http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Berkowitz0728.htm

Deepening the Faith
Bush and Congress Aim to Institutionalize Faith-Based Initiative
by Bill Berkowitz
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 28, 2005

[excerpt]
One of the first orders of business for George W. Bush in January
2001 was to establish a White House Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives, the cornerstone social policy of his
presidency. At a ceremony attended by numerous religious leaders, Bush
announced executive orders that instructed the Departments of Health
and Human Services, Labor, Justice, Education and Housing and Urban
Development to set up Centers for Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives within their agencies.

That done, Bush moved to cement his executive actions in congressional
legislation. There he was rebuffed, however, over objections that
government money would be used for religious proselytization, and that
recipients of government grants would be allowed to discriminate in
their hiring, based on religion.

Bush called on Senators Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joseph Lieberman
(D-CT) to craft a legislative compromise. When they failed to win a
consensus, the president went back to issuing executive orders. Now,
House allies are trying to come up with a legislative package that
will pass muster. One of the keys to the compromise is a "Sense of the
Congress" resolution dealing with the religious hiring question.

Bush seized the bully pulpit: "The indispensable and transforming work
of faith-based and other charitable service groups must be
encouraged," the president said. "Government cannot be replaced by
charities, but it can and should welcome them as partners. We must
heed the growing consensus across America that successful government
social programs work in fruitful partnership with community-serving
and faith-based organizations -- whether run by Methodists, Muslims,
Mormons, or good people of no faith at all."

The president laid out an "agenda to enlist, equip, enable, empower
and expand the heroic works of faith-based and community groups across
America"; groups he referred to as "neighborhood healers."

Despite Congress' failure to pass substantive faith-based legislation,
the Bush Administration has been steadily advancing the ball. It
established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives, and Centers and Taskforces for Faith-based and Community
Initiatives in 10 federal agencies and the Corporation for National
and Community Service. It has handed out more than $ 3 billion in
grants to a passel of faith-based organizations. It has issued
executive orders making it easier for religious organizations to
compete for grants, has held numerous training sessions to help
religious groups get government grants, and the president has
regularly taken to the "bully pulpit" to push the initiative forward.

Now, Bush and his Congressional allies are attempting to
institutionalize his faith-based initiative through broad-ranging
legislation.

Because Bush's Faith-Based Initiative was established through
Executive Orders, the White House Office could be eliminated should a
future administration decide to rescind those orders. To obviate this
possibility, on March 2, Representative Mark Green (R-WI), introduced
H.R. 1054, The Tools for Community Initiatives Act. Green's bill
"would make the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives... and ten similar federal agency offices a permanent part
of the federal government," according to the Web site of OMB Watch.

The bill would "establish the offices and outlines their
responsibilities. It does not include portions of current regulations
that address how religious groups handle federal grants. Instead,
these issues are included in a non-binding 'Sense of Congress'
section, which does not address the issue of hiring on the basis of
religion for federally funded jobs."

The provisions of H.R. 1054 would exist "until Congress acted to
eliminate them."
[end of excerpt]



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The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
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American Theocrats - Past and Present
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The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
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. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

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