Media Transparency

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Bill Berkowitz
March 1, 2006

A quiet fifth anniversary for Bush's faith-based initiative

Despite the lack of media attention and grumbling from Bush supporters, the president's faith-based initiative continues apace

With the Bush Administration on the defensive over the Iraq War, official reports detailing its horrendously slow response to Hurricane Katrina, the controversy over its use of the NSA to spy on Americans, the Abramoff Affair, and a vice-president who may be up to his knickers in Plamegate, it was somewhat surprising that the White House allowed January 29 -- the fifth anniversary of President Bush's faith-based initiative (FBI) -- to slip by the boards.

Consider this theoretical made-for-TV moment: Hundreds of poor people of all races and religions gather with an embattled president on the lawn at the White House. One-by-one, folks step forward and testify to the power and the glory of President Bush's "armies of compassion" -- the forces unleashed by his faith-based initiative. Some speak of how religious organizations receiving government grants helped lift them out of poverty; some testify fiercely about their recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. Some say their families were provided special housing and educational opportunities. Several former prison inmates praise the program's emphasis on rehabilitation, and how job training they received resulted in decent paying jobs.

While an up-close-and-personal White House gathering might not have lifted the president's paltry approval numbers, it certainly couldn't have hurt; and it would have publicized the fact that the centerpiece of President Bush's "compassionate conservative" domestic agenda was bearing fruit. Such a moment might even have been the launching pad for congressional legislation institutionalizing the faith-based initiative.

Instead, on the fifth anniversary of the Bush Administration's faith based initiative, the White House lawn was quiet, raising fundamental questions about the program.

Documentation of any results achieved by the president's faith-based initiative, like the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is missing in action. Other than using his bully pulpit to praise his "armies of compassion," and repeat suspect anecdotes, the president has yet to show that the taxpayers' money is well spent. Ordinarily government agencies that have handed out millions of dollars would have to report to Congress and the public about what we've gotten for the money.

The president and his faith-based initiative

Back in 2001, George Bush surrounded himself with a host of clergy and announced executive orders establishing the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Organizations, and Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Justice, Education and Housing and Urban Development. (Since that time five more agencies have established Centers including the Agency for International Development, and the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Veterans Affairs as well as the Small Business Administration.)

Shortly thereafter the Bush Administration realized they could not get the FBI legislation through Congress, and instead instituted the initiative through executive orders, thus avoiding a public debate over the program.

The president's faith-based initiative is primarily aimed at reducing the size - but not the spending - of government by shifting the responsibility for delivering a host of services from governmental agencies to faith-based organizations. A central point the administration has argued from the outset is that faith-based organizations had been discriminated against historically, and it was going to do all in its power to level the playing field, giving religious groups the opportunity to apply for and receive government grants.

In fact, faith and/or religious based organizations have received and continue to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from government each year, willingly acceding to government regulations that the money not be used for proselytization or for primarily religious purposes. The Salvation Army, which is in fact a Christian religion, gets in excess of $300 million a year from US government, according to the Washington Post.

While anecdotal evidence abounds, after five years it is still difficult to judge whether the president's faith-based initiative has delivered services more successfully than government agencies. One thing is abundantly clear, however:: the initiative has moved inexorably forward. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been given to faith-based organizations and more is on the way; the pool of faith-based organizations participating in the various programs is growing; and a number of the states have come on board as thirty-one governors have established their own Faith-Based and Community Initiative offices.

A series of regional conferences set up by the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Organizations are "geared toward those that are new to the initiative, have no history of applying for government grants, or have attempted to secure government funding, but have not yet been successful," according to the White House Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Conference homepage.

In addition, "targeted workshops" provide "grant writing tutorials for certain Federal grant programs that present the greatest opportunity for faith-based and community organizations."

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been awarded to faith-based groups, but is it enough to satisfy conservatives?

At a press briefing on February 6, Jim Towey, the Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, pointed out that the president's 2007 budget contained $323 million for a series of programs involving both faith-based organizations and community groups. (That figure represents a 36 percent increase from 2006's $236 million.)

Towey explained that the money "would include $40 million for the mentoring of the children of prisoners; $100 million for the Compassion Capital Fund...of which $50 million would go to the initiative Laura Bush has spearheaded, Helping America's Youth, to prevent kids from getting into gang involvement. The Access to Recovery program would get $98 million. This is an innovated drug treatment program that allows addicts to choose where they're served; it's operating in 14 states and in one tribal government."

"The Prisoner Re-entry Initiative is budgeted at $60 million....And then the new initiative the President announced in the State of the Union address dealing with AIDS -- I count in that $323 million, $25 million which is going to be targeted for outreach to the African American communities," for fighting AIDS.

