<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:95779.wais]
CENTERS FOR FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES: PROMISE AND PROGRESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 23, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-194
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan Maryland
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio Columbia
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas JIM COOPER, Tennessee
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ------ ------
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio ------
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
David Marin, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Phil Barnett, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas Maryland
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio Columbia
------ ------
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Marc Wheat, Staff Director
Elizabeth Meyer, Professional Staff Member
Nicole Garrett, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 23, 2004................................... 1
Statement of:
Lynn, Rev. Barry, executive director, Americans United for
the Separation of Church and State; Holly Hollman, general
counsel, Baptist Joint Committee; Nathan Diament, director
of public policy, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of
America; Rev. Wilson Goode, senior advisor on faith-based
initiatives for Public/Private Ventures; and Steve
Fitzhugh, director, the House.............................. 13
Sherman, Dr. Amy, director, Hudson Institute Faith-in-
Communities Program........................................ 85
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Maryland, prepared statement of............... 9
Diament, Nathan, director of public policy, Union of Orthodox
Jewish Congregations of America, prepared statement of..... 56
Goode, Rev. Wilson, senior advisor on faith-based initiatives
for Public/Private Ventures, prepared statement of......... 76
Hollman, Holly, general counsel, Baptist Joint Committee,
prepared statement of...................................... 44
Lynn, Rev. Barry, executive director, Americans United for
the Separation of Church and State, prepared statement of.. 16
Sherman, Dr. Amy, director, Hudson Institute Faith-in-
Communities Program, prepared statement of................. 87
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 4
CENTERS FOR FAITH-BASED AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES: PROMISE AND PROGRESS
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2004
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder and Cummings.
Staff present: J. Marc Wheat, staff director and chief
counsel; Elizabeth Meyer, professional staff member and
counsel; Nicole Barrett, clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel;
Denise Wilson, minority professional staff member; and Jean
Gosa, minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order. Thank you
all for coming today. This is part of a long series of faith-
based hearings we have been having; many out around the country
listening to practitioners. The debate over the role of these
State-based organizations and the provision of social services
continue to be as heated today as it was 3 years ago when the
President announced the creation of the White House Office of
Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
Even as the debate continues, what we know for certain is
this: The need for social services will never be fully met. The
government acting alone cannot begin to meet the needs of the
countless men and women who are facing addiction, homelessness,
hunger or illness.
Many faith-based and community organizations across our
Nation understand that they have a duty to help those who are
less fortunate than they are. We are a Nation richly blessed
not only with government resources but also with caring
individuals who dedicate their lives to helping others. Through
charitable choice and the faith-based initiative, the
government has recognized the tremendous resource it has in its
faith community and in its neighborhood-based organizations.
These groups have the ability to reach out to men and women
that the government may never know exists.
We know that for decades the government has worked with
large faith-based organizations like Catholic Charities and
Lutheran Social Services to provide care to those in need. The
faith-based initiative is designed to bring neutrality to the
government grant system so that smaller community and faith-
based organizations can expand their capacity to help people in
their communities that otherwise might be overlooked.
Neutrality toward all applicants requires that the
government partner only with secular organizations, in effect
recognizing a State-sponsored secularism. But it demands that
government look at the merits of each program. Is the program
helping substance abusers kick addiction? Is it helping a
homeless woman find a job or a home? Is the program making a
difference in the life of a child who has lost a parent to
prison?
The government does have a responsibility to ensure that
its dollars are being spent in a manner consistent with the
Constitution. This is why technical assistance in education are
key elements of the faith-based initiative. Every organization
has a responsibility to think carefully about whether a
government grant is a good thing for their organization before
they apply. Organizations like the FASTEN have produced
training and educational materials for faith-based and
community organizations that include a list of questions that
organizations should think carefully about before they decide
to jump into the fray of competing for government grants, as
well as information on what due diligence will require as they
administer a grant. The White House also instructs potential
applicants to consider carefully what a partnership with the
government will mean to their organization. In terms of
financial aid, I believe the most effective way that government
can assist faith-based and community organizations is through
tax credits and vouchers. These forms of aid reduce
significantly government intrusion into the daily operation of
the provider, and puts the choice of which program to use and
where to send private contributions into the hands of men and
women who need services and who want to support a social
ministry with their personal dollars.
For some time we have heard opponents of the government
partnership say faith-based organizations have long had the
ability to partner with the Federal Government. All they need
to do is form a separate 501(c)(3) and conduct themselves as
though they were secular and there is no problem. But we are
starting to see that even if the faith-based organization takes
the precaution of forming a separate organization to handle
those social services it desires to provide, that everything
may in fact not be all right. Catholic Charities is an
organization that for decades has been held up as an example,
even by critics of the faith-based initiative, of how
government partnerships with faith-based organizations are
working, because they held the service arm of the organization
under a separate incorporated organization. Now the California
Supreme Court has said that because Catholic Charities offers
secular services to clients, the majority of whom are not
Catholic and not directly preach Catholic values, it is not a
religious organization for the court's purposes and therefore
must provide services contrary to Catholic teachings. This
intrusion into the right of an organization to define its very
identity should frighten leaders of all organizations, faith
based and community alike.
This case illustrates the danger we face when government
attempts to intrude upon the right of a religious organization
to define itself. Not all faith-based organizations hire only
members of the same faith, but the vast majority of faith-based
organizations desire to hire employees who embody the mission
of that organization. It has been argued that if providing
services to individuals of all faiths does not alter the
integrity of a faith-based organization, neither should a
requirement that a faith-based organization to hire individuals
of any faith. After all, critics say, the soup is still served
and the person is still fed. The argument is faulty. For any
faith-based or community organization to hire employees who are
dedicated to upholding the values of the organization is not
discrimination but a basic right of liberty. Justice Brennan
wrote in Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, ``Determining
that certain activities are in furtherance of an organization's
religious mission and that only those committed to that mission
should conduct them is . . . A means by which a religious
community defines itself.''
The government is acting in an even-handed way when it
permits all organizations it funds, religious as well as
secular, to hire staff devoted to their respective missions.
Abortion rights organizations do not lose their ability to
screen out pro-life applicants when they accept government
funds. In the same way, faith-based service groups should not
lose their religious staffing liberty if they accept Federal
grants. Keeping religious staffing legal is the only way to
ensure equal opportunity and effectiveness for all
organizations and to respect the diversity of faith communities
that are part of our civil society.
Today we will discuss a variety of viewpoints related to
the faith-based initiative. We will discuss the legal questions
that accompany the initiative and we will examine how the
initiative is actually playing out both in a research sense but
also at the most critical level, the neighborhood level. We
will hear from two organizations that are living out the
initiative on a daily basis. I know that faith-based and
community organizations are making a difference in the lives of
thousands of Americans. What we need to work toward is how best
to structure the relationships between those organizations and
the government. Our discussion today should be lively about how
that can be accomplished.
Now I would like to yield to the distinguished ranking
member, Mr. Cummings.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
holding this important hearing on the legal and practical
issues raised by the President's faith-based initiative and its
implementation by the Bush administration.
Let me just say from the outset, Mr. Chairman, that I along
with many Members of Congress, am concerned about
discrimination. As one who has personally experienced
discrimination and who knows the painful results of it, I think
we have to, at every single juncture where we see
discrimination raise its ugly dangerous head, we have to be
very careful about it. And sometimes I think that we become
very confused about the good coming out at the expense of the
harm that may be done when a faith-based organization hires
only a certain race of people, a certain religion, because
basically the problem is that then they take my tax dollars and
discriminate against me, which is incredible. And so, this has
been one, a major issue for, I know, my good friend Bobby Scott
of Virginia. We have spent in the Congressional Black Caucus a
phenomenal amount of time on this. And I guess the thing that
bothers me more than anything else is how, when we raise these
issues, most of us, like myself being a son of two preachers
and very much for faith-based efforts, very much, and for some
reason when we raise the issue, folks then say, oh, they must
be against churches. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Nothing. As a matter of fact, all my life I have seen churches,
people reach in their pockets in churches and do all kinds of
things that government would normally have been doing, and they
do it over and over and over again. They do a good job. But do
not take my dollars, or those of the American people and then
use those very dollars to discriminate against me, or my
children, or any other American. And that is the crux of this
situation.
You know, it bothers me that we make these arguments and I
will bet there's not one Member of Congress that is against
faith-based organizations doing what they do. It basically
comes down to an issue of discrimination. And so I have a
problem. As I told a group just on Sunday, a lot of times we
look at the ends. We look at the ends. And we say, yes, the
person who was the addict has been treated. We look at the
homeless person and we say, yes, the church, the faith-based
organization, has done some wonderful things for that person,
and now they are up on their feet. But the end don't always
justify the means, because if you come to the end and you
basically destroy the very principles of the Constitution and
what this country is all about, then I think that you have
chipped away at this wonderful thing we call a democracy. You
have given a foundation for discrimination and I think,
therefore, that the end certainly does not justify the means.
And so it is that I am looking forward to our discussion,
but I, you know, I didn't even read my remarks because it just,
it upsets me so much that we on this side of the aisle, who
have consistently stood up for those things that are humane,
consistently stood up for those things that would help people
get on their feet, consistently stood up for people who could
not stand up for themselves, consistently tried to make sure
that tax dollars were distributed in a way where children to
reach their God-given rights, consistently stood up for
homelessness, consistently, for people so that they are not
homeless, consistently stood up for all of those things that
are humane, then for the argument to be turned around to say
that you're against discrimination. Then suddenly you're
supposed to be against faith-based organizations.
And so I don't take a back seat to anyone with regard to
being a humanitarian. But part of that humanity is that you do
not discriminate against people with their own money. And with
that, Mr. Chairman, I will submit my official statement for the
record and look forward to the testimony.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days to submit written statements and questions for
the hearing record, that any answers to written questions
provided by the witnesses also be included in the record.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
Also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents,
and other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses
may be included in the record, and that all Members be
permitted to revise and extend their remarks. Without
objection, it is so ordered.
Now I would like to ask our first panel to stand. It is the
custom of this committee to swear in all the witnesses. If you
will stand and raise your right hands. Amy Sherman doesn't
happen to be here, Dr. Sherman, does she?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that all the witnesses have
answered in the affirmative.
OK, we are going to start with the Reverend Barry Lynn, the
Executive Director for the Separation of Church and State.
Thank you for coming today.
STATEMENTS OF REV. BARRY LYNN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICANS
UNITED FOR THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE; HOLLY HOLLMAN,
GENERAL COUNSEL, BAPTIST JOINT COMMITTEE; NATHAN DIAMENT,
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, UNION OF ORTHODOX JEWISH
CONGREGATIONS OF AMERICA; REV. WILSON GOODE, SENIOR ADVISOR ON
FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES FOR PUBLIC/PRIVATE VENTURES; AND STEVE
FITZHUGH, DIRECTOR, THE HOUSE
Reverend Lynn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Cummings.
President Bush's faith-based initiative strikes at the very
heart of the separation of church and State in America. This is
a system which literally merges the institutions of religion
and government in the delivery of social services. It forces
taxpayers to support religions with which they may not agree,
jeopardizes the well-being of the disadvantaged in America, and
subsidizes discrimination in hiring with public funds.
Speaking recently in New Orleans, President Bush expressed
his desire to fund programs that, in his words, save Americans
one soul at a time. There the President certainly sounded more
like a pastor than a President. And in fact, neither the Chief
Executive nor Congress were elected to convert people or to
promote religion. That is not your or their responsibility.
We continue to careen dangerously down the path of
government-supported religion and Congress has a responsibility
now to apply the brakes. The Bush administration's course is
especially reckless, given that prior practices already allowed
faith-based groups to work with government to offer social
services of many kinds. These groups merely had to comply with
the same commonsense rules that all publicly funded groups must
follow. There was no distinction. There was no discrimination.
This initiative, however, presents three very specific
problems that I would like to address.
First, the initiative will lead to government-funded
religious evangelism. The President has repeatedly stated his
desire to fund groups that permeate their programs with an all-
encompassing religious element. In fact, he often argues that
this religious component is exactly what makes these programs
successful. However, actions speak louder than words, and
claims by this administration that tax funds will not be used
to promote the spread of religion, frankly, at this juncture in
the program, ring very hollow. His proposed legislative
language forbids tax support being used for sectarian
activities, but frankly I've come to believe that is mere
verbiage that will not be enforced in any meaningful fashion.
The potential recipients, by the way, of government largesse
can see through this ruse. Indeed, according to media reports,
one recent audience actually laughed when the President noted
that they, of course, couldn't use taxpayer money to
proselytize. They understood exactly what he meant. People in
desperate need of social services should not have to face the
prospect of unwanted religious coercion as the price of getting
help from their government.
Second, this initiative will foster taxpayer-funded
religious discrimination. The Federal Government has a decades-
old national policy of forbidding government funds to promote
any form of discriminatory employment practices. Every poll
I've seen shows that the American people do not believe that
faith-based groups should be able to get tax dollars and then
turn around and engage in discrimination when hiring staff to
provide what, remember, are supposed to be non-religious
services. The public apparently does not want America's civil
rights laws placed on the chopping block in the false name of a
false form of religious liberty. And this is no theoretical
concern. As recently as last month, the Salvation Army in New
York was sued by former and current employees who allege
religious discrimination. Were the Salvation Army privately
funded, of course, this would not be an issue. It is an issue,
however, because the Salvation Army in New York alone gets
millions of dollars every year, courtesy of the taxpayer. Not
surprisingly, those taxpayers want transparency,
accountability, and fundamental fairness.
Finally, the faith-based initiative encourages the
government to play favorites among religions and this indeed is
a very dangerous game to play, one which is very likely to
increase interfaith tensions by spurring religious groups to
engage in unhealthy forms of competition for very limited tax
funding. The administration, of course, denies this as well,
but already we have seen evidence to the contrary. Nearly all
of the money disbursed under various faith-based initiative
programs to date has gone to Christian groups, including one
grant to television preacher Pat Robertson's controversial
Operation Blessing. James Towey, the Director of the White
House Office on Faith-based Initiatives, said last year that
Wiccan modern-day pagans are unlikely to get any aid because
they are a, ``fringe group whose members lack a loving heart.''
What is that if not rank bigotry on the part of a government
official administering this very program?
The preservation of separation of church and State and the
idea that we do not use tax dollars to discriminate are vital
to the American experiment. The faith-based initiative is a
highly controversial experiment on our liberties. Our founders
would know exactly why it is wrong, as President James Madison
would not even allow the government to give an Episcopal church
here in Washington official corporate status, noting that the
church should care for the poor. There was no tax money
involved in that, but even the symbolic union of church and
State was too much for President Madison. Churches, he said,
don't need authority from the government to care for those in
need. In his writings James Madison, the father of the
Constitution, bitterly denounced government funding of
religion. He warned against the government employing religion
as an engine of civil policy, calling it an unhallowed
perversion of the means of salvation. Those strong words are
words that we should all remember as we discuss the faith-based
initiative.
For the last number of years I've worked with His Honor
Mayor Goode on a joint project started initially by Senator
Rick Santorum and former Senator Harris Wofford, and one of the
things that we agreed about that is so central to all of this
discussion is that we know there are people in need. That is
not in question. The only question is how to better deliver
meaningful and responsive benefits to the people who are
homeless, who are hungry, who are disheartened by their piece
of the American experience. And I just think it is absolutely
unconscionable that the wealthiest country on the history of
the planet Earth is now facing a battle where some religious
providers are battling with other religious providers, all of
them battling with secular providers, to get the crumbs from
the budgetary table. That, I'd like to think every person on
this panel would agree, is an inexcusable moral disgrace for
America. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Reverend Lynn follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Ms. Hollman, who is the general counsel for the
Baptist Joint Committee.
Ms. Hollman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Cummings. On
behalf of the Baptist Joint Committee, a nearly 70-year-old
religious liberty organization dedicated to the promotion and
protection of religious freedom, I submit that the faith-based
initiative is riddled with legal and practical problems. Our
concerns are not new. We've actually monitored charitable
choice and related proposals concerning the funding of
religious institutions since 1995. Nor are our concerns
trivial. They are fundamental to religious liberty. They stem
from our theology, our historical experience, and our respect
for the Constitutional standards that have long protected the
religious rights of Americans.
From the founding of our country, Baptists have opposed the
use of tax dollars to advance religion. Why? Because we believe
that when government funds religion it violates the conscience
of taxpayers who rightfully deserve to expect the government to
remain neutral in religious matters.
Government always seeks to control what it funds, and
government subsidization of religion diminishes religion's
historic independence and integrity. When the government
advances religion in this way, it inevitably becomes entangled
with religious practice, divides citizens along religious lines
and prefers some citizens, some religions, over others. There's
an overarching problem here. There's an inherent conflict
between allowing religious social service providers that
receive government funding to maintain their distinctive
character, practice, and expression and enforcing a
Constitutional prohibition against government funding of
religious activities such as proselytization, instruction,
worship. Either we risk violations or we invite entanglement.
I want to address two specific legal issues. First, the
initiative as reflected in the December 2002 Executive order
and guidance to faith-based organizations purports to throw
open the doors wide for government contracting for any
religious organization, regardless of their character. It also
disregards time-honored Constitutional protections. The
initiative abandons the traditional religious affiliate model,
a model that allows religious organizations to partner with
government in ways that protect their integrity and avoid the
risk of government-funded religion. Under the administration's
new approach, the only restriction imposed by the establishment
clause is that government money cannot be used directly for
inherently religious activities. The administration's guidance
casually explains, don't be put off by the term, inherently
religious activities. It's simply a phrase that has been used
by the courts in church-State cases. Basically it means you
can't use part of the direct grant to fund worship,
instruction, or proselytization. This simple advice does not
accurately reflect the law.
While there is no doubt that religious organizations can
participate with government to provide social services, indeed
there's a Supreme Court case going back to, I believe, 1899
that supports that proposition. The Supreme Court has not held
that any religious entity, regardless of its practice and
expression, including houses of worship, can receive government
funding without violating the Constitution. Nor has the
establishment clause been restricted to this short list of
violations for religious worship, instruction, or
proselytization. These regulations simply do not capture the
full meaning of the establishment clause prohibition on
government-funded religion. The regulations unnecessarily leave
open and, in fact, encourage the risk that government will fund
programs with explicitly religious content and will promote
religion.
The second legal issue concerns employment discrimination
in government-funded positions. The legal conflict between the
Nation's commitment to equal employment, non-discrimination and
federally funded programs, and the autonomy of religious
organizations that arises in this faith-based initiative has
been a major part of the debate and one of the main reasons
that the legislation failed before Congress. Despite the
obvious conflict, the administration's guidelines give a false
impression that religious discrimination in government-funded
programs is not only legal, when the only Federal case actually
goes the other way, but it also gives the impression,
incredibly, that such discrimination is necessary in order to
serve people through these programs.
Title VII's statutory exemption for religious organizations
does not mention, nor does the legislative history indicate,
that the drafters contemplated the exemption's application in
the context of federally funded job positions.
Important practical consequences flow from these legal
issues. The core values of church-State separation, which
protects religious entities, and non-discrimination, are being
eroded through changes to administrative regulations. Churches
and other religious organizations are enticed into acting in
unlawful ways. The administration is inviting greater
participation by faith-based organizations and federally funded
programs under rules that make them targets for legal
challenges. Religious organizations are being encouraged to
disregard non-discrimination laws and to proceed in ways that
compromise their integrity.
How can claims that the initiative is successful be taken
seriously when so little is revealed about where the money is
going and how it is being spent? Without legally sound
regulations and without real oversight, it is reasonable to
assume that money will be improperly used to promote religion
and to fund employment positions restricted on the basis of
religion.
Reports that government funding of religious organizations
is increasing, such as the recent Washington Post article
saying that $1.1 billion was now being spent on religious
groups, would be of no consequence if adequate Constitutional
safeguards were in place. Alarm is warranted, however, when
such money is being distributed without respect for our
Constitutional safeguards and with the implicit approval of
government funding for the promotion of religion and
discrimination based upon religion. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hollman follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Our next witness is Nathan Diament. He is
director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish
Congregations of America.
Mr. Diament. Thank you, Chairman Souder and Ranking Member
Cummings, for the opportunity to address you today. The UOJCA
is a non-partisan organization in its second century of serving
the Jewish community and is the largest orthodox Jewish
umbrella organization in the United States, representing nearly
1,000 synagogues and their many members nationwide.
I'll try to touch on some of the issues that have already
been raised and just summarize my written testimony which you
have before you.
First, a couple of legal issues. The first is the legality
of government actions undertaken pursuant to the initiative
under the most recent interpretations of the Constitution. The
second issue relates to the religious liberty protections
afforded to faith-based agencies and their beneficiaries
respectively.
But underlying both of these important legal discussions is
a more fundamental and philosophical discussion about the role
of religious institutions in American society and the
unprecedented, highly disturbing efforts to undermine the
longstanding liberties and protections afforded to these
institutions.
Mr. Chairman and Mr. Cummings, there has been a good deal
of progress under the aegis of the faith-based initiative. But
as is often the case, there is a great deal of promise which
remains to be fulfilled.
First let me briefly comment about the progress. After
President Bush launched his initiative in the first month of
his administration, I'd suggest to you it became a political
Rorschach test, one of those ink blot tests, with some
projecting their worst fears upon it. And in fact this
initiative does raise complex and critical questions,
Constitutional questions and others. But this should really
provide an opportunity for cool-headed discussion rather than
overheated fear-mongering.
The debate, as you know, became so heated that the
initiative, which was previously a bipartisan initiative passed
on bipartisan votes in previous Congresses and which both
Presidential candidates in the 2000 election agreed upon,
became one that only garnered a narrow party-line vote in this
House and was promptly stalled in the Senate.
But, as you know, the legislative deadlock just transferred
the issue over to the executive branch, and they have
undertaken important efforts which have resulted in significant
progress. These efforts have resulted in important reforms
which have not only opened up Federal grants programs which
support social welfare projects, but have also brought real
equity into an array of critical Federal programs throughout
the government.
And I'd like to give you two brief examples.
The first is, in the year 2000, a severe earthquake struck
the northwestern United States and among the scores of damaged
buildings and homes was the Seattle Hebrew Academy. Like all
those who suffered, this school, a Jewish community school,
applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for
financial disaster relief. Despite meeting every other
eligibility criteria having nothing to do with religion
whatsoever, FEMA denied the Hebrew academy funds because of its
status as a religious institution.
Many of us were shocked to learn about this FEMA policy.
The earthquake did not seem to discriminate when it knocked
down the office buildings and the houses and also knocked down
the Seattle Hebrew Academy, and we thought it was inappropriate
for FEMA to discriminate in its distribution of Federal
disaster relief.
Thankfully, the equal treatment philosophy that animates
the faith-based initiative prompted the Bush administration to
review and then reverse by Executive order this policy of FEMA,
and no longer will religious facilities, whether they are
schools, churches, synagogues or what have you, be denied their
equitable share of Federal disaster aid should a disaster
befall them.
A similar issue arose within the Interior Department.
There's a program called Save America's Treasures which was
established in 1998 as a public-private partnership between the
Interior Department's National Park Service and the National
Trust for Historic Preservation, and they give out grants to
assist historically landmarked sites with their upkeep and
preservation costs. But prior to 2003, hundreds of religiously
affiliated historic sites in this country were ineligible to
apply on the basis of their religious status alone. So whether
it was the Old North Church in Boston, the Touro Synagogue in
Rhode Island, or countless others around the country, they were
ineligible for this program. This too seemed discriminatory and
unfair.
The competitive, religion-neutral grants process is
designed to ensure America's important architectural treasures
are preserved for generations to come. And a 2003 study by the
National Trust found the average historic congregation faces up
to $2 million of repair costs just by virtue of being a
historically landmarked facility. Again the administration
reviewed and reversed this practice, and now religious
landmarks are not given favored status over non-religious
landmarks, but they are treated equally with their secular
counterparts.
Now, each of these policy changes is well grounded in
detailed legal analysis, some of which I'll touch upon. But,
more importantly, what's at their core is that they understand
that the Constitution's Establishment Clause, its prescription
against the establishment of religion, is not a license for
government discrimination against religions but an insistence
upon government neutrality toward religion.
While some continue to contend that this understanding of
the Constitution's religious clause is incorrect, these critics
are in fact outside the main stream of current Constitutional
thinking, as evidenced by nothing less than the Supreme Court's
most recent rulings involving religious jurisprudence handed
down less than 30 days ago. In this case, in the case of Locke
v. Davey decided just last month, the court reviewed a
Washington State scholarship program which awarded scholarships
to high school graduates based upon religiously neutral
criteria, and a student that had wanted to attend an accredited
Christian college and met all of the other criteria was denied
his scholarship because he was going to major in devotional
theology. He sued the State of Washington and said the Free
Exercise Clause demanded that he be awarded his criteria.
Now, in fact, the Supreme Court rejected this claim. It
said the Free Exercise Clause did not result in his being able
to trump Washington State's Constitutional ban on the
scholarship. But although the court rejected his claim, the
claim by the student, all nine justices unanimously endorsed
the proposition that there is no doubt that the State could,
consistent with the Federal Constitution, permit recipients of
a government scholarship to pursue a degree in devotional
theology or engage in other religious activities.
I'll briefly say that other recent Supreme Court decisions,
whether it's the 2001 case of the Good News Club v. Milford
Central School or the 2000 case of Mitchell v. Helms, all
support this proposition that government neutrality toward
religion is the central animating principle of the
establishment clause. And that is also, I would submit to you,
the central animating principle of the faith-based initiative.
I see I have run a bit over on time so I will wait for your
questions to remark on the free exercise considerations with
regard to program beneficiaries and faith-based institutions,
and I look forward to doing that.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Diament follows:]
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Mr. Souder. And as I said at the beginning, all the full
statements will be inserted into the record, and if you have
additional information.
Next we'll hear from Dr. Wilson Goode, senior advisor on
faith-based initiatives for Public/Private Ventures. Appreciate
your distinguished leadership for many years in Philadelphia
and thank you for coming today.
Reverend Goode. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Mr.
Cummings. I'm delighted to be here and to really be a part----
Mr. Souder. You need to tap your mic on, I think. There's a
little button.
Reverend Goode. You want me to start over again? Give me my
time back.
Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Cummings, I am delighted to be here
and to be a part of this distinguished panel. I have submitted
a more lengthy testimony, but I will just summarize mine and
not read it.
I speak in favor of faith-based initiatives. And I do so
based upon 35 years of experience working with faith-based
groups in order to deliver services using government funds.
Thirty-five years ago, as a housing consultant working in
Philadelphia, I was able to work with 50 local congregations in
that city to build more than 2,000 housing units that help low-
and moderate-income families to alleviate their problems.
Second, I speak as a former mayor of the fourth largest
city: Philadelphia, PA. During my tenure as mayor, each year
for 8 years we gave at least $40 million in contracts to local
congregations and faith-based groups in order to help the
homeless and the hungry, those with AIDS, and help those to
build housing for low- and moderate-income families.
And, finally, in the last 3 years I have worked with a
group called Public/Private Ventures and run a program called
AMACHI. I went to a local prison during my first year and found
a grandfather, a father, and a grandson, all in the same jail
at the same time. And they met for the first time in jail. And
the grandson, when I was leaving, pulled me aside and said to
me, I have a son that I have not seen. And I guess I will see
him for the first time in jail.
The prospect of four generations being in jail is a problem
that we have faced, that we are faced with and that we try to
address through the AMACHI program. The AMACHI program is a
faith-based program, a performance-based program, and a program
designed to find volunteers from local congregations to mentor
children who have one or both parents in jail. On any given day
in America, 7.3 million children have one or both parents
either in jail or under some type of Federal or State
supervision. Seventy percent of those young people, children,
will end up in jail themselves according to a U.S. Senate
report. We believed that intervening with a partnership between
Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and the faith-based community was
the best way to do so.
In the last 3 years, we have served more than 725 children,
and from those children, two-thirds of them have seen an
increase in academics, increase in their attendance at school,
and a decrease in their behavior in school. We believe that
faith-based organizations have every right to participate with
these funds and to be provided these funds in order to begin to
bring about a basic and fundamental change in the lives of
these young people.
This program now is in at least 25 other cities across the
country, working with faith-based organizations, working with
local congregations, finding volunteers, and the reason for
this is that the children are located in the zip codes where
the churches are. And therefore, we want to make sure that
these zip codes where these churches are and these young people
are come together in order to begin to solve these problems.
Just a final comment, and that is that as I have listened
to my colleagues speak on this issue, and I have listened to
this for about 35 years now, and they have a good point. But I
think a more fundamental point is that there are people out
there every single day suffering, and the secular community has
not been able to meet those needs.
I believe we need everyone, faith-based, secular, everyone
else out there, working in order to try and alleviate the
social illness that we find within our community. I've seen
tremendous, tremendous results from this one program, and there
are many others that I can talk about during the course of the
questions. Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Reverend Goode follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Our next witness is Mr. Steve Fitzhugh,
director of the House.
Mr. Fitzhugh. Good morning. It's been nearly 5 years since
we first opened the House. I can recall the motivation. I still
sense it and feel it every day as I drive through southeast
Washington, DC. As a national youth communicator, I have been
in front of over a million teenagers in America and abroad,
while as a co-founding president of the House I serve some of
the most at-risk of these teens in one of our countries most
underserved communities: Anacostia, southeast Washington, DC.
In fact, the risk factors are many. The poverty level is high
and the violence is always threatening.
The question became: How do we reach and impact the
unreachable? I have a colleague, Darrell Green, who does it but
he targets primarily elementary students. Another colleague and
partner, Art Monk, he does it; but his students must have a
certain grade point average to qualify.
Who will provide a haven, a safe haven where any high
school student can come? The House began as that entity. We are
a place where any high school student can come and we'll say,
you are welcome. The House is a surrogate home in the community
where 80 percent of the families are headed by a single mom. It
is a place not only for unconditional love and nurturing, but
also a place for life direction and purpose.
In my constant struggle to fund this project, a grant
writer once suggested that we remove certain barriers to
funding, specifically our ardent faith-based posture. She
continued to inquire as to why we have chosen not to amend our
vision so we can enjoy more funding. I found myself digging
deep for the answer, which became so plain in time. We are
faith-based because we have discovered that it is not merely a
new program or a new curriculum students need most, but a new
heart. We are hope merchants. We restore dreams and invoke
destiny.
Just ask Nina. Nina became so distraught, never met her
father till she was in high school. Her mom still struggles
with substance use and abuse. She was held back a grade in high
school. She had one brother murdered in the 10th grade, another
brother murdered in the 11th grade. But 1 day this wounded
heart came into the House. She encountered the House. And
that's what the House is, an encounter. There's a computer lab,
a weight room, a fitness center, state-of-the-art recording
studio, and dinner is served every night. Our philosophy is
simple: Create a moment for life change and God can change any
life in a moment. Nina changed. She went to night school,
caught up with her class, and last June she cried when she
walked from one edge of that stage to the other and accepted
her high school diploma.
Jason, by his own confession, his entire family is drug
dealers and murderers. Five years ago he was caught up in a
game. His goal was to have sex with a different virgin every
day. Upon hearing him speak today of his values and goals and
responsibilities as a father, you could never imagine the
conversation I had when I initially met Jason before he
encountered a faith-based program called the House.
There are others with similar stories, like Tabitha,
Dominick, Donnell, and Ruby. I had that story, too. I saw my
mother die of cancer. She was a chain smoker. My oldest
brother, my hero, well he died of cocaine abuse. I have a
sister who abused drugs and is now an invalid at 48. I have yet
another brother who struggles today with alcohol and chemical
culture, all of these things that so often ensnare young black
men.
But how did I escape? How did I get the full scholarship to
college? How did I end up in the NFL? How did I get the wife
and family I have today and the knowledge of what it takes to
be a man? I had an encounter with God. I discovered my purpose
and my reason for being, and it changed my life.
Students don't care how much you know until they know how
much you care, and at the House we care. And so I brought with
me today one of our students, the hardest of the hard for us to
reach. Nobody would ever touch this guy. His name is Mike. I
brought him with me in memory through something I wrote about
him called ``Destiny.'' If Mike had just 2 minutes to share
with you, this is what Mike would say:
I can't hardly see the light of day. Misery stay in my way.
Still I dreamed to be free, like them boys on my TV. But every
day is just the same. I got nothing but pain on top of pain. I
can't escape this hopeless dream. I open my mouth but cannot
scream, so here I am, me and my crew, not knowing what we ought
to do. The street's our only road. No other life to use we
told.
Poverty ain't nothing new. That's all I knew since I was
two. Mom's did the best she could struggling down here in the
'hood. I'm steady hating that deadbeat dad. Disappointment's
all I had. I gotta face the dreadful fact my daddy's never
coming back.
Now I gotta be a man all on my own, yet they don't want me
acting grown. Street soldiers popping is that glock, young 'uns
dying up on my block. I'm scared to close my eyes tonight cuz
I'm feeling like something just ain't right. Still I'm trying
to speak my heart. Too bad your fear keeps us apart. I can't
believe it till I hear it. I can't hear it till you tell it.
If the truth is what you preach, why don't you help this
brother reach my destiny? Cuz I reminisce about all these
scars. It's like I'm in prison, they my bars. I'm locked away
from the joys of life. Am I destined for streets and strife? Am
I ever gon' win a wife. Ever gon' have the pain-free life, ever
gon' travel around the world? Will I get another chance to
raise my girl? Will I ever sleep without this hunger?
Makes me wonder, makes me wonder why I live in so much
pain. Will I lose my mind, will I go insane? And when I hear
the final bell, will it be heaven, will it be hell? Will I die
when I'm in my prime? Can I ever renew my mind? Is there a God
that can forgive all the wickedness I did, because I can't
forgive my thuggish self?
Got too much pride to cry for help. Facts too hard for me
to admit, if it don't fit you must acquit. But if my record is
true and right, I ought to be serving double life. They should
have throwed away the jailhouse key for the sins locked up
inside of me. No solution for my drama, I'm too old to run to
mama. I want to change, but how? Do I pray it? How many times I
gotta say it? You got sight, why can't you see it? Without you,
will I ever achieve it? My destiny.
So I choose to go on. Gotta survive, gotta stay strong. How
many times I said that's it. How many times I wanted to quit.
Like when Shorty broke my heart. I was true blue right from the
start. Why me, I had to plead. Gave love a chance and still I
bleed. Regret I wasted time. True that all the blame was mine.
They tell me today's another day. They say it's not too
late to change. They say I can still redeem my life. They say
there's a way to walk upright. But when I close my eyes real
tight, I'm still seeing demons in the night.
I'm ready to pay about any price just to get some peace
back in my life. Like the time when we was young, me and my
homies, just having fun. Sometimes I wanna go back when.
Sometimes I wanna just start again. No more thug life under
them street lights. No more sadness, no more sin.
Wish you could help me find my way, 'cuz I'm living in fear
of Judgment Day. Even the clock's my enemy, 'cuz everybody
dying look just like me. It's like my grip is about to slip.
It's like I'm down to my last clip. Darkened shadows, but they
was mine. Don't let me die before I find my destiny.
Mike was the one that got away. He was murdered 3 days
before his 19th birthday. I never got to recite that poem to
him that I wrote about him. Those who are closest to the water
have the greatest sense of urgency for the need for a bigger
boat. That's what they said in Jaws, ``We need a bigger boat.''
We need funding, we need resources, we need tools to touch
lives. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for your testimony and your
passion.
Doctor Amy Sherman has arrived. I need to swear you in as I
did the earlier witnesses. If you'll stand and raise your right
hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that she responded in the
affirmative. Doctor Amy Sherman is director of the Hudson
Institute Faith-in-Communities Program.
STATEMENT OF DR. AMY SHERMAN, DIRECTOR, HUDSON INSTITUTE FAITH-
IN-COMMUNITIES PROGRAM
Ms. Sherman. I have been asked today to provide some
general observations from the front lines about the impact of
the faith-based community initiative, and with a couple of
background remarks I will begin.
As has probably already been said, the initiative's
ultimate objective is to ensure that the disadvantaged receive
the best services. And it seeks to accomplish this through
three principal means: eliminating barriers in procurements
policies; creating a level playing field for faith-based and
community organizations to compete on equal terms with secular
groups; and better using and empowering and collaborating with
grassroots and faith-based organizations. And the centers of
the various Federal Cabinet departments play key roles in
advancing those objectives.
I think at least three key questions could be asked to help
us assess whether they've done a good job. The first is, has
the initiative stimulated Federal administrative reform to
knock down barriers? Answer, yes. The Cabinet centers have been
engines of administrative reform. They have reviewed
departmental policies and identified barriers and proposed new
regulations. Thus far, four agency rules have been enacted and
eight new ones are awaiting finalization.
Second assessment question: Has the initiative led to
increased funding of faith-based groups or new special
projects? Answer, yes. You can read the details in my written
testimony.
Third. Has the initiative influenced State and local
policies toward faith-based groups? I think this is important.
If the vast majority of Federal social spending unfolds through
block and formula grants to States and localities, then the
full promise of the faith-based initiative can't be reached
unless change occurs at the State and local levels. So has it.
And overall I would say that we have seen an encouraging amount
of change, but more progress is needed.
At the Hudson Institute we have conducted a couple of
studies that indicate that State and local governments do
increasingly appear to be contracting with faith-based
organizations. Also a major study by the Rockefeller Institute
has identified 11 different ways that States are engaged in
reconstituting their relationships with faith-based providers.
And 50 percent of the States for which data was available to
the Rockefeller researchers had engaged in at least 3 of those
11 types of activities. They also concluded that more
demonstrable activity has occurred in the States since 2001
than had following the passage of the charitable choice rules
in 1996, which suggests that the administration's efforts have
indeed enjoyed a degree of success in influencing State action.
I think it is also notable that 19 States and 180 mayors have
established faith-based offices.
Let me conclude by mentioning several practical
consequences of the faith-based initiative ``on the ground''
that I think are relevant any assessment of the initiative.
The first is that clients have more options. Since faith-
based organizations that previously had no history of
government contracting are now serving as service providers,
there is a broader network in place. It also means that people
of faith can now turn to faith-based organizations that share
that faith to receive services.
Second, the initiative might lead to an increase in the
quantity of social service programs, for example, as a result
of the activities underway through the Compassion Capital Fund.
Third, government funding of faith-based organizations has
sometimes had the positive benefit of better connecting faith-
based groups to the broader network of social service
providers. In that way faith-based groups gain knowledge of
additional resources in the community and that enables them to
better serve their own clients.
Fourth, increased participation by faith-based
organizations in public funded social service programs has led
to the mobilization of previously untapped human resources,
which I think Mayor Goode was referring to. Public officials
around the country are discovering that collaboration with the
faith sector is helping them to provide more affordable
housing, move more people from welfare to work, and decrease
youth violence.
Fifth, faith-based groups are in some instances serving as
credible portals into needy immigrant communities and ethnic
communities that government agencies desire to reach but don't
always know how to reach.
And finally, increased government and faith-based
collaboration on the ground brings faith leaders and public
officials into new relationships, fostering greater trust and
dialog. That can be very important when potentially explosive
issues like police brutality erupt.
In short, I'd say that these new relationships fostered
through the faith-based initiative are strengthening social
capital in local communities around the country. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sherman follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank you each for your testimony and we'll
go through a number of questions here.
First, because this has come up a number of times, I want
to clarify based on my perception and what we have said in our
hearings and as we have moved through Congress, no faith-based
organization that is receiving government grants, is practicing
racial discrimination because they come under that law, is that
correct? Does anybody disagree that the religious organization
that practices racial discrimination could not get a grant?
Reverend Lynn. I am not 100 percent sure about that and I
haven't been from the beginning, because if the religious tenet
of the organization, if someone believes in whatever their
religious viewpoint is that race discrimination plays a role in
their theology, I'm not convinced that they would not be able
to make that claim under the President's program. Whether it
would be successful, I would hope not. But certainly, it's not
precluded from this, the language that I see in these program
guidelines.
Mr. Souder. That's certainly precluded in the laws that
we've passed in Congress. In other words, as an author of four
of those, I know we had working relations with Bobby Scott,
specific clauses that says in the ones in welfare reform and
the others, that you cannot practice racial discrimination.
Now, there was a question if somebody challenged that. But
that's a different matter because that's not being initiated by
Congress. If somebody tried to practice it, then the question
would be with the court.
Mr. Goode. Reverend Goode.
Reverend Goode. Yes. I think that anyone who receives
government funds ought to play by the same rules all the other
groups play by, and certainly anyone who is a faith-based
organization ought to have the same criteria. In fact, when I
go around the country and talk with groups about implementing a
faith-based program, I tell them that the rules are all the
same. The rules are all the same for everybody.
What faith-based groups want is a level playing field, to
be able to participate on the same basis that anyone else
participates in, in terms of receiving money to help alleviate
the suffering of people in communities where these
organizations are located. And that's the basis of my view. And
if they discriminate, take the funds from them. But don't throw
out the baby with the bath water.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Diament.
Mr. Diament. If I could just comment on what Mayor Goode
just said. I think there are two ways to look at the question.
One way to look at the question is if you want to say it's an
equal treatment principle, as Mayor Goode has just described;
then you don't frame it in religious terms per se. But you can
say, look, just like other ideologically oriented
organizations, whether it's Planned Parenthood or the National
Rifle Association or the Sierra Club or whoever, if they have
an ideological philosophy that animates their organization,
they are entitled to, and it's protected by the first amendment
under freedom of association, they are entitled to hire people
that believe in their ideological philosophy. The NRA does not
have to hire people that believe in gun control. Planned
Parenthood does not have to hire pro-lifers, and so on and so
forth. So if you want to frame it as an equal treatment
question, then religious organizations should have the same
freedom of association rights as the NRA and Planned Parenthood
and so on and so forth.
But really it goes one step further. It goes to the fact
that the architects of our modern civil rights laws, the
framers of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they are the ones that
put into that law the unique exemption for religious
organizations, having an exemption from the regular categories
of employment discrimination insofar as religious faith or
religious adherence is concerned. And obviously the original
impetus for that was so that a synagog shouldn't be subjected
to a Federal lawsuit because they don't allow Catholic priests
to interview and apply and interview for their pulpit
positions. They should be entitled to just interview and hire
rabbis and not have to be threatened with a lawsuit for
employment discrimination.
Insofar as this has been addressed on broader questions
beyond the pulpit, in the Amos case, which you, Mr. Chairman,
mentioned, all of the justices, all nine of them including
Thurgood Marshall and William Brennan, all believed that the
Title VII exemption was a direct and necessary corollary to the
free exercise clause of the first amendment. And that is why,
quite frankly, it's politically useful for the critics of this
initiative to wave the flag of discrimination in these debates,
but it's really inappropriate and illogical because, I would
submit to you and to Mr. Cummings with all due respect, that it
shouldn't make a dime's worth of difference whether taxpayer
funding is involved or not.
My understanding, and I would respectfully defer to Mr.
Cummings and others, but my understanding of the modern civil
rights movement in the 1960's was that movement was not about
combating racial discrimination only in taxpayer-funded
programs. It was about lunch counters. It was about motels. It
was about all kinds of places of private accommodation.
Anywhere the law could reach to root out insidious racial
discrimination was the goal of the civil rights movement. They
didn't restrict themselves to taxpayer-funded religious
discrimination.
So if in fact Mr. Lynn and others are correct, that this
practice of religious institutions enjoying the right to
structure themselves is the very same kind of insidious and
objectionable and offensive discrimination as was combated in
the 1960's civil rights movement, then they should be logically
consistent. And they should say, you know what? We don't want
to only ban when taxpayer funding is involved. We want to go
and order churches and synagogues and every other house of
worship, whether they are only working on their own
congregants' dollars and dimes or not, and we're going to order
them to desegregate, we're going to start busing people between
houses of worship and so on and so forth, just like we did to
root out inappropriate racial discrimination.
We are going to remove tax-exempt status from all of these
institutions of bigotry. But that is not what they are saying.
I don't know if it is just tactical, because that is obviously
not what most people in this country would endorse or, in fact,
they really do understand that there is a difference here. And
the real difference here goes back to what I said at the
outset.
Religious groups are potentially the most fluid and open in
our society. They are concerned about what you believe and what
you practice. So you have synagogues that can have Asians and
Hispanics, you have churches that have Whites and Blacks and
browns, and so on and so forth. It is not about race, it is not
about ethnicity, it is about belief.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Lynn, I would like you to comment on that
also. Do you agree with the fundamental principle that Planned
Parenthood doesn't have to hire a pro-lifer, NRA doesn't have
to hire someone who disagrees with them, an environmental group
doesn't have to hire, if they get government funds.
Reverend Lynn. Of course. Well, I do think that people are
hired for jobs. That is to say, if someone is going to be in a
federally funded program at the National Rifle Association,
let's assume for the sake of argument that there is such a
program, obviously if the person is a gun control advocate or
one who wants to ban all guns, it would not make sense for
someone to promote a lawful point of view.
Mr. Souder. Can I clarify that and make sure that we are on
the same page? If the NRA got, not an advocacy grant, but a
grant, say, to do training of gun safety where advocacy isn't
the issue, would they still have the right of association to
only have people who agreed with their position to do something
that wasn't advocacy?
Reverend Lynn. Sure, because there is not a long history of
discrimination as there is a long history of discrimination on
the basis of race, of religion, of gender in this country. They
would have the right to make those decisions. But, again the
person would have to be qualified for the job, and presumably
that would make the most likely person the most likely to be
hired.
The difference in these programs is that, let us leave the
race issue aside for a moment, but all of the regulations,
including the legislation passed by this House in the old
version of H.R. 7, would effectively permit, just for the sake
of argument again, a fundamentalist Christian group from
putting on its job applications ``No atheists or Jews need
apply.'' And it would be permissible, under the theory that
Diament has just expressed, for an organization to say, in
order to maintain our integrity as a religious body, we will
discriminate.
And, in fact, we don't have this as a theoretical program.
A well known psychotherapist in Georgia, for example, was
refused to be considered for a job by the Methodist Homes for
Children in Georgia, precisely, and this is what he was told,
and this is no big secret, because he was a Jew and they didn't
hire Jews.
I don't think this is the kind of conduct that is
consistent with a responsible way to do Federal funding. If a
religious organization or any other organization receives
Federal funding, I think it, at a minimum, needs to abide by
the basic civil rights principles long fought for in this
country, and I think there is a big difference between an
ideological thought about gun control and the status of your
race, your religion, your national origin, and your gender.
Mr. Souder. Once again, I think it is really important that
there is a fundamental disagreement here, where my belief, and
I believe it has been expressed in the laws here and in the
debate, is that we are not debating race, gender or other
discrimination laws, we are debating religious questions.
Nobody here is disputing that an Orthodox Jewish group that
has to hire a Baptist, in other words, that is a legitimate
debate. But raising the other questions are at best going to be
court-decided. And the burden of proof is going to be on the
court to argue that, because the administration and Congress
are not arguing that those discriminations can be practiced.
Reverend Lynn. No. But, Mr. Chairman, the court has
considered some of these issues. For example, in a privately
funded Roman Catholic school, there are a number of court
opinions that hold that a privately funded school can choose to
fire a pregnant single mother because that status is
inconsistent with their moral philosophy. That has been upheld
because it was a privately funded religious group.
So the question is, if we are going to now treat publicly
funded religious groups in the same way, does that in fact mean
that, it appears on the face to mean, that now publicly funded
groups can discriminate on the basis of gender, if there is a
religious hook on which to hang that argument.
Mr. Souder. Of course, you are defining, because only one
gender can become pregnant, that therefore that is
discrimination by gender, and not by a religious belief of not
getting pregnant outside of marriage. In that, it is important
that we separate those two types of things. In order words,
that is exactly what the case in San Francisco is dealing with
on funding abortion, is an argument on gender specific. Or,
let's say, it is at least indirectly related to the argument
that abortion and contraceptive devices are related to gender
discrimination as opposed to a moral discrimination, which, of
course, many religions don't agree with.
Reverend Lynn. Well, Mr. Chairman, I agree with that. There
are two different issues. But I think that it is safe to say
that the courts have not looked at it necessarily that way but
have looked at it just as a matter of if the principle, the
religiously based principle, says we do not want to have
teachers who are pregnant and not married, we can fire her. And
those decisions have been upheld.
With private funds, it is one argument. But once you start
having public funds used for the purposes of, what I would
consider invidious discrimination, I think you have a whole
change in the moral and the Constitutional calculus that you
need to apply in this. I have to say the Catholic Charities
case, I do not think, is about the faith-based initiative.
California's Catholic Charities did have its day in court.
I believe it lost 8 to 1. It argued that the California law
exempting religious organizations was too narrow and therefore
violated religious liberty. The court did not agree with it.
But that had really nothing to do with the administration's
proposals, because even if the administration's proposals
became law, Catholic Charities would still not qualify for an
exemption under the reading of California law.
So that really I think is a red herring in the debate today
or the discussion today.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank all of you for your
testimony. I wanted to just go to Ms. Hollman, perhaps Mr.
Lynn.
As I was listening to Mr. Diament, and he raised the two
cases, the FEMA situation and the American Treasurer's
situation, can you just comment on, you know, I noticed one
interesting piece on both of those cases. And I think you used
the term ``government neutrality,'' Mr. Diament.
And I was just, I mean, something that is sort of different
about those cases that I am sure you were making a different
kind of point, is this whole thing of, I guess, discrimination,
say for example, in employment. A little different there.
But I would just like for you all to comment. I understand
the neutrality piece and everybody benefiting from government.
I got that. But I just want you to comment on those two cases,
Mr. Lynn or Ms. Hollman.
Ms. Hollman. I can speak generally. I think Mr. Lynn can
speak to the FEMA issues probably more specifically.
The word ``neutrality'' is difficult, because on one level,
it has some truth and people can say that the court has applied
a principle of neutrality. But it is not as broad, it is not as
clear as it seems.
At times, in order to treat religion neutrally, you have to
recognize it and treat it differently. It is wrong to say that
religion is never treated differently. It is specifically, you
know, specifically treated differently in the first amendment,
just as it is specifically treated differently in Title VII, in
this list of protected categories that we talked about. It is
not just like other ideologies.
So there is a basis for saying that religion can be treated
differently from other secular enterprises. And as I understand
the change in law with regard to funding repairs for historic
buildings, or FEMA, or repairing after national disasters, you
have had prior law, interpretation of case law, that said that
government is not required to fund the repair of buildings,
just like it is not required to build a synagog or church or
school for an institution, even though it needs the money. It
is not required to repair that.
Now we have the administration that says, let's look at
this law differently and see if we can allow the funding of
that. And to do that, they have to say they're not funding
anything explicitly religious, they are sticking to the
building part of the program.
What is interesting is that those cases make the best--
those examples make the best case for this neutrality
principle. Treat everything the same. It is very different, I
think, from what we are talking about in the majority of the
faith-based initiatives, where there is a real risk of what is
being funded actually having religious content, having the
ability to promote a specific view of religion and advancing
religious discrimination.
Reverend Lynn. Specifically, there are certain emergency
services that have been provided by government historically and
have been permitted to go to religious institutions on the
basis of kind of an emergency claim. I can think, for example,
of repayment to churches that housed victims after a hurricane,
or so on. So this has been going for a long time and doesn't
represent nearly the magnitude of the issue that is before us
on those other programs.
Even in the comments that were published by various
administration agencies, they seem to take a different
viewpoint on this issue of construction grants or repair grants
for churches.
The Save America's Treasures Program is based, the funding
of certain historic buildings is based, on the idea that the
law has changed. There is an Office of Legal Counsel memo that
says that it has, although when you really look at it as I have
done, it does not make a very compelling case to overturn three
big Supreme Court decisions in the 1970's that make it clear
not only that government can't--well, it makes it very clear
that government cannot provide funds if any part of the
building that is being repaired or constructed is going to be
used for a religious purpose.
They don't parse it up and say you can spend 30 percent of
the money if 30 percent of the tiles are walked on by religious
people and the 70 are not. They don't do that. They just say it
is a blanket prohibition against using government funds for the
construction of religious buildings.
And indeed the comments of the Department of Housing and
Urban Development, recently published, do indicate that even in
that instance the administration would agree with me, or at
least in part with me, that government funds cannot be used to
build buildings.
When it comes to these very controversial matters like the
construction projects at the Old North Church or the California
Missions, I recently testified against an earmark grant in the
Senate for $10 million to California Missions.
Here are Missions, 19 of which are active congregations,
Roman Catholic congregations, 1 of which is 2,500 congregants.
It seems to me that when you combine that with the millions of
visitors to those California Missions, it is really not the
goal or responsibility of taxpayers to provide repairs to
windows or icons out of tax dollars for active congregations.
So we have opposed the funding of active congregations,
repair of their windows, repair of their walls, not because we
don't care about history but because we also care about the
historic principle that government is not the ultimate
collector of the plate collections from the taxpayers to fund
these buildings. So I think the gentleman, Mr. Diament, is
wrong in his sweeping interpretation of these laws.
Mr. Cummings. But even if your--what you just said--so I
guess you would not have a problem if in front of the church
there was a monument that was put up over 125 years ago and it
became a part of the American Treasurer's portfolio to be
repaired. That is a little different than the stained glass
windows in the church?
Is that a distinction there?
Reverend Lynn. I think that is an important distinction.
Some people have used it. We have never, to my knowledge, filed
any lawsuits or objections, particularly in those instances
where properties are landmarked by the government. They didn't
even want to be landmarked, they were landmarked, and they have
all kinds of new responsibilities. It is not effectively a
religious icon, it is not a religious artwork, it is not
housing a congregation, it simply is on church property. That I
think is a very different Constitutional issue.
Mr. Cummings. To Mr. Fitzhugh, I appreciate what you said.
I was just sitting here thinking about when you were speaking.
And you too, Mayor Goode, Reverend Goode. I can understand--I
have this saying that we have one life to live. This is no
dress rehearsal, and this is that life.
And I think that when we see what we see--I live in a
neighborhood that produces the kind of young men that you just
talked about. And I guess the most compelling argument is that
we need to be about the business of saving lives and helping
lives become all that God meant for them to be.
Trying to--in other words, that same guy, like Dr. Ben
Carson, who practices medicine in Johns Hopkins in my district,
here is a man who could have easily been in a penitentiary. But
because he had certain opportunities and guidance and a turn in
his life, he is now one of the most--probably ranks within the
top 10 neurosurgeons in the world.
So I think we will always have a fundamental argument about
how do we make sure that we do all we can for our fellow men
and women as we live?
But on the other hand, as I said in the opening statement,
I think we have to be very careful that when we save that
person or help them get to where they have to go, that we still
have an institution in this country where they can continue to
thrive and that respects other people's rights.
And so it is tough when you have to face what--like you
said, Mayor, where you see this every day. You see the lives
end up being destroyed. You end up saying, is there something I
can do to help?
So I think that we have come up with solutions. It is just
that we don't want the solution, part of the solution, to be
discriminating against folks with their tax dollars. I mean I
think you kind of agree with me, I think.
Reverend Goode. Well, I really don't.
Mr. Cummings. That is good.
Reverend Goode. I really want to just say this----
Mr. Cummings. But do you understand that I understand your
passion and Mr. Fitzhugh's passion? I really do.
Reverend Goode. I was the chief executive for 8 years; well
actually that, plus city manager for 4 before that. So for 12
years I had responsibility to provide services to people. And
from a chief executive point of view, my job was to try and
alleviate as much suffering as I could.
And so I used institutions within that city, including
local congregations, because I needed them to deal with the
problem of homelessness. I needed them for shelters, I needed
them for AIDS hospices, needed them to help feed the hungry
people in the city, and any other agencies that could do what
they could do in those neighborhoods.
So from a practical point of view, I went to those
agencies. And my life has been spent basically doing practical
things--and I love to spend my time delving into the legal and
research and all of those issues, and I love people who do
that. But that is not what I do. What I try and do is find a
workable, practical solution to a problem that is eating away
at the hearts of communities where people live.
And along the way, there will be issues of discrimination,
there will be issues of fairness in some issues. But at some
point, we have to stay really focused on how can we get moneys
from foundations, from businesses, from government, into the
hands of people who are going to, in the end, want to help to
alleviate the suffering of people in these communities.
One last point. That is, that I grew up in the South. I was
a sharecropper. I know about discrimination. I hate
discrimination. And we could put a face of discrimination on
this. And we could have good sound arguments on both sides. And
I think that there will be some folks who will discriminate.
But I think, sir, that we can do a whole lot of good to a whole
lot of folks without discrimination.
And I think that those who discriminate ought to be dealt
with. But we also ought to use the resources, in my view, to
help those who need it, and deal effectively with those who
discriminate.
Mr. Diament. If I can make a brief comment on the practical
point. I have been involved in this issue for quite some years.
And what is most disappointing to me is the tragedy of the
opportunity that was missed to get at what Mayor Goode has
talked about here. And what I mean about this here is the
tragedy of the fact that what was a more or less bipartisan
initiative in previous years and an opportunity in the last
Congress, in the year 2000-2001, to not only spur greater
partnerships with government and community and faith-based
groups on this issue, but actually it was an opening for what I
believe was an unprecedented coming together of Republicans and
Democrats, an infusion of new dollars in an unprecedented way
into some of these social welfare programs in a way that, quite
frankly, a Republican administration and a Republican majority
in Congress may not have otherwise been prepared to do. But
there were clear indications and public statements by the
President and by Republican leaders in this House and the
Senate that they were prepared to put more money on the table.
Because we all agree there is not enough money on the
table. We all agree that just redividing the pie is the wrong
thing to do. The pie has to be made 3 times, 4 times, 10 times
bigger than it is for the social welfare programs.
There was a moment when folks could have come together, we
could have pressed ahead in hashing out, negotiating some of
these tough Constitutional and other civil rights issues and
moved ahead.
And the tragedy of partisan politics is what befell this
initiative. And, if I may, the one appeal I would make to you,
Mr. Cummings, and to Chairman Souder and to others is, probably
not this year because it is a very political year, but at some
point we should come back to this. And we should come back to
this in a spirit of hope rather than cynicism, and of
discussion rather than debate, and find a way to put both
resources on the table and also empower new partnerships and
really get to the people that Mr. Fitzhugh and Mayor Goode have
been talking about.
Reverend Lynn. Mr. Cummings, by the way, I think I did miss
that moment when anyone was talking seriously about refunding
programs tenfold for those in deepest need, although I would
love to go back to that moment, because I think that is exactly
what we need.
The other problem, and I have sat, Mr. Chairman, through a
number of these hearings over the past few years, repeatedly
trying to find answers that would justify the need for
continuing this discrimination possibility in government
funding, and again this morning, very moved by what Mr.
Fitzhugh talks about in his program.
But why is it important, perhaps it isn't for him, that he
only be allowed to hire Christians to serve the dinners, or to
train young people to use that recording studio in his
facility? Why is it important that it be hiring on the basis of
religion as a guarantee that comes with that funding?
I simply don't understand why Methodists should be expected
to change the sheets in a homeless shelter differently than
non-believers, or Jews or Hindus. It is not part of my common
experience in working in any of these facilities or with any of
these groups at risk. It doesn't make sense.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. I want to make a statement because you have
referred to that before. And I have tried to be very cautious
as we worked through this. And I realize there are fundamental
Constitutional questions involved. I realize there are. I
apologize for not saying ``swear or affirm'' in the oath this
morning, because I always affirm an oath, probably for
different reasons than you do, but I grew up in a very small
separatist denomination and have great skepticism about how we
approach these types of issues.
But we have a lot of diversity in America. And what I don't
understand is your last statement that you don't understand
where people of deep faith are coming from, whether they be
Christian or Orthodox, Jew or Muslim, who believe that when
they are motivated through their own means to go out and help
other people, that their mission is comprehensive, and that
serving the soup or providing housing for somebody is a
manifestation of that. That manifestation isn't uniquely
Christian, Muslim, Jewish or any religion, because you are
providing the soup.
But you represent an organization in providing the soup
that in fact, as a Christian, I believe reflects the glory of
Christ. And if somebody in that organization doesn't reflect
that glory of Christ or doesn't reflect the principles of the
Muslim faith or the Jewish faith, it undermines the broader
thing that motivated you to get involved anyway to give the
soup, to provide the housing.
Now, that is why I asked the question in relationship to
the NRA or other groups, that if an NRA group is providing gun
safety training that isn't ideological, but underneath it, if
they have people in their organization that don't share their
views, if there is an environmental group that maybe is just
conducting a bird hike, but has somebody wearing a T-shirt or
advocating the killing of bald eagles for dinner, is not likely
to be someone that the organization wants to be affiliated
with.
And those who have deep faith believe that their
organization should reflect that faith, not in who they serve,
not with government funds to proselytize, but that the people
in that organization reflect a shared association value. You
granted that for secular groups. Why can't you understand that
passion in the different religious groups?
Reverend Lynn. Well, I certainly understand the passion.
Mr. Souder. But just a minute ago you said you didn't
understand why they felt they needed to have people delivering
the soup of a shared association value. You just made that
statement.
Reverend Lynn. Well, yeah. But I do think religion is
different, and I think it is more powerful than ideology. I
think as a consequence, that is why the framers of the
Constitution treated religion differently. They said it was in
some circumstances more protected, and other circumstances
more--we had to be more careful about subsidizing, precisely
because it is unique. It is not like your thoughts on gun
control, or tree hugging, or any other issues. This is what
matters the most.
And my problem is trying to figure out why all of these
groups that we have been talking about and you have been
discussing for years now, most of them don't want to take that
final step and say, we would never really hire someone who
wasn't a believer. Why can't we get the funding to those groups
willing to play by the civil rights rules? And if there are
people that say, look I just can't live with that. I think you
had one witness in the last 4 years who said that, then maybe
we should deal with the funding for the 98 percent of the other
folks and just say, look, the Constitution, rightly or wrongly
200 years ago, we decided you can't get the funding.
Then we would find the resolution. We would find a way to
implement the dozens of suggestions that were made in the group
that Senator Santorum set up that Reverend Goode and I were on.
We could do all of that without violating anyone's
Constitutional rights. We just have to have the will to do it.
We have the capacity to do it.
Mr. Souder. We have, understandably, a deep disagreement in
vision, including what the Founding Fathers meant between
religion and giving certain advantages to the Episcopal Church.
The wall of separation was to protect Evangelicals like myself
from the State, in forcing church schools, funding the home of
the Episcopalian pastor. It was not meant to say if there was
even competition.
Now, that is a Constitutional difference in how we
interpret Madison, how we interpret Jefferson, and so on. But
there are two schools of thought on that, not one universal
accepted thought, which is what we battle through.
But I want to move to a couple of other questions, and I
want to reinforce one thing that Mr. Diament said. And that is,
I don't think we are ever in danger of increasing anything
tenfold. But I think there was a goal of many of us, and I can
speak deeply from personal experience, when we were trying to
work and did successfully pass a number of these things under
the Clinton administration.
But as we worked with then-Governor Bush as he was running
with Steve Goldsmith and Senator Santorum and I, we talked
about this. And one of the political dilemmas that we face
here, bluntly put, which isn't usually talked about in public,
and I would like Reverend Goode, would you rather be referred
to as Mayor Goode or Reverend Goode?
Reverend Goode. I got promoted to Reverend.
Mr. Souder. OK. Well, I want to get your reaction to this
statement. Because part of the problem with this faith-based
initiative, and I appreciate that the administration has moved
forward. Mr. Diament's statement triggered this for me.
For years, Bob Woodson hammered on me as a staffer and then
as a Member about the zip code test which you referred to;
people living in their zip code. And the problem that we have
is that many, if not almost all, government grants are going to
organizations that were not neighborhood based, community
based, were not particularly in low-income, minority areas.
Black, and Hispanic often are disproportionately represented,
and the dollars weren't going to those groups.
And many of those most effective neighborhood organizations
were faith-based. The problem that we had as Republicans is our
Members don't represent those districts. And so when the
Republicans are in the majority, we tend to represent, for the
most part, the few of us--I represent Fulton, IN, it has
230,000 people, so it has the traditional low-income area that,
often at least, say two-thirds are different minority groups,
are obviously White, poor people as well even in an urban
center--but that most of our Members represent predominately
suburban and rural districts. So it was very hard to get kind
of traditional support for dollars in their districts.
And when we talked about the difficulty that this
initiative was going to have, the question is we had a moment
in time where a number of Republicans, partly because their
Presidential candidate was advocating this and many of us said
this is the right thing to do, because we need to get the
dollars leveraged and down to neighborhood groups that are
based in largely urban districts that we don't represent.
And we ran into this buzz saw of arguing, not about racial
and sex discrimination, but really homosexuality and religious
preferential hiring that could lead you into a variation of the
sex discrimination question. And those issues have exploded
this category.
Now, I want to ask as a practical matter of someone who has
been directly involved in this program, have you seen an
increase in dollars that have gone to neighborhood-based
organizations, that are Black and Hispanic based, that would
have been different in Philadelphia and other places around the
country? Because to me, one of the fundamental challenges of
this system is are we accomplishing what many of us who
supported faith-based initiatives, because I am not saying Pat
Robertson doesn't have a wonderful group, I don't really know.
But that wasn't the primary target of what we were trying to do
with this initiative.
And I would like to hear for the record what you think is
being accomplished through this initiative and are the dollars
getting to where we intended the dollars to go?
Reverend Goode. There is no question at all that there has
been a significant increase in funding of neighborhood-type
groups, African American, Hispanics, Asians, throughout the
country.
I have had the opportunity to travel in the last 5 months
to 25 cities that have received funding, and have watched them
struggle with getting those programs off the ground. And they
are getting them off the ground and are beginning to move.
So if the question that you posed to me is, is there an
increase in funding to groups who never before received funding
at the neighborhood level, the answer is absolutely yes.
Mr. Souder. Dr. Sherman, I know you have researched this
and you have worked with a number of the States and have been
doing some statistical things. Do you agree with Reverend
Goode?
Ms. Sherman. Yes. In our study of 15 States, yes. We
identified the recipients of government contracts, faith-based
organizations that were regulated by the charitable choice
rules. And we discovered that among congregations that have
received these dollars, more of them were minority-dominant
congregations than White congregations. So we have seen that as
well.
And also over 50 percent of the organizations that we
discovered in the 15 States, had received government funding
for the first time only since the passage of the charitable
choice rules, and often only since the faith-based initiatives.
So we definitely have seen a correlation between groups that
previously were not receiving these types of dollars, we have
seen an increase in those organizations since the
administration's efforts.
Mr. Souder. I am one who has been concerned about the money
going directly to churches as opposed to separate 501(c)(3)
organizations. Have you seen--spart of this initiative was
supposed to help train organizations that may not have CPAs and
attorneys in their congregations to try to set up such
organizations. Have you seen that also through the initiatives?
Ms. Sherman. Yes. Actually I would say that despite the
fact that the original charitable choice rules did allow for
the funding to come directly to congregations, and we have not
in our research discovered any particular problems with that,
nonetheless most of the people that are associated with
capacity building and training efforts, encourage
congregations, even though they are not required to do that, to
go ahead and set up a separate 501(c)(3), because it makes the
accounting issues simpler. It protects them from audits and the
like.
So we haven't seen in our research any instances of it
being problematic if the congregations didn't set up one, but
it has definitely been the case that most of those that are
involved in the types of training initiatives such as those
funded through the Compassion Capital Fund really encourage
congregations to take that step as just an extra safeguard.
Reverend Goode. I would just add that for 35 years I have
urged local congregations to form a 501(c)(3), set up a
separate corporation, don't get the morning offerings mixed up
with the government funds. And I think that is the perfect way
to do it, in my view. And I think that when you don't do that,
that you are really skating on very thin ice. It may be legal,
but it is not practical from my point of view, just in terms of
bookkeeping. It is in terms of, separating out the church's
money from the government's money.
Reverend Lynn. Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Cummings, I think that
part of the question is: Is more money going to a certain kind
of institution? That is question No. 1.
I think there are two other questions. Have more people
been served overall? And, then, were they served better? I
think that is where the data is lacking. You know, when people
start to tell me about new programs getting money, the first
question in my mind is where did that money come from. Was it
taken from someone else?
There was a very controversial case--I am sure you are
aware of it. In Boston, a homeless shelter for veterans was
told it would have to cut its beds by 50 percent. It was a
well-established, long-serving program. The faith-based office
said, well, don't worry, the money is going to go to North
Carolina and Utah. But, of course, I don't know how veterans in
Massachusetts were supposed to get to those other facilities.
I use that story all over the country in debates and
discussions. Eventually they changed their mind and gave that
Massachusetts organization back its money. But it seems to me
that if there are homeless veterans in three places, we are not
able to say ``job well done'' unless we are serving all of
them; not taking one, and serving--taking its money and using
it for somebody else.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Fitzhugh, I understand that you have an
appointment. I wanted to ask a question to you before you go,
if you have time, and then you are excused if you need to go.
We may go a few more minutes yet.
You heard Mr. Lynn's comments earlier. Then you heard some
of my comments. Let me first ask a question. Do you accept
government funds? Are you getting any faith-based grants at
this time?
Mr. Fitzhugh. We actually got an appropriations, D.C.
Appropriations Committee's funds.
Mr. Souder. You understand that with those funds you can't
directly proselytize? Was that explained to you in the process?
Mr. Fitzhugh. These are earmarked for renovations.
Mr. Souder. And do you feel that in the renovations of the
building, which basically is a secular activity--the building
doesn't proselytize, may attach a sign to it--but do you feel
that your mission would be compromised?
One of the delicate things nobody really likes to talk
about here are that in every community, in every church, from
counseling and from what, you know, but it hasn't been proven
in a court, there are allegations; I know partly because people
don't like to turn in neighbors. You can't do certain things in
the church; so-and-so may be abusing his wife, so-and-so may be
a drug dealer, everybody in the congregation knows that, or at
least thinks they know that. And it would undermine the mission
of the church if that was revealed.
Many times there are different rules set in churches, more
stringent than the societal rules, because they believe it is
important to have a strange statement from that denomination
about how they approach things, or their approach.
I know I have been with a Member up in Newark, NJ. There
are kinds of standards. They have don't wear a hat here. Other
people have other types of guidelines to try to put discipline
in when they are with high-risk populations, that under Federal
rules if you didn't have a religious exemption would have to be
basically someone who has been found guilty in a court before
you can act; which may or may not ever happen.
The question is, could you function and fulfill your full
mission, or would be interested in the dollars if, in fact, you
had to take anybody who walked in, who was qualified for a
particular job such as painting on the wall, which may be
anybody, as a staffer of your organization? Would that change
your mission or your goals?
Mr. Fitzhugh. I think one of the things that we are
challenged with and what we face on a regular basis, I have
heard a lot of the testimony today. And for me and what we do,
we have limited staff. We have already buried four students so
far this year.
We have already seen a number of unwanted pregnancies. We
have already been surrogate parents for a number of displaced
students. One of the strengths of what we do is that we as a
team present young people with an opportunity at what we call
life. And for us that life is getting a handle on their own
individual purpose and destiny in life. And as a team, we have
wrestled with, we have talked about our vision and our mission
and how do we acquire funds.
If someone, Mr. Cummings mentioned earlier that a lot of
people in church reach in their pocket and pull out money and
do a great many things. We just have found that in urban
America, donor-base-supported work is a progressive idea to
give to those kind of ministries. We are always strapped for
funds.
I would think that it would be a compromise to what we
believe if we would present to students inconsistencies in what
we are saying as a collective voice about what they can
accomplish in life and who they are, if there are persons who
mince those words with us.
So as it relates to the moneys we just received for our
renovations, we believe that there is a whole generation of
young people today who are unreachable, nobody wants to deal
with. Teenagers, urban teen-age kids, people are afraid of
them. That is our target. And we realize they live in a media-
dominated world.
So we have a recording studio and we are building a TV
studio and we are building a dance studio. And hopefully we
will be able to love on these students. Hopefully we will be
able to give these students a sense of identity, a sense of
self-worth, and hopefully we will have a consistent voice in
that.
Quite frankly, I don't think it will compromise my program
if the guy who is nailing the nail doesn't believe what I
believe, or if the guy who is laying the brick doesn't believe
what I believe. Just build my building, renovate my building.
But when it comes to our program staff, we believe it is
important to have a collective voice.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I just want to thank you before you leave,
Mr. Fitzhugh, for what you are doing. And it is very important.
And, again, we are trying to figure out the balance here. And
there is absolutely no doubt that programs like the one you
have are essential. Probably not enough of them.
And I was just thinking maybe some of us in Baltimore need
to look at your program and see what you are doing, because we
have a lot of unreachables. And we just found out, we were just
looking at our stats--50 percent of all the kids that get to
the 9th grade don't graduate through the 12th. Then we see
something like a 30 to a 38 percent illiteracy rate even with
people who graduate, which means that we have a lot of people
who are in trouble. And these are the ones that--you know, I am
talking about folk who--the ones who graduate, at least they
stayed in school.
But again, as I said, we in the Congress wrestle with where
we fit in history and how our actions will be viewed years from
now, and at the same time we want to make sure that we say to
people to even go into the history, to go into the future.
But I really do appreciate what you have said and thank you
very much. I hope to visit your program. I want to do that.
Just one question. Do you--I assume--does the House house
people? In other words, do they come and visit or what?
Mr. Fitzhugh. The House is after school, 3:15 to 7:30. We
looked at doing some emergency shelter because we have had so
many students who have had emergency shelter needs. But if our
students found out that we were sponsoring emergency shelter,
all of our students would be an emergency, because they love
the experience of being in a place where they are endeared and
they are loved.
So, no, we don't house. The school is out at 3:15. Kids are
at the door at 3:16. And we have to shoo them away at 7:30 to
get home before it is gets crazy again.
I think the other thing is that one of things that we try
to do with our students, and we recognize that not only do they
need a safe place, they also need to get a handle on their life
track. And there is a way in which we can communicate that to
this population.
People talked at one time about their being an unchurched
generation. And at one time, you know, we had a conversation
among some of young ladies who were in certain situations and
unwanted pregnancies, and young men who were not taking care of
responsibilities.
Well, these kids, you know--I have a young lady now who is
pregnant. And my thought is, she is still a baby. But her mom
was on crack when she was pregnant with her. And so we have
digressed to the point now where we have the students who
really don't have any mother at home, training that is helping
them. So we are trying to build the creative means by which we
can support every facet of these students' lives. They have
very, very complex issues.
We have had a lot of success because of our creativity of
how we can communicate to this population. And I have a friend,
a colleague in Chicago, who just started the House/Chicago.
They meet once a month for a big event and during the week for
smaller events. He said he has never seen this many kids turn
out.
But he has taken the elements of what we do. We found ways
in which, creative ways, in which to get students plugged into
activities, and along the way we realized we don't have to hit
them over the head with a Bible, we don't have to force
anything down their throat. Most of these students want to be
valued, want to be encouraged, want to be directed, want to be
loved, and want to be pointed in the right direction. And we
don't know how that is going to unveil for all, each and every
student.
But the least we can do is, like I said, to create a moment
for life change. Now, it might come at a midnight walk at a
camp. That might come after school when you take a kid to get a
cheeseburger. That might come when he is sitting down recording
music or rapping a song. That might come in the sewing class we
had.
A lady said, I know how to sew, and we started a sewing
class, called ``Making Stuff.''
I don't know where that moment is going to come. But I
think we have an obligation to find that moment. And I can't
get the vision, the image of that movie Jaws out of my mind.
When that police chief saw that shark for the first time, he
said, ``We need a bigger boat.'' I don't care what kind of boat
it is, we need a bigger boat. And I am looking to the mouth of
the shark. I have seen things I had no idea I would ever see,
and I have witnessed what these students are carrying that I
had no idea that they were carrying these kinds of secrets.
And there are institutions that are making an impact in
those areas. And I think our challenge, as you mentioned, we
have to find out how we fit right here. But we have an
obligation to find that bigger boat; whatever that boat is, we
have to find that boat for the welfare of this population.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. Thank you.
I just want to move now to Ms. Hollman. Ms. Hollman, you
said something. I know you have to go, Mr. Fitzhugh, thank you
very much. We really appreciated it.
Ms. Hollman, you said something that really triggered a
thought in my mind that I guess I should have figured this out
long ago. One of the things that we see over and over again
that we don't seem to suffer here in this country, is this
warning throughout the world based upon religion.
And you said something. You said, we want to be careful
that we do not divide our citizens along religious lines. And
it is interesting that in our country we don't have, we don't
see what we see around the world. I mean, I know this is a much
broader question than what we are, I guess, kind of dealing
with here, because we are dealing with where the rubber meets
the road here.
But is that a concern of yours, that eventually you can get
there by this, what I call erosion, or the path we may be
taking ourselves down? Are you following my question?
Ms. Hollman. Yes, I am. I think that is a real danger. And
that is why we continue to say these things over and over. I
think about it every time I hear someone say, what this
initiative really is about is funding what works.
And I think--what has worked in America? And I think the
first amendment has worked. I think we can look at the way we
treat religion in this country as something that has been good
for religion, so that religion has flourished and we have lived
in relative peace with a tremendously diverse population of
religious beliefs.
I think some of the examples that you will see in the
written testimony kind of point to how the faith-based
initiatives can divide us along religious lines. Some of it was
talked about today in how this is part of the political
process. You have political people deciding which groups should
be funded, which are essentially favored. And that is something
that we have avoided, and I think it is something that we
should be proud to have avoided and we have probably saved
ourselves a lot of conflict that other places haven't.
Mr. Cummings. You know, Mr. Diament, and then this will be
my last comment, you know you said something. And I think it is
directly corrected with what Ms. Hollman just said. I think
that we would be naive if we did not realize how much politics
plays in all of this.
And I am not saying that you have been naive, because I
think you hit this golden opportunity, then it kind of slipped
away. But it is interesting that as I move around the country
campaigning, and I go into African American communities, and I
see something happening that is very interesting. And that is
that there are areas that I normally as an African American
would have been welcome to speak on behalf of a Democratic
candidate, but because a church has received certain funding, I
think, OK, I can't say--I check out the history--and usually
this is the case--and they give credit not to the Democrats but
to the Republicans for the faith-based initiative stuff.
The next thing you know, I am not welcomed to speak. I
don't, and it is very interesting. And I think that if--and so,
you know, when you talk about this division based on--when you
and Ms. Hollman talk about division on religious lines, I guess
what happens is government creeps in, creeps into the faith-
based arena, and it gets a little murky there.
Because I guess some of those folks are saying, look, you
know, I think you, Mayor Goode, alluded to this, about how
there are groups that have never gotten any funding before and
now they are getting funding.
We see, in my own State of Maryland, there is an article in
the paper this morning that talks about how our Governor wants
to establish an office of faith-based, but doesn't want to tell
what it does. And the legislature is saying, OK, we can do
that, but at least tell us what it is going to do, like every
other department.
And I just don't, I mean, I think there are so many--this
thing becomes like a web after a while. And I don't know where
this leads to. I think that we have to be very careful that we
protect the Constitution, because as Ms. Hollman has said, we
know certain things work. We know that.
And we know--I think sometimes when we compare what happens
in other countries around the world, we also see what doesn't
work. And so we have a lot of competing interests, a lot of
competing concerns and priorities. And I just think that we
have to continue to try to wade through this so that we come
out with the best result in the end.
But you know, the bottom line still remains, I think, this
whole concept of one life to live and how you do that in the
now, but, at the same time, protecting your future. So I just
want to thank you.
I don't know if anybody has any comment on what I just
said, but I really appreciate all of you and I really thank you
for your testimony.
Reverend Goode. I just had one point. And that is this;
that you raise the issue of politics. And I would only simply
say this: that a long time before the current President was in
office, a lot of us were working on faith-based initiatives.
And I don't think that the idea involving faith-based
institutions with the solving of problems of people in
neighborhoods started 3\1/2\ years ago. It started way before
that.
In fact, my own experience, going back to 1968, when I was
going around the local churches, filling out applications for
221(d)(3) and 204 and 203 applications and 2 applications to
get housing for local churches who only had an idea that they
wanted to do something about a vacant lot in that neighborhood.
We are able to take that. And really with 50 separate
congregations, we probably did using the 501(c)(3), about 2000
housing units between 1966 and 1978.
So I would only say to you that I know this is an election
year. But we also have to be practical in terms of how are we
going to help the people who live in our neighborhoods, in our
zip codes, and I have opted from my own point of view to be
practical about this and take the money from the government
because it's really my money, too. I mean, you know, every time
I see my pay check, I know it's my money too and I want to have
a say in how my money gets spent.
Mr. Souder. I want to thank each of you for your testimony.
We'll probably have some additional written questions to draw
this out because we have been doing a series of faith-based
hearings where these issues, the legal issues come up.
Generally speaking we have had almost 50/50. We have had
hearings in Charlotte and San Antonio and Chicago and Colorado
and Los Angeles, and practitioners disagree on where they would
draw the lines on how to do it. We've mostly been trying to
draw out what the activity at the grass roots level is on the
faith-based, but this is going to be our defining hearing as
far as some of the legal issues. So we may have some additional
written questions. I appreciate that each of you have been
major players in different parts.
Clearly the faith-based initiative hasn't brought the
religious conflict in America. All I have to do is find five
Baptists in any city. They'll be in three different branches,
at least, if not five, and I believe that we can at least reach
consensus in a narrow frame, if not the fundamental part of
direct government funding, and we need to build where we can
find the consensus and then continue to debate at the edges.
For example, in my opinion, and I want to state this for
the record, the more important part, as I implied at the
beginning, was the $500 credit which went down to $50 or some
ridiculously low sum, and that we had a compromise worked out
with key players that would have been able to move that earlier
if we'd have focused on that part. And we need to be looking at
how to make non-itemizers eligible to put their money into
these churches and avoid some of the direct confrontation by at
least agreeing on that. We had worked out compromises on the
training that Bobby Scott and Chet Edwards and Jerry Nadler and
Barney Frank and others who have been critics would allow those
funds and would have supported if we can keep it out of the
political arena, that to train faith-based organizations with
their discrimination of association hiring intact as long as
they weren't applying for government funds with that. But even
that kind of consensus is going to breakdown if this becomes
too political.
Then at the margin, we have accepted as we have moved these
pieces of legislation, sometimes as we moved a number of them
to the chagrin as I accepted things like ``clear break,'' if
there was going to be a prayer it had to be at least 5 minutes
before the start of a program. It couldn't feel any pressure,
maybe even farther from that, that there had to be a secular
alternative. I know that there are disagreements as to what is
the distance you can have. In my opinion, for example, in the
first faith-based initiative we took out Head Start and some
programs at least in distant areas where you wouldn't have
choices. I think the majoritarian Christians, unlike those of
us who came up in more smaller denominations, don't think of
this as Christian being the minority and how would we feel if a
seniors lunch program or a Head Start program you had to bow to
Allah at the beginning, or you had another religion that isn't
majoritarian. And we need to work through those sensitivities.
At the same time, that all said, I still am concerned that
there's not an understanding of the opponents of what passion
motivates people to give extra time, extra contributions, and
how many of these resource challenged groups, even if they can
take non-itemized deductions, even if they have leaders like
Reverend Goode, aren't going to be able to get the dollars they
need and that these faith-based institutions whose integrity is
critical in these urban areas should have access, if they'll
follow the rules and if they're trained and if they have a
501(c)(3) for these funds.
It started in the areas of homelessness and AIDS, because
nobody else would do it. And when this was done under Jack
Kemp, and in the early 1980's there weren't a lot of questions
because nobody would take care of people with AIDS, except for
Christians who weren't afraid if they got it and they died
their life would be ended because they had an after life. So
nobody was asking a bunch of questions. And I still think that
this idea that there is this kind of a giant secular position
excludes and discriminates against some of us. But we need to
be careful, those who argue for this faith-based initiative,
that we don't suck religion in and that we protect the minority
rights, because I don't think, from most of the consensus, that
most Americans would agree with something that was said by Ms.
Hollman, and that is all it takes is to look around the world
and see that religious intolerance is a huge problem. And if
the faith-based initiative exacerbates or promotes religious
intolerance, it is not good either. But there also ought to be
tolerance of those who do have deep faith and want to
participate in the public arena without discrimination. And
that balance is what we are trying to work through.
So if any of you want to submit additional comments with
this hearing, respond to the questions, this is hopefully going
to be a good forum to carry that through. I thank each of you
for your public debate and for your research. And with that the
hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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