Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed a new lawsuit related to President Bush's faith-based initiative. Here are some of the details:
Americans United . . . filed suit yesterday to block federal financing for an organization that provides marriage counseling based on the Bible.
The lawsuit is another challenge to the Bush administration’s efforts to channel money for social services to religious organizations. While religious groups are not barred from getting public money, such financing can only be used for secular purposes, not “worship, religious instruction or proselytization,” according to government guidelines.
Americans United, a watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court in Tacoma, Wash., on behalf of 13 state residents. They object to federal funds being used to support the Northwest Marriage Institute, which states in its newsletter that it offers “Bible-based premarital and marriage counseling.” The institute, in Vancouver, Wash., received $97,750 in federal grants in 2005 from the Department of Health and Human Services.
The lawsuit argued that the institute uses federal funds for religious purposes, including developing materials with religious content, buying equipment for use in religiously based programming and paying part of the salaries of employees who do Bible-based counseling.
And here are some reactions to the lawsuit from the Northwest Marriage Institute and Bob Tuttle (a GWU law professor who, with his colleague Chip Lupu, has written a steady stream of influential articles about these issues):
Bob Whiddon Jr., director of the Northwest Marriage Institute, said he had not yet seen the lawsuit.
But he said the grants were meant to strengthen his organization by paying for consultants to improve its business practices and to buy equipment, not for programs.
“The grants say that I’m allowed to do things that will allow me to increase the capacity of my organization to serve the community,” Dr. Whiddon said in a telephone interview. “None of what we do with the money is for religious purposes.”
The administration has failed to provide clear guidelines about what federal funds can be used for, said Robert W. Tuttle, a law professor at George Washington University who is an expert on religion-based initiatives.
The government instructs organizations broadly that they are prohibited from using funds for religious purposes. But, he said, it does not answer the seemingly small, yet sometimes critical, questions that could occur in daily practice.
For example, could software bought with federal money be used for religious purposes? Or is it acceptable to give federal money to improve the management practices of an obviously religious organization like the Northwest Marriage Institute, when those changes would affect both its secular work and religious mission?
“The government studiously avoids clearing up these questions because it doesn’t want to discourage people from applying and look hostile to faith groups,” Professor Tuttle said. “I honestly don’t think it would discourage people. Instead, it would give them a good sense of how to avoid being sued.”
As I said in 2004, the administration's approach on these issues -- fuzziness and mixed messages -- invites litigation, and religious social service providers as well as social service beneficiaries are often the victims:
"I'm worried that the initiative will draw these unwitting social-service providers into a real snarl of litigation," says Melissa Rogers, formerly executive director at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and now a professor at the Divinity School at Wake Forest University. "They think they're being told that they're on firm ground, but the ground's a lot less firm than they think." . . . .
Some experts are especially concerned about the smaller faith-based groups . . . that the administration is targeting in its outreach. When President Bush picks up a Bible and declares it to be the handbook of a child care center, or when he asserts that faith-based programs "only conform to one set of rules, and it's bigger than government rules," he's not sending a message about legal ambiguity.
"There's a real gap between the regulations, which are already problematic in some respects, and the administration's rhetoric," said Wake Forest's Rogers. "It will be no surprise when government-funded social-service providers push religious solutions as part of their programs. That's what they're hearing is OK."
The Americans United press release on the filing of this lawsuit says the problem here is not a few missteps but direct government funding of a program in which religious messages and activities are pervasive. I'll have to read more about this particular lawsuit before commenting further.
UPDATE: Howard Friedman has posted a copy of the complaint in this case.
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