c. 1999 Religion News Service

(The Rev. Meg Riley directs the Washington Office for Faith in Action for the Unitarian Universalist Association. She is co-chair of Equal Partners in Faith, a national, multifaith network dedicated to promoting positive values of religion in society and a regular contributor to the RNS”Voices of Women in Religion”series.)

UNDATED _ It is undeniably a good thing that a large, multiracial, ecumenical group of people is gathered in Washington this week under the banner of Call to Renewal to talk about the church and welfare reform.

But like a number of other denominational leaders, I am in sharp disagreement with the group’s convener, the Rev. Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine, on one major concept to be discussed at the conference _ charitable choice.

Charitable choice is a major revolution disguised as a tiny amendment.

Its chief advocate, Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., is as fond of it as Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., is of”no-promo-homo”amendments. It has already been passed into law as an amendment to both the Welfare Reform Bill and of the Community Opportunities, Accountability and Training and Education Services Act of 1998.

If you’ve never heard of charitable choice, don’t be embarrassed. It has been treated as an obscure amendment, not a cataclysmic change, by the media as well as Congress.

But consider what it does: Churches, mosques, temples and other religious congregations _ not just religiously affiliated agencies such as Catholic Charities or Lutheran Social Services, but the local Catholic parish or Lutheran church _ may now receive direct government monies to administer social service programs.

And not only may they receive monies, but the legislation explicitly forbids the government from toning down religious biases in order to administer government programs to believers and non-believers alike.”A religious organization that provides assistance,”the charitable choice language reads,”shall retain its religious character and control over the definition, development, practice and expression of its religious beliefs. … Neither the federal government nor a state or local government shall require a religious organization to … remove religious art, icons, scripture, or other symbols.” Picture this. You don’t have a car, and the only Head Start program for your kids is in a neighborhood mosque. Although you are Christian, you take your child to the mosque. To your surprise, however, this child soon begins to insist that you pray to Allah five times daily. Or, you are an atheist with a drug problem. The only treatment program in your town, at a Baptist church, insists that you can’t lick it unless you accept Jesus as your personal savior.

More troubling still than this category of problems with charitable choice are the permissions for circumventions of civil rights laws.

Because of the constitutional provision for the free exercise of religion, congregations are now free to discriminate in hiring based on gender, sexual orientation, or other biases they consider religious in nature. Charitable choice extends this legitimizing of discrimination into the gamut of government-funded arenas.

Here, for instance, is the language from the legislation:”A religious organization’s exemption provided under section 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 regarding employment practices shall not be affected by its participation in, or receipt of funds from programs.” In other words, a congregation that only wants to hire white, male, heterosexual, fundamentalist Christians is free to exclude all others. Unlike other government contracts, this one does not need to an equal employment opportunity.

Wallis and others are excited by the possibility of direct government funding coming from the government to underserved populations.

Indeed, that is an exciting prospect. However, they minimize the strings that may be attached to such”gifts”_ it is hard to criticize public officials or policies when they are the source of your funding.

Charitable choice is bad public policy, which makes for both bad social services and bad religion. It will be a shame if Wallis and other leaders of Call to Renewal refuse to present the underbelly of this legislation at the National Summit on Poverty, and instead focus only on how churches and other religious institutions can get public assistance.

DEA END RILEY