By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - When President Bush decided to build a T-ball field on the White House lawn, he handed the job to his office on faith-based programs. Not that T-ball has anything to do with religion, but aides figured that a staff battered by criticism could use a unifying diversion.
"Don't you think T-ball is controversial?" joked John DiIulio, director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. "Have you ever seen parents react to T-ball?"
Even the fiercest of parental barbs might seem mild compared to some of the criticism DiIulio has taken from both liberals and conservatives over his effort to direct more government money to religious social service programs.
This week, the debate and lobbying surrounding the program shift into high gear. Republicans are gathering for a cheerleading "faith-based summit," and their backers are launching a TV advertising and lobbying campaign. Opponents are delivering petitions arguing the perils of mixing church and state. And Congress holds its first hearings on the issue.
The heart of Bush's plan would expand "charitable choice," a provision that allows religious groups that run both secular and religious programs to compete for government grants. It's already law for welfare, drug treatment and community development programs, and Bush wants to extend it to programs across government.
The effort is rolling in the House but stalled in the Senate, where the top Democratic backer, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, has concerns.
DiIulio, who is on leave from the University of Pennsylvania, professes no concern, saying that he teaches his government students that the Senate always moves more slowly than the House. "If they did it otherwise, I would have to revise my teaching," he said yesterday in an interview.
DiIulio will testify tomorrow before a House committee and is expected to deliver an upbeat assessment. Behind the scenes, his office is wrestling with a particularly thorny element of the House bill that allows religious groups to make hiring decisions based on an applicant's religious practices.
Opponents say this would allow government grantees to reject applicants who are gay or who drink alcohol on their off hours or do anything else some religion might object to. And Lieberman says he doubts he could support that provision.
"It's very hard to justify creating a lower standard of civil rights protection in a religious group when they receive federal funding," he said Monday.
Liberal opponents, armed with polling that shows Americans are against employment discrimination, are focused on this issue. Christian conservatives, meanwhile, fear that government money might corrupt the religious mission of churches and congregations. Some also question whether government money should go to groups that espouse less accepted religions.
Proponents are also gearing up. A newly formed Good Works Coalition says it will spend $250,000 over the next two months lobbying for the Bush plan. Early next month, a TV ad to run in Mississippi and South Dakota, home states of the Senate Republican and Democratic leaders.
"Good works are happening throughout America today - feeding the body and the soul, treating the head and the heart, fighting addiction with support of friends and faith," says the ad, which is being paid for by undisclosed donors. It ends by encouraging viewers to call their members of Congress.
Even proponents admit to unresolved questions.
DiIulio allows that there is scant evidence to support the contention that religious programs are more effective than secular ones. He said he would not make that argument, even though like-minded supporters do just that. "I happen to be a professional social scientist," he said.
And the coalition's founder, Lynda Kosh, who runs a church-based welfare-to-work program in Indianapolis, said she does not know whether programs that weave religion into the core of their curriculum should qualify for money, since her program does not do that.
"I'm as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove," she said, "and I understand how to do it without controversy."
