Faith and the First Amendment

In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson wrote a short letter to a group of Baptist clergymen in Danbury, Conn. The clergymen, who wanted the President to proclaim a national day of Christian thanksgiving, had expressed their frustration with Jefferson’s refusal to do so in a prior letter. In his famous reply, Jefferson explained his refusal; he wrote that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God,” and furthermore, that the United States “‘legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

When he labored over those words, Jefferson would never have guessed that they would find their way into everything from Supreme Court decisions to elementary school textbooks over the course of the next 200 years. But as surprised as he would have been at their longevity, he would have been gratified that the Constitutional principle that they clarify has been, more or less, upheld. Until now.

Flying in the face of the First Amendment, Jefferson’s 40th successor has chosen to advocate federal government support of “faith-based initiatives,” effectively taking a wrecking ball to the wall of separation about which Jefferson had written so passionately.

According to President Bush, faith-based initiatives, which are religiously-affiliated programs that aim to support the poor and needy, deserve federal support to further their charitable works. Unfortunately, these programs have more on their agenda than simply helping the needy of America—explicitly or otherwise, they project their religious beliefs and agendas on those they help.

For years, Congress has wisely limited government support to organizations that do not have obvious religious bias. But recently, Bush issued an executive order, practically circumventing Congress, to allow these groups to receive taxpayer money. By issuing that executive order and giving federal funding to faith-based programs, the President has practically endorsed the religious agendas of these initiatives.

In a speech last week to the White House Faith-Based and Community-Based Initiatives Leadership Conference, the President tried to evade this objection by lumping together his support of religiously affiliated and secular community initiatives. But community-based initiatives have none of the inherent problems of faith-based initiatives and should receive full government support. They are not connected in any way to religious organizations, their methods and ideology are purely secular, and their hiring practices are nondiscriminatory. Faith-based initiatives are another story.

Though he insisted that “government has no business endorsing a religious creed, or directly funding religious worship or religious teaching,” at the White House Conference last week, President Bush also maintained that “when government gives that support, charities and faith-based programs should not be forced to change their character or compromise their mission.” He seems to be suggesting that government funding of faith-based programs does not cross First Amendment lines. But Bush ignores the fact that many faith-based initiatives have close ties to the religions with which they are affiliated. Money, even government money, is fungible; giving federal support to these groups is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as giving money to the religions they represent.

Perhaps, in an ideal world, Bush would be right. Unfortunately, in practice, faith-based programs impart an implicit bias in their messages, methods, and interaction with those they help. They cannot help it. After all, most of these groups hire employees only of their own creed (a practice which Bush supports).

Bush claims that the people that these organizations seek to help—recovering drug addicts, alcoholics, and the poor, among others—are free to choose between religiously affiliated or secular programs. But often, these people will enroll in the most vocal or the best financed organizations. It is hard to imagine a homeless person who is offered help by a group refusing it just because of the group’s religious affiliation. Other times, those most in need of help by these charitable groups have no choice at all. For example, the only vocational training available to prison inmates in Bradford County, Penn. (funded with government money) includes Bible study, prayer, and religious counseling. Also, there are indications that money which has already been allocated by the Bush administration to faith-based initiatives has gone to religious groups that counsel women against abortion—for religious reasons. In truth, the federal government does not have the best track record in vetting programs to make sure that they are not promoting religiously motivated agendas. In December, the Washington Post reported that some federally funded programs were teaching children false information in sex education classes, including that touching a person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy.”

Bush’s faith-based initiative program is also troubling because there is evidence to suggest that it is prejudiced against minority religions. Jim Towey, Bush’s director of faith-based initiatives was asked during an online “Ask the President” session whether the faith-based initiative program would also support charitable religious programs affiliated with minority religions, such as paganism. Towey responded that “Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can’t be used to promote ideology, the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it.” When faced with such clear prejudice from the President’s point man on the issue, it is hard to take seriously Bush’s mantra that “We ought to judge faith-based groups by results, not by their religion.”

In his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush told Americans that faith-based initiatives would transform America “one soul at a time.” Simply put, the government should not be in the business of saving souls. It should be helping people. Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave.

Brian J. Rosenberg is a Crimson editorial editor in Stoughton Hall.