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News :: Right Wing |
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White House Moves To Fund Religous Nuts |
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by Randall Mikkelsen
(No verified email address) |
22 Sep 2003
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Monday advanced its "faith-based" initiative by paving the way for religious charities to compete for billions of dollars in grants and proposing new ways to give them government money. |
The moves are the latest in President Bush (news - web sites)'s push to assist religious charities, which has had limited success in Congress but is a centerpiece of his appeal to conservatives in his 2004 reelection campaign.
Civil liberties advocates denounced Monday's actions as "clearly unconstitutional" and likely to trigger lawsuits, but the White House said Bush would press ahead.
"He's going to use every single tool that he has," to carry out the initiative, said Jim Towey, director of the White House office of faith-based and community initiatives, after Bush met cabinet aides to review the new moves.
Final regulations issued by the administration allow religious charities to compete for $28 billion in grants to provide social services such as drug abuse or mental health treatment, or housing.
In response to complaints that government money could help build churches, a draft regulation was modified to prohibit grants from financing a "principal place of worship."
Religious charities have previously been barred from applying for social-service grants due to concerns over possible government promotion of religion, but the White House says its moves are legal and constitutional.
No one will face religious discrimination in receiving services and there are safeguards against religious promotion, Towey said.
Attempts to pass legislation similar to the regulations have stalled in Congress amid disputes over the administration's desire to let religious charities to hire only members of their own faith when receiving federal dollars.
"The president failed to get any of his legislation through Congress, and this is putting in place by executive order and regulation exactly the kinds of discriminatory practices that Congress rejected," said Christopher Anders, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites).
"It's clearly unconstitutional," he said. "They're setting themselves up, they're setting these churches up, for some very significant litigation."
The ACLU had not decided whether to file suit, he said.
Besides issuing the final regulations, the administration proposed new rules that would:
-- Let job retraining vouchers be used to train for work in a church, synagogue or other religious institution;
-- Eliminate measures that prohibit religious charities working with the Veterans Administration from displaying symbols such as a crosses; and
-- Make it easier for faith-based groups to receive donations of forfeited assets, such as property that could be used for low-cost housing. The proposal says such property could not be used for religious purposes for five years, rather than indefinitely under current rules.
The administration also announced $30.5 million in grants to provide technical help to faith-based groups.
The moves follow House of Representatives passage last week of another element of Bush's faith-based agenda -- bigger tax breaks for charitable donations. The estimated cost is $12.7 billion over 10 years.
The Senate earlier this year approved similar legislation, but differences between the bills remain to be worked out. The Senate version includes a measure intended to offset some of the cost of the tax breaks.
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