Despite Towey's ebullient portrait of the initiative, "Some conservatives have argued that the Administration is insufficiently committed" to the faith-based initiative, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in a recent New Yorker profile of Michael Gerson, one of President Bush's key faith-oriented speechwriters. Goldberg pointed out that last year, David Kuo, the former deputy director of the White House program who quit in 2003, wrote a piece for Beliefnet.com -- a website focused on religious matters -- that the president had not lived up to expectations in terms of his support for the faith-based initiative: "Who was going to hold them accountable? Drug addicts, alcoholics, poor moms, struggling urban social-service organizations, and pastors aren't quite the N.R.A."

A commentary by Stephen Lazarus of the Annapolis, MD-based Center for Public Justice charged that Bush's State of the Union message "barely mentioned" the Faith-Based and Community Initiative. In an article titled "The State of the Faith-Based Initiative," Lazarus, the Director of the Civitas Programs for Leadership in Faith and Public Affairs at CPJ, pointed out that the President's Faith-Based Initiative has received little attention lately in the media and even less in Congress. "This raises an important question: Is the real state of the faith-based initiative strong or withering? After many years with only a few small but significant victories, the initiative appears to have been consigned to limbo by partisan and polarized politics."

Lazarus also maintained that while there was "a new program that will involve African-American churches and others to fight the HIV/AIDS crisis" the "President needs to show greater visible leadership on the issue."

One of the main reasons the faith-based initiative hasn't gained congressional traction is because the administration has allowed and/or openly encouraged faith-based organizations to discriminate in its hiring practices.

Critics of the president's faith-based have filed a number of lawsuits documenting discriminatory practices by faith-based organizations. Last year, in a suit filed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, U.S. District Court Judge John Shabaz ruled that an Arizona-based prison program that had received government money -- MentorKids USA -- violated the First Amendment prohibition against the promotion of religion.

The hearings revealed an even greater problem; the Dept. of Health and Human Services -- the federal agency that dispensed the grant to MentorKids USA -- had no system in place to monitor the money it was handing out.

In mid-January of this year, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, "reinstated the lawsuit brought" by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), the Chicago Sun-Times reported. "The group says Bush's program, which helps religious groups get government funding to provide social services, violates the separation of church and state."

"Getting through this legal hurdle was the biggest challenge," said FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor. "If you don't have standing, you can't stay in court; it was an important precedent for us."

The foundation's challenge is the first, and only, one to the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.

The $500 million marriage protection project

While some conservatives are complaining about the relative paucity of faith-based funds, the marriage promotion sector recently received a huge shot in arm when President Bush signed legislation setting aside $500 million ($100 million per year for 5 years) to faith-based programs to promote and strengthen heterosexual marriage. The marriage provision, part of the deficit reduction bill passed by Congress, "allows faith-based groups that provide social services to receive federal funding without changing the way they hire," Bush pointed out at the White House signing ceremony.

A few days before the bill signing ceremony, Diane Sollee, the Director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education, LLC (CMFCE), sent out an e-mail reminding constituents of its June conference in Atlanta -- the 10th Annual Smart Marriages Conference -- where there will be workshops galore on how different groups can get their hands on the marriage promotion money.

"Dr Wade Horn [the Assistant Health and Human Services Secretary] is opening the conference ... on Thurs night. He might not say anything. He might just stand there and smile," Sollee gushed.

"The money will be awarded through a competitive grants process under the continuing leadership of Wade Horn at the helm..." the email pointed out.

"On Friday," Sollee noted, "several of Dr Horn's key staff will host a Town Hall Teach-IN -- Grant Collins, Diann Dawson, Frank Fuentes, and Bill Coffin will answer your questions about the nuts and bolts, the eight allowable activities, Community Initiatives -- and about how to stretch the $100 million as far as we can. It's a big country.

"I'll probably have to move the Grant Writing Workshops to the ballroom," Sollee wrote.

"And, I'll probably also have to move all the Community Healthy Marriage Initiatives that have been successful in winning past federal funding and that ARE WILLING TO TELL YOU HOW THEY DID IT AND HOW YOU CAN DO IT -- I'll have to move them to ballrooms, too."

"One way to stretch the money will be the "Teach Out of the Box" programs -- we're launching these MINI trainings just in time."

"And, then there are the 36 training institutes that CERTIFY YOU AS MARRIAGE EDUCATORS/INSTRUCTORS. The hotel is not going to have enough ballrooms. Or, sleeping rooms. (I hope you've reserved yours!)"

According to Sollee, the marriage money can only be used for:

After the bill was signed, Horn "said that the money was not intended to specifically oppose same-sex marriage," 365gay.com reported. But, Horn pointed out "that none of the money could be used to promote or support same-sex marriage in Massachusetts where gay marriage is legal. The money also could not be used to support gay families where civil unions or domestic partnerships are allowed," the news service reported.