Contents,
Summer 2001
Quick Links:
Related Articles
The Perils of Polling, Religion
in the News, Summer 2000
Faith-Based
Ambivalence,
Religion in the News, Spring 2001
Ten Issues
to Keep an Eye On, Religion in the News,
Spring 2001
Charitable
Choice and the New Religious Center, Religion in the News, Spring 2000
A Different
Spiritual Politics, Religion in the News, Summer 1999
Religion and
the Post-Welfare State, Religion in the News, Summer 1998
Missing the
Boat on Charitable Choice, Religion in the News, Summer 1998
Quick Links:
Other articles
in this issue
From the Editor: The
Minister, the Rabbi, and the Baccalaureate
Idol Threats
Purging Ourselves of Timothy
McVeigh
The Pope Among the
Orthodox
The Perils of Polling
The Rael Deal.
Superceding the Jews
Jamming the Jews
Evangelism in a Chilly Climate
Correspondence:
Palestinians and Israelis
|
Faith-based Update: Bipartisan
Breakdown
by Dennis R. Hoover
On July 10, the Washington Post set the day’s news agenda with
Dana Milbank’s front-page report that the Salvation Army had agreed to
support President Bush’s "charitable choice" initiative in
exchange for a rule exempting faith-based organizations from state and local
policies banning discrimination against gays.
Based on a leaked internal Army document, the story forced the
administration into a swift and undignified retreat. By nightfall, the White
House had announced not only that there had been no such agreement, but that
any regulatory change to that effect was unnecessary and no longer under
consideration.
It was the latest pothole in what has been the bumpiest of roads for an
initiative that was supposed to be the Bush domestic policy’s answer to
motherhood and apple pie.
Initially, news coverage of the President’s initiative tended to give
the plan the benefit of the doubt, and the balance of editorial opinion was
cautiously positive. Politicians on both sides of the aisle had previously
voted in favor of charitable choice rules. And the appointment of
University of Pennsylvania professor John DiIulio was evidence of its
bipartisan lineage.
"My message to my fellow Democrats is this: I’m not in this
administration because I feel like being Republican," DiIulio told
Rebecca Carr of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. "I’m in
this administration because like Vice President Gore, like Senator Lieberman
and like most Democrats in the House who have voted for this previously, I
believe this is the way to get poor people and people in need the services
they need."
Moreover, many important religious groups supported the initiative—including
some strange bedfellows (see table). The policy’s crossover appeal offered
the possibility of a new religious center to replace the "culture
war" politics of religious right vs. religious left. Emblem of
compassionate conservatism, bipartisanship, and "bringing the country
together," it is no wonder that charitable choice was rolled out by the
new administration in its second week on the job.
The New Religious Center and the Faith-based Initiative
|
Mostly supportive |
Somewhat supportive |
Neutral |
Somewhat opposed |
Mostly opposed |
Religious traditions and denominations |
|
|
|
|
|
Mainline Protestants |
|
American Baptist |
|
|
|
x |
|
United Church of Christ |
|
|
|
|
x |
Episcopal |
|
x |
|
|
|
Presbyterian (USA) |
|
x |
|
|
|
United Methodist |
|
x |
|
|
|
White Evangelicals |
|
|
|
|
|
|
right-wing |
|
|
|
x |
|
center-right to progressive |
x |
|
|
|
|
Roman Catholics |
x |
|
|
|
|
Black Protestants |
x |
|
|
|
|
Hispanic Protestants |
x |
|
|
|
|
Jews |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reform and Conservative |
|
|
|
|
x |
Orthodox |
x |
|
|
|
|
Muslims |
|
x |
|
|
|
Nation of Islam |
|
|
|
|
x |
Mormons |
|
|
x |
|
|
Unitarians |
|
|
|
|
x |
Source: Author’s assessment based on press accounts, denominational
statements, and survey data. For another breakdown of religious traditions,
see http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_405.html.
But by March the honeymoon was over, and the centrist antecedents of
charitable choice were quickly forgotten. By the time the White House
got around to trying to stop the bleeding in May and June, there was so much
partisan blood in the water that the initiative’s survival was very much
in doubt.
Trouble started on the right, even before the initiative was introduced
as legislation. In early March Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson
wrote a USA Today op-ed suggesting that the whole initiative be
converted into a tax credit scheme; and Jerry Falwell, the other aging
pillar of the religious right, went on record in a Beliefnet.com interview
with his own collection of worries.
This was a big story. Deborah Caldwell and Steven Waldman of
Beliefnet.com cut straight to the heart of the matter: "Bush forced to
the surface the anxieties of these conservative leaders. How? By being a
strong pluralist." Falwell and Robertson wanted to exclude programs run
by religious groups they consider fringe or cultic (such as Scientologists
and Hare Krishnas), whereas charitable choice is open to all qualified
faith-based organizations (FBOs).
Caldwell and Waldman explored the possibility that a Bush face-off with
the Christian Right was to his benefit. It could yield a "Sister
Souljah" moment for Bush, Michael Cromartie, director of evangelical
studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute, told Beliefnet.com.
"This is a good chance for Bush to tutor the religious right about what
religious freedom means in this country."
Critics from the left quickly joined the fray. When a House
Judiciary subcommittee held hearings on the issue in April, chair Steve
Chabot (R-OH) noted that all the returning members had previously voted for
charitable choice. But Democrats immediately signaled their change of tune.
"Religion has never needed government, and it doesn’t need it
now," declared Jerry Nadler (D-NY), according to the AP. With
opposition to the initiative now full-throated and on the march, journalists
gravitated to a theme of "initiative in trouble" (see sidebar),
often noting with surprise that it was being attacked from the right as well
as the left.
The defections on the right (which ought to have been expected) were
nothing compared to what was happening elsewhere on the political spectrum.
Through the early spring it was hard to find anyone outside of the African
American clergy to say something nice about charitable choice. On March 21
Oklahoma Republican J.C. Watts and Ohio Democrat Tony Hall announced their
co-sponsored Community Solutions Act, which attempted to embody all of Bush’s
initiative (including his package of tax incentives for charitable giving).
They did so with every expectation of quickly picking up more Democratic
support. But for months Hall stood alone.
When Bush visited a Catholic hunger center in Cleveland on May 24 to tout
his plan, Hall was there, but fellow Ohio representative Stephanie Tubbs
Jones turned a cold shoulder, telling the Akron Beacon Journal,
"It’s definitely a partisan issue, because George Bush is playing to
the conservative Christian Right…It’s payback."
Hall admitted to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Elizabeth Auster
and Susan Ruiz Patto that, "I’ve been surprised. I thought it would
be embraced quickly."
Journalists monitoring the initiative’s declining fortunes took note of
two racially charged subplots involving Boston’s sharp-tongued Pentecostal
pastor Eugene Rivers. DiIulio set the stage for the first in a March 7
address to the National Association of Evangelicals that obliquely blasted
Robertson and Falwell: "With all due respect and in good fellowship,
predominantly white, ex-urban evangelical and national para-church leaders
should be careful not to presume to speak for any persons other than
themselves." (The speech prompted Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values
Coalition to call for DiIulio to be replaced.)
In case the distinction between "white ex-urban" and black
urban was lost on some listeners, Rivers quickly made it plain. As Mary
Leonard reported in the March 17 Boston Globe, Rivers declared,
"The white fundamentalists thought the faith-based office would finance
their sectarian programs…and they are infuriated because John DiIulio
wants resources to go to people who are poor, black, and brown." Huffed
Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, "Like Johnny Cochran
with a clerical collar, Rev. Rivers plays the race card."
Then there was the April 25 "faith-based summit" organized by
congressional Republicans. Attended by some 400 black religious leaders, the
meeting prompted complaints from critics who saw the event as a crude
Republican attempt to buy off black opposition. Elizabeth Becker reported in
the May 24 New York Times that some Democrats were concerned that
"Republicans are using the program to woo black voters, giving money to
black inner-city churches in what they see as an increasingly partisan
program."
In an interview with Beliefnet.com’s Holly J. Lebowitz, Rivers
responded: "My sense is that they [Republicans] are no more trying to
get the support of black people than the Democrats. In other words, are they
indifferent to any residual political benefits? Of course not." Rivers
told CBS Morning News May 21 that it would be a "stupid thing" for
black Democrats to casually dismiss the initiative. "We are simply in a
situation where the other white guy won. Now we’ve got to deal with
it."
Critics’ allegations about partisan motivations were of much less
consequence than the charge that charitable choice amounts to tax-funded
religious discrimination in employment. Charitable choice attempts a
constitutional balancing act, permitting FBOs to hire by religion while
empowering clients to decline services from religious providers. Religious
hiring exemptions historically have been more controversial when the form of
government assistance is direct (contracts/grants) than when it is, like the
GI Bill and analogous programs, indirect (vouchers). Most opponents rallied
around the discrimination argument, regardless of the form of aid.
A day before the start of the congressional summit for black leaders, a
group called the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination announced that
it had collected 850 signatures from religious leaders opposing charitable
choice. "This legislation is intended to permit some fundamentalist
organization to put a sign on the door saying, ‘No Jews Need Apply,’"
surmised Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and
State, according to several reports.
Watts called the hiring issue a red herring—"Planned Parenthood
receives federal funds, but do we raise Cain because they don’t hire Alan
Keyes?" Nevertheless, on the Senate side, the hiring discrimination
issue was the principal reason why charitable choice expansion was not even
introduced as legislation.
The Senate point man on the initiative was Republican Senator Rick
Santorum of Pennsylvania. Santorum wanted (and, after Senate control
switched to Democrats, needed) bipartisan backing. So he looked to
Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who initially positioned himself as a
supporter, posing with Bush for faith-based photo-ops in January. But it
soon became clear that he was interested in charitable choice lite, and
wouldn’t support legislation until various issues, especially
hiring discrimination, were addressed to his (or his party’s)
satisfaction.
Santorum decided to introduce only the tax incentives part of the
initiative (popular with virtually everyone), and wait on charitable choice.
On the other side of the Capitol, a few days before the full House Judiciary
Committee was to take up the Watts-Hall bill, committee chair James
Sensenbrenner told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that there were
still "legal problems." "It’s basically up to the
administration to get it together if they want it passed."
For its part, the White House put it out that the problem started when
Congress failed to draft a bill that mirrored existing charitable choice
law. "Some White House officials say House conservatives overreached
when they were writing the bill, giving too much leeway to churches,"
reported Mike Allen in the June 25 Washington Post. So the scaling
back was done. On June 20, DiIulio told Laura Meckler, who covered the issue
closely for the AP, "A number of really excellent modifications have
been suggested." By June 26 a deal had been struck with House
Republicans, and Judiciary passed it on a party line vote June 28.
Some of the changes simply clarified and beefed up provisions that were
always part of charitable choice as originally conceived, such as the
requirement that religious activities be optional for service recipients,
and the requirement that public funds not be commingled with private. A
measure in the original Watts-Hall bill allowing religious groups who are
denied funding to sue the government for damages hit the cutting room floor.
And on the crucial issue of hiring, new language said FBOs could consider
religion in hiring but not "religious practices"—a phrase
critics thought too easily justified other kinds of discrimination.
Lieberman continued to play hard to get. "An aide said today that
while the senator considered the new changes in the House helpful, he was
still withholding support," reported Elizabeth Becker in the June 28 New
York Times.
Part of the administration’s problem with rounding up support had to do
with inattention. As Allen reported in the June 25 Washington Post,
White House officials acknowledged that they had allowed the faith-based
initiative to founder while they were preoccupied with passing the tax cut.
But the problem ran deeper. The expansion of charitable choice had been
proposed without any increase in public funds. This threatened the bottom
line for key religious groups already involved in government-funded social
services (e.g., Catholic Charities, Lutheran Family Services, the Salvation
Army). The math was not fuzzy: As originally proposed in the House, every
dollar granted to a new FBO was, in effect, one dollar less for present
grantees.
In his May 20 commencement address at Notre Dame University, Bush
implicitly acknowledged the problem. With a nod to Dorothy Day and praise
for the tradition of Catholic social teaching, Bush pledged that his next
budget request would include increases for housing and drug treatment
programs. Journalists covered Bush’s Notre Dame speech as part of a
political overture to Catholic voters (which it was), but it was also a
significant (and largely unnoticed) development in the charitable
choice story.
In late May, with the tax cut bill on the verge of final passage, the
religious center made its presence felt again. As the Boston Globe’s
Mary Leonard reported, "A religious coalition headed by the group Call
to Renewal directly linked the tax plan to the group’s continued support
for another key element of Bush’s agenda, his faith-based
initiative."
Conservative Republicans had been looking to eliminate refundable tax
credits for low income families in order to help make room for rate cuts,
but the coalition—which included the Congress of National Black Churches,
the United States Catholic Conference, Evangelicals for Social Action, World
Vision, and the Christian Community Development Association—lobbied for it
to be retained. (It was.)
Even when the Catholic Bishops offered their support for the initiative
June 14, Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles hastened to lament that Bush’s
original proposal to establish a Compassion Capital Fund was not included in
the House bill, noting, "More competition over the same or fewer
resources is not the answer. Indeed a commitment to increase federal
resources…would strengthen the proposal and assist its supporters."
Further lamentations followed the House Ways and Means Committee’s
evisceration of Bush’s tax incentive proposal for the charitable giving of
non-itemizers (reduced to $6.3 billion from the proposed $84 billion over 10
years). "We support it in principle, but the amount is so small it’s
almost funny," Sharon Daly of Catholic Charities told the Washington
Post.
And then came the Salvation Army flap in July. After the story broke,
journalists began preparing to write charitable choice’s obit. The Washington
Post’s second-day story concluded that, "Despite the
administration’s swift response to the controversy, the president’s
effort to fund religious charities—one of his core legislative initiatives—may
have suffered lasting damage." "Faith-based Proposal May be Left
at Altar," announced the Houston Chronicle.
Such warnings may ultimately prove to be premature. On July 19, the House
passed the bill with a smattering of bipartisan support (15 Democratic
yeas), though only after hints were given that the hiring issue would be up
for further negotiation in conference with the Senate.
With Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle signaling that his body would set
the anti-discrimination bar very high, the White House had its work cut out
for it.
See companion article, The Perils of Polling
Related Articles:
Faith-Based Ambivalence,
Religion in the News, Spring 2001
Ten Issues
to Keep an Eye On, Religion in the News,
Spring 2001
Charitable
Choice and the New Religious Center, Religion in the News, Spring 2000
A Different
Spiritual Politics, Religion in the News, Summer 1999
Religion and
the Post-Welfare State, Religion in the News, Summer 1998
Missing the
Boat on Charitable Choice, Religion in the News, Summer 1998
|