Politics and Prayer

Religious groups say election could alter federal-grants effort

President Bush will soon leave the White House, but his efforts to steer government aid to religious charities — one of his signature policies affecting nonprofit groups — will stay in place in some form.

John McCain and Barack Obama have both endorsed the White House’s work to help churches, synagogues, and other religious groups fight homelessness, help former prisoners find work, and offer other social services.

But the Republican and Democratic nominees disagree on a key part of the effort: the Bush administration’s push to allow organizations that receive government funds to hire employees based on their religious beliefs.

Senator McCain has said he supports the controversial practice; Senator Obama has said he would prohibit it.

Civil-liberties groups have praised Mr. Obama’s stand, saying that the Bush administration’s moves violate the Constitution because they amount to government support for religious activities.

But some religious charities say that if an Obama administration bans the hiring provision, they would no longer seek government dollars for their programs.

“I wouldn’t pursue money” if Mr. Obama changed the rule, said Jay Height, executive director of the Shepherd Community Center, a Christian charity in Indianapolis, which garnered a $750,000 government grant thanks to Mr. Bush’s policies.

“I would never say you have to accept my beliefs to get help here. But we do what we do out of our faith, and it’s important that they not force us to be different than who we are.”

Bush Legacy

Since 2001, President Bush has argued that small churches and others do vital neighborhood antipoverty work, but they are either confused about how to apply for federal money or are unfairly barred from competing for it.

As a result, the administration opened the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in the White House, with satellite offices in 11 federal agencies; created a multimillion-dollar program to provide administrative assistance to small nonprofit groups; and held events nationwide to teach organizations to navigate the federal grant system.

According to the White House, from the 2003 fiscal year until 2006, competitive awards from five federal departments to “faith-based organizations” grew 41 percent. (Grants to secular organizations also increased, by 19 percent, as the overall number of federal grants made to charities grew.)

As part of this effort, the president has pushed to allow Christian and other religious beneficiaries of government funds to be exempt from civil-rights hiring laws.

Civil-rights laws allow churches, mosques, and other congregations to discriminate among job applicants based on their religion. But experts disagree on whether that exemption from civil-rights rules applies to religious groups that receive federal support.

Court cases on the issue have not resolved the controversy, though in 2005 a federal court in New York ruled that the Salvation Army did not forfeit its religious-hiring rights when it signed contracts with New York to provide foster-care services and other programs.

The statutes that govern grant programs differ on the matter as well.

“Certain federal programs prohibit the hiring rule, others allow it, and many simply do not say one way or the other, though it was often presumed by administrators” to exclude religious organizations, said Stanley Carlson-Thies, director of social-policy studies at the Center for Public Justice, a Christian think tank in Annapolis, Md. The center supports President Bush’s hiring policies for religious charities.

During his tenure, Mr. Bush has tried — and failed — to persuade Congress to approve legislation that would extend the hiring exemption.

In part because of lawmakers’ reluctance, in 2002 he signed executive orders that required the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and others to ease restrictions for religious groups, while still requiring that they can only receive money if they do not discriminate against recipients of aid or use government dollars for prosyletization.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice went one step further. According to a 2007 memorandum, which was first reported this month by The New York Times, department officials said that a Christian group that hires only people of its faith could get money to run a gang-prevention program, even though the statute authorizing the program specifically had an antidiscrimination clause.

The department argued that a 1993 law, known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, allowed the group, World Vision, to receive $1.5-million as part of the program without stopping its religious hiring.

On its Web site, the organization, in Federal Way, Wash., says it hires only people who accept the Apostles’ Creed and a “statement of faith” based on Christian values.

Some legal scholars question the decision’s merit.

“I don’t think it reflects the current law on the meaning of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” said Robert W. Tuttle, professor of law and religion at the George Washington University Law School. He said the Justice Department twisted the law to further Bush policy.

‘Cannot Discriminate’

Under an Obama administration, the Justice Department’s decision would almost surely be overturned.

On his campaign’s Web site, Mr. Obama has proposed a “set of core principles” for faith groups, including that they “must comply with federal antidiscrimination laws” if they get a government grant.

“Religious organizations that receive federal dollars cannot discriminate with respect to hiring for government-funded social-service programs,” it goes on to say.

Mr. Height, of the Shepherd center, said that he is not in a “panic on who wins in November,” despite the potential change.

Shepherd, which was started by the Church of the Nazarene, decided to seek federal grants in part because of Mr. Bush’s effort to ease restrictions on religious groups. In 2006 it received its first award from Washington, $750,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services to pay for leadership training and technology upgrades. The grant represents almost a quarter of the group’s $4.1-million budget, but Mr. Height said being ineligible for future federal grants would not hurt the group’s services, since it has not used government money to pay for programs.

Speaking about federal grants that support religious charities, he said, “We hope they will continue but are prepared if not.”

Marvin Olasky, a provost at King’s College, a Christian school in New York, said that conservative religious groups across the country are concerned about Mr. Obama’s plan. “If the hiring provision is taken out, it says to non-theologically liberal groups, Get lost,” said Mr. Olasky, whose articles about religious charities influenced Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas.

But civil-rights groups support Mr. Obama’s proposal.

“We certainly welcome the statement by Senator Obama,” said Aaron D. Schuham, legislative director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in Washington. “We oppose government-funded discrimination.”

McCain’s Approach

For his part, Mr. McCain has said he would do little to change the current White House faith-based programs, telling The New York Times last summer, “I would continue along the model of what the president has done.”

On the employment question, the Republican senator from Arizona “believes that it is important for faith-based groups to be able to hire people who share their faith, and he disagrees with Senator Obama that hiring at faith-based groups should be subject to government oversight,” a McCain campaign spokesman said in a statement in July.

Mr. Olasky speculated that given the senator’s history of federalism and deregulation, he would advocate for more federal funds for social-service vouchers, which allow an aid recipient to choose where he or she receives assistance when joining a program.

For example, a $5-million Labor Department program started by President Bush allows former prisoners to redeem a voucher for job-training services at a variety of organizations, including religious ones. Since the participants in the so-called “Beneficiary-Choice Contracting Program” choose where to seek help, churches and other groups may be overtly religious in their hiring and program services, such as making prayer sessions a part of job training.

Mr. Tuttle doubts that Mr. McCain would propose a wholesale expansion of vouchers, however. Such programs are difficult to operate because the government agencies have to make sure secular and religious service providers are equally accessible. In rural areas, for example, transportation problems make meeting such requirements onerous, he said.

Regardless of who wins the election, Mr. Carlson-Thies, of the Center for Public Justice, said he is pleased that the tenor of the debate about the role of religious charities has changed.

There’s a “deep conversation” going on now about the role of churches and other religious organizations in fighting poverty, he said, and it seems likely to continue whether there’s a Democrat or a Republican administration come January.

“It’s not going to be on autopilot,” he said.