"Charitable Choice"

During the drafting of the Welfare Reform Act in 1996, the then-Senator from Missouri, John David Ashcroft (R-MO) advanced the idea of "charitable choice." The reference-label was something of a misnomer, for the covert intention of the program was to provide a wedge for that would permit the government to fund religious groups and ministries.

Within weeks after George W. Bush swore upon two Bibles at his inauguration in 2001 to uphold the Constitution he was leading the charge in support of the "charitable choice" policy. And John Ashcroft was installed as his Attorney General. A self-proclaimed "Born Again Christian," Bush quickly sought to distribute federal tax money to ministries, ostensibly to provide social services that were already provided through secular grantees and government agencies. The policy sought to alter the existing laws in a manner that could utilize the power of the federal government to support Christian conversions--a move that is in direct opposition to the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Using tax dollars to fund churches and ministries to represent government social welfare is, in itself, unconstitutional. Add to this that "charitable choice," as attempted, intentionally avoided any protective safeguards that would prevent religious coercion and abuses. Incorporating religion into publicly funded programs had always been avoided by the government sometimes contracting separate entities of religious institutions and in that way established safeguards that protected the rights of the disadvantaged, the interests of all tax payers, and insured the integrity of the groups providing welfare.

Although charitable choice became part of the welfare law in 1996, the constitutional concerns caused democracy's representatives to hesitate in implementing the policy. Many saw it as a disguised way of forcing taxpayers to subsidize religion whether they believed in it or not--clearly a means of sabotaging the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.

But Bush like to think of himself as a god-chosen leader, and seemed hell-bent on applying charitable choice to practically every aspect of government funding. The resultant and unending hoopla made democracy tremble, alarming civil rights and civil liberties groups, educational and social communities, and even the more rationally balanced religious communities.

Providing social service can be a noble endeavor for religious groups, but the faith-based initiative as attempted is a policy that is concerned with neither democratic principles nor relgious liberty.