Charitable Choice?

"Charitable choice" looks like a mixed blessing -- and we should pay attention

A comment from Witherspoon president Gene TeSelle

August 18, 2000

Debate continues on Bush proposal to use religious groups to provide social services with government funding [1-26-01]

Click here for updates [Dec. 21, 2000] on President-elect George W. Bush's discussions on the use of faith-based organizations as substitutes for government aid to poor people.

The New York Times reports that "Charitable choice" is not finding many takers.

Click here for reflections about dealing with charitable choice on the front lines, from Trina Zelle, a Presbyterian minister serving on the border of Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico.

The Employment Project, based in Judson Memorial Church (Baptist) in Manhattan, has published on its web site a detailed study of the "charitable choice" program.

Cathlin Siobhan Baker, Co-Director of the project notes that "both George W. Bush and Al Gore claim that the contributions of faith-based organizations (FBOs) have been ignored for too long and that Charitable Choice is the answer to our country's social problems." She then warns that "before religious organizations accept that rhetoric, they should seriously examine its implications."

Click here for the full story.

"Charitable choice" is a provision of the 1996 welfare reform legislation that requires states, if they contract with non-profit organizations to deliver social services, to include "faith-based organizations" (FBOs) as eligible agencies, and these FBOs no longer have to establish separate non-religious organizations to handle these funds. Presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore favor charitable choice, arguing that faith-based organizations have been ignored for too long and that they are a big part of the answer to our social problems. Gore adviser Elizabeth Kamarck, in an unguarded moment, gloated that "the Democratic Party is going to take back God this time."

Americans United for Separation of Church and State criticizes "charitable choice" on constitutional grounds for opening the way to "government-funded employment discrimination" and "proselytization of beneficiaries of government-funded services."

Cathlin Baker of The Employment Project in New York adds a number of other criticisms, based mostly on the social consequences of charitable choice: it undermines attention to the common good and threatens interfaith cooperation by encouraging competition among, and separate development of, religious groups; it has attracted the attention of religious conservatives, who think that interfaith work has "watered down" the Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim) message and now have fresh incentives to get into the business of offering social services; it further strains the already overworked faith-based providers of emergency services; and it threatens to silence the prophetic voice of the churches by coopting them as "managers" and "policers" of the poor.

A more cautious evaluation, however, has been heard from Dennis R. Hoover, a resident fellow of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life (The Nation, August 7/14, 2000). He notes that most of the federal funding is currently going not to the Religious Right but to a "religious center" made up of Roman Catholic, Black Protestant, and evangelical institutions, which may be conservative theologically but have a powerful ethic of concern for the poor.

On the legal front, Hoover points out that charitable choice is controlled by the constitutional principle of "substantive neutrality" among religions or between religion and secularism. The law requires that "equivalent" secular programs be made available to welfare beneficiaries who do not want a religious program; FBOs are not allowed to discriminate against clients because of religion or make religious activities mandatory; and FBOs must show that public funds do not pay for "sectarian worship, instruction, or proselytization." It still remains true that FBOs are permitted to hire according to religious faith; religious symbols can be pervasive in the physical setting; and religious activities can be part of the program, even though participation is not mandatory.

This quick summary may make a beginning at sorting out the various issues of law and public perception. The real test, of course, will be in implementation and enforcement -- and then in the actual social consequences of this new use of federal funds in faith-based organizations.