A Leap of Faith

Bush’s executive order loosens federal restraints on religious charities

President Bush’s decision last month to order the federal government to loosen restraints on religious charities that seek and obtain federal money means that Mr. Bush has accomplished with the stroke of a pen much of what Congress has balked at giving him over the past two years.

In so doing, Mr. Bush has thrilled supporters of his broad agenda to promote religious “armies of compassion” but infuriated others who charge that the administration is overstepping its authority and violating the constitutional requirement that government remain separated from sectarian activities.

Most controversial is the president’s step to allow groups that receive federal contracts to follow their religious views when they make hiring decisions — what critics brand as discrimination.

Others caution that Mr. Bush’s action — through an executive order — might not be quite as sweeping, or as easy to carry out quickly, as some may think.

Whatever the reach of his order, Mr. Bush intends to go back to Congress this year to seek new laws to help religious groups. The specifics of what he will request are unclear because the administration says it does not yet have a legislative strategy.

The White House said the order Mr. Bush issued last month will assist religious groups in gaining equal footing to compete with secular charities for social-service money to pay for programs that combat poverty, hunger, homelessness, and drug abuse.

“The steps we take today will help clear away a legacy of discrimination against faith-based charities,” Mr. Bush told a Philadelphia conference where 1,500 charity and religious leaders had gathered to learn how to apply for federal grants. “When decisions are made on public funding, we should not focus on the religion you practice; we should focus on the results you deliver.”

But opponents of the president’s efforts to help religious charities denounced Mr. Bush’s order.

“Under this scheme, taxpayers will be forced to support churches they don’t believe in, and workers will be denied publicly funded jobs because they don’t conform to religious mandates,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “We will explore every opportunity to challenge this in the courts.”

‘Level Playing Field’

Mr. Bush’s order does not require the approval of Congress because it is aimed at the executive branch of the federal government.

The president directed federal agencies to take steps to make sure that their policies — including guidelines, regulations, and internal agency procedures — allow religious charities to compete for funds on what the administration calls a “level playing field” with other kinds of organizations.

The proclamation says that organizations that get federal money may retain their religious identity: display icons, such as crucifixes or stars of David, in their facilities; have religious names in their titles and religious missions in their charter documents; and select board members based on their faith.

“If a charity is helping the needy, it should not matter if there is a rabbi on the board, or a cross or a crescent on the wall, or a religious commitment in the charter,” said Mr. Bush.

As an example of a “pattern of discrimination” by government, the president cited the Victory Center Rescue Mission, in Clinton, Iowa, which he said “was told to return grant money to the government because the mission’s board of directors was not secular enough.”

“We’re still fighting old attitudes, habits, and rules that discriminate against religious groups for no good purpose,” said Mr. Bush. “Charities and faith-based programs should not be forced to change their character or compromise their mission.”

Employment Rules

Under the president’s proclamation, nonprofit groups that receive federal contracts of $10,000 or more can take their faith “into account” when making employment decisions.

This provision, which mirrors the “charitable choice” section of a 1996 federal welfare law, means that religious social-service contractors can refuse to hire people who do not hold their religious views. Groups that obtain federal grants are not covered by the hiring provision in Mr. Bush’s order.

“What he’s saying is faith-based groups should be able to hire people who support their vision and mission,” said an administration official who asked not to be named.

Mr. Bush’s executive order restates the constitutionally established requirement that groups cannot use federal funds to support “inherently religious” activities, such as worship, religious instruction, and proselytizing.

The order also says that people seeking services from religious charities must be treated fairly. The president “doesn’t want to see people discriminated against who walk in the door of a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, regardless of their sexual orientation, their religious beliefs, or anything,” the administration official said.

Much of what Mr. Bush wrote into his executive order had been approved by the House of Representatives in the past session of Congress. A watered-down Senate bill — known as the Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment Act — that stalled last year did not include the hiring provision.

In a second executive order to further promote his “compassionate agenda,” Mr. Bush directed the Agriculture Department and the Agency for International Development to open Faith-Based and Community Initiative offices to assist religious groups seeking funds. Similar offices were opened last year in five departments — Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, and Labor.

The president also told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to allow religious groups to receive federal grants after a natural disaster or other emergency.

Mr. Bush’s actions garnered an avalanche of support and criticism from a variety of charities and advocacy groups.

The Christian Legal Society, a national association of lawyers, applauded the president. “America’s poor and needy will benefit from the president’s reforms,” said Gregory S. Baylor, director of the society’s advocacy arm, the Center for Law and Religious Freedom. “Unleashing the ‘armies of compassion’ isn’t a mere slogan — it’s exactly what we hope will happen as outdated regulatory roadblocks are removed.”

But civil-rights groups and other critics found much to fault in Mr. Bush’s executive orders.

OMB Watch, an organization in Washington that monitors government spending, branded the action “merely a reshuffling of the deck.”

“A true emphasis on smaller community- and faith-based groups, with strong church-state safeguards, could be a tremendous help to people in need,” the organization said in its newsletter. “There is, however, no new federal money for social-services programs, and in fact, many programs are either facing cutbacks or are being funded at the same level yearly, with no adjustments for inflation.”

OMB Watch added: “While many supporters claim that faith-based organizations can do more with less, there is little or no evidence to back up this claim.”

Hiring Provisions

The executive order’s provision on hiring also drew heavy fire for, critics said, essentially allowing religious groups to bar homosexuals and others from employment.

“The president’s words in support of equal rights for all Americans contrast sharply with his orders giving religious groups the ability to use tax dollars to discriminate against citizens who have different beliefs or no beliefs at all,” said Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way. “The president in fact has put the power of the federal government and our tax dollars behind discrimination.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said that Mr. Bush knew that Congress would not accept “taxpayer-funded religious discrimination” if he proposed such a plan to lawmakers this year. “But rather than compromise and work within the political process, the president has decided to circumvent public and congressional opinion in his quest to allow religious discrimination in the workplace,” said Christopher Anders, an ACLU spokesman.

Meanwhile, two legal experts pointed out that Mr. Bush’s new policy has limits and cannot go into full effect immediately.

Ira C. Lupu and Robert W. Tuttle, professors at George Washington University Law School, noted that executive orders are instructions to the president’s subordinates in the executive branch to take action to the extent that the orders are consistent with the Constitution and statutes passed by Congress.

Each federal agency must sift through its policies, determine what policies can and cannot be legally changed under the order, and decide how to make necessary changes, the professors said.

In an analysis of Mr. Bush’s action for the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy, a project of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the professors wrote that they expect a “considerable time lag in implementation” of the new policy. “None of this is likely to happen overnight.”

Added Mr. Lupu and Mr. Tuttle: “Despite the delays inevitable in this process, and despite the substantive restrictions on the order, we expect it to set in motion some considerable administrative movement in the direction of further participation by faith-based organizations.”

Highlights of President Bush’s actions can be found on the White House Web site at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/20021212-3.html