government." Nathan, the institute director, said the study was based on "independent, nonpartisan research on faith-based social service."
Towey questioned the institute's motives and said they had not interviewed him about the program he runs. "They have a point of view," he said.

Most of the report relies on the government's own statistics and Bush administration statements about expanding church involvement in social welfare programs. For example, grants given to faith-based groups by the Departments of Health and Human Services increased 41 percent in fiscal year 2003.
The report also cites newly revised Department of Labor rules that exempt religious organizations from provisions of the Civil Rights Act that forbid discrimination in employment based on religion.
It also notes changes in federal regulations that now allow churches to use federal funds to renovate buildings that are used for both social services and religious worship.

Joe Conn, a spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, called the new study "very alarming." "This administration seems obsessed with faith-based solutions for everything," Conn said. "What they don't seem to worry about is the Constitution."

'Pray for rain'

Even the Department of Agriculture now has its own office of faith-based initiatives, Conn noted.
"Maybe they're going to pray for rain," he said. Towey said Conn and the Rockefeller Institute are overreacting to White House efforts. "President Bush does not want to proselytize or fund religion," he said.
"We're talking about things like job training and substance abuse prevention, and opening up to small groups that have been shut by the ACLU and a radical fringe that wants an extreme separation of church and state."