Americans United for Separation of Church and State: Renewed Bush Push For 'Faith-Based' Initiative Is Unlikely To Succeed
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 29, 2008
3:47 PM
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CONTACT: Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Joe Conn
Rob Boston
Jeremy Leaming
(202) 466-3234
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Renewed Bush Push For 'Faith-Based' Initiative Is Unlikely To Succeed, Says Americans United
President's Plan Has Been A Colossal Constitutional And Public Policy Failure, Says AU's Lynn
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WASHINGTON, DC - January 29 - President George W. Bush’s renewed push for his controversial “faith-based” initiative is unlikely to succeed, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Bush, in his State of the Union address yesterday and in a public appearance in Baltimore today, called on Congress to make his faith-based proposals permanent. Congress has refused to adopt key parts of the plan because it would roll back civil rights laws barring religion-based hiring discrimination and open the door to publicly funded preaching.
Bush has implemented some provisions of the faith-based initiative through executive orders that the next president may overturn.
Said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, “Bush’s ‘faith-based’ initiative has been a colossal failure. It undercut civil rights laws and jeopardized important religious liberty safeguards. I don’t believe Congress is going to adopt it at this late date in the administration’s tenure.
“The faith-based initiative did nothing to help the disadvantaged,” Lynn continued, “and it was often used to advance partisan politics.”
Lynn noted that religiously affiliated social service agencies have received government grants and contracts for many years. However, they were expected to obey the same non-discrimination and non-proselytization rules that secular organizations observed.
“Bush has never been interested in a level playing field for faith-based groups, as he often claimed,” Lynn said. “He has been interested in tilting the field toward favored religious organizations that want to discriminate with government funds. It was no accident that TV preacher Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, got one of the first faith-based grants.”
Lynