Bush HIV Program Excludes Secular Groups
Friday, 18 May 2001

http://www.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html?record=14834

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is offering a new multi-million dollar HIV prevention and drug counseling initiative that makes public money available exclusively to religious applicants, a breach of assurances made concerning his "faith-based" community services plan and an unconstitutional violation of the law, a national church-state watchdog group charged Thursday.

The $4 million grant program overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services is designed to fund programs that work with young Black and Hispanic teens and address both drug abuse and HIV prevention. The application, however, specifies grant applicants must be "faith-based organizations" or groups working in close association with them.

According to HHS materials, non-religious social service organizations are not eligible to seek or receive funding under this program.

"This faith-based set-aside is solid evidence from this administration that it is embracing a system of favoritism toward religion," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "This isn't a level playing field, it's an arena where secular groups aren't even allowed to play."

In a letter to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson this week, Lynn cited a U.S. Supreme Court case usually cited by conservatives. He quotes Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who at one point said government money must be "available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis."

The grant program is the agency's first effort to set money aside for religious groups and was done because officials believe these groups are in the best position to reach at-risk teens, said Mark Weber, a spokesman for HHS' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. "Faith-based organizations have access to the young people we are trying to reach," Weber said.

Americans United has written to Thompson to notify the department of this program's unconstitutionality.

"The criteria used to select the grant recipients are not neutral and secular but instead favor religion," AU's letter said. "The aid is not available on a nondiscriminatory basis to both religious and secular beneficiaries, but it is only available to organizations that are religious themselves or are working with religious organizations."

The Bush administration has insisted repeatedly in recent months that it merely wants to allow religious groups to compete with secular organizations for federal grants.

"It's totally inconsistent with this administration's constant claim that everybody should be on equal footing," said Lynn. Lynn promised Wednesday to file suit against the program if HHS does not change its rules for who can apply.

The White House had no immediate comment on whether the program undermines the issue of fair treatment. One Bush supporter told the Associated Press he thought the exclusivity was just fine.

"For so long there's been so much discrimination against faith-based organizations," said Connie Marshner of the Free Congress Foundation. "I'd say it's a leveling of the field."

-- Editor