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Bush Wants Faith as Key Component in "Compassionate" State
WASHINGTON, July 22 (News Agencies) - President George W. Bush can finally be proud that the U.S. House of Representatives has finally approved his Faith-Based Initiative.
But the measure, designed to allow government funding for faith-based organizations providing social services, still faces stiff opposition and has little chance of becoming law.
Convinced that the power of faith can heal society's ills, the new president has made this legislation a cornerstone of his "compassionate conservative" plank - a catchphrase that reflects his political philosophy and vision of what he wants to accomplish for the country.
On Thursday, the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress approved the Community Solutions Act, which encompasses the measures, by 233 votes to 198.
"One of the great goals of my administration is to rally America's armies of compassion and restore a spirit of caring, citizenship and community," said Bush, in Genoa, Italy for the G-8 conference.
The draft legislation envisions that approximately eight billion dollars of subsidies would go to help religious organizations, including Muslim groups, finance their social work. Many of these organizations already participate in providing their communities with social services, including: shelter for homeless people, aid for drug addicts, rehabilitation of young criminals, reintegration of prisoners to society, and soup kitchens for the poor.
Until now, these religious organizations had to create an independent non-proselytizing legal structure in order to manage any public funds they received - an obligation removed in Bush's proposal.
The text of the proposal also encourages tax-deductible charity gifts from private individuals of up to nearly six billion dollars.
Meanwhile, due to the outcry caused by this project, a congressional committee considerably trimmed the scope and cost of the measure, bringing it down from 90 billion dollars over ten years in the initial version to only 13.4 billion.
The measure, however, has caused a broad uproar among Democrats and civil rights groups, who accuse the president of wanting to indirectly subsidize religion and of trampling on the whole concept of the separation of church and state.
The principal objection relates to the fact that the law gives religious groups receiving public money the right to preserve discriminatory practices. The faith-based groups, for example, are only allowed to recruit people of their same faith.
This practice has long been supported in court, but only in cases related to the use of private funds.
The Bush proposal is "the first step toward legalizing discrimination by religious organizations which receive federal funds," said Terri Schroeder, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also fiercely opposes the proposal "because it allows discrimination on the basis of religion," according to a statement.
In order to become law, the measure still has to be approved by the U.S. Senate, controlled by members of the opposition Democratic Party. Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle has made it clear that it has little chance of passing.
"I can't imagine that we could pass any bill that would tolerate slipping back to a level of tolerance that would be unacceptable in today's society," Daschle warned recently.
Muslim organizations in the U.S. are reportedly still mulling a position on the initiative. Some
feel that the initiative would finally help Muslim organizations support their social service operations, while others believe that it will only open the door to the further disenfranchisement of Muslims via discrimination based on religion.
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