Jewish social service providers paint a bleak picture when conjuring up a worst-case scenario of President Bush’s faith-based charity plan.
It is a picture that includes government-sponsored proselytizing and employment discrimination, all while diverting funds from established, effective social service providers.
The president once again pushed the debate over federal funding of faith-based charities into the limelight Dec. 12, when he signed a pair of executive orders clearing the way for the “Charitable Choice” initiative he campaigned on in 2000. The initiative would allow religious institutions such as churches, synagogues or mosques to receive federal dollars in undertaking social service work.
While religiously oriented nonprofits have always been free to practice bias in their hiring process, organizations that contract with the federal government are not. The president’s executive orders allow religious groups to maintain their current employment practices.
“We face the prospect of programs run by religious institutions hanging out a [job notice] saying, ‘No Jews, Muslims or unmarried mothers need apply here,’ and doing it with tax dollars,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, the Washington, D.C.-based director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
It is unclear if legislation relating to Charitable Choice will be reintroduced to a now Republican-controlled Congress, where discomfort over federal contractors utilizing discriminatory hiring practices caused the original bill to stagnate.
Jewish organizations’ aversion to Bush’s plan — with the notable exception of many Orthodox groups, who staunchly back the president — can be largely summed up in two key words: pervasively religious.
“A church is pervasively religious. A [parochial] school is pervasively religious. Some types of welfare programs put on by the more evangelical Christians are pervasively religious,” explained Fred Blum, a volunteer attorney for the American Jewish Congress and a former president of the Northern Pacific region.
Blum last year filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court against the state, objecting to the Empowerment Development Division’s establishment of $5 million in grants — solely to faith-based organizations. It was later dropped.
The AJCongress also filed a suit in Texas over a federally funded state program in which welfare-to-work participants use the Bible as a textbook.
“The whole idea behind these programs is to indoctrinate people into one’s own belief. So it doesn’t matter whether money is given to fund a meal or a pastor, because they’re all doing the same thing,” continued Blum. “The meal is part of a general idea to proselytize. You can contrast that easily with the Jewish Family and Children’s Services, for example. Their raison d’être is to bring aid, not bring people to Judaism.”
Unknown to most, Charitable Choice was originally created in 1996 as part of the congressional welfare reform act, allotting welfare-to-work funds from the Department of Labor to faith-based agencies, including the local Jewish Vocational Service.
Countless religious groups already administer social services through established nonprofit organizations. But under the president’s plan, “pervasively religious” organizations could receive direct government funding without creating a separate nonprofit.
Even more galling to existing service providers is that the president’s Dec. 12 orders provide no additional funds for the faith-based charities, as the stalled Senate bill would have.
“That’s a real problem. Right now, religious communities, through their affiliated agencies like Catholic Charities or federations, are among the largest and most effective social service providers in America,” said Saperstein
“So long as the money stays the same, all the existing groups will see the pot of money divided among thousands of churches and synagogues, many of which will not do nearly as good a job. The poor lose on two fronts: First, there’s not as much money going to their service providers, and, second, they’ll be forced to go to other service providers who may not do as good a job.”
In addition to concerns over the federal funding of a program in which the homeless or drug-addicted are instructed that Jesus is the answer to their problems, Jewish social service workers cite other problems. They say the government, in its haste to establish faith-based service providers, may not properly monitor conditions such as staff accreditation, counselor-to-client ratios, and nutritional, health, safety and fire standards.
In early versions of the Charitable Choice legislation, faith-based charities would actually have been exempted from the aforementioned regulations.
“If we have two sets of standards of accountability for public money, that’s a disaster. Inevitably, that will destroy the program,” said Joel Carp, author of a lengthy study on the history of the Jewish welfare lobby in the United States.
Said Blum: “That’s always a problem with the religious community. They want the money, but they don’t want to deal with the regulations and oversights that come with it.”
Many within the Jewish community predict an unanticipated cavalcade of paperwork will swamp even well-meaning religious charities.
“If religious institutions think they’ve suddenly discovered a new gold mine, they’re kidding themselves,” said Carp, the senior vice president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.
“These funds come with regulations and accountability requirements the likes of which they’ve never seen in their lives.”
Carp also pointed out that it would be wrong for the religious community to help the government buy out of providing social services for the needy.
While the vast majority of the Jewish communal world has lined up against Charitable Choice, a number of Republican Jewish groups and Orthodox groups have favored the president’s plan.
“I feel good that God is being brought into the public arena. We need more of that. I think society has taken a downturn in the last 50 years since the whole church and state issue was brought to the forefront. You see how the ethical and moral standards from the president down to the ghetto have become very corrupt. I think it’s a direct relationship to the lack of God in society,” said Rabbi Yosef Langer of Chabad of S.F.
“We’ve never been afraid of other religions because our focus is if we educate our Jewish children and build strong Jewish institutions and community, then we have nothing to fear about what the other guy is doing. So we’re very pro-Charitable Choice.”
Although the Washington, D.C.-based Republican Jewish Coalition did not return phone calls, a statement on its Web site — www.rjchq.org — says, “We endorse the Bush Administration’s efforts to expand the charitable choice program to include faith-based and private groups…
“We do, however, believe that there must be adequate accounting by recipient groups for all funds received and disbursed, and that none of the money should be used for religious purposes and or the support of hate groups. Moreover, we believe that this funding should not be considered as an entitlement, to be perpetually renewed without review.”
Meanwhile, Marc Stern, the AJCongress’ assistant executive director, promised a fight. He predicted much debate over whether the executive orders exceed the president’s authority. Upon implementation of the faith-based programs, Stern foresees a spree of lawsuits.
Any faith-based regulations emanating from the Bush administration will be greeted with “an immediate court challenge after the rules became final,” Stern said.
“We’re still not out of business here.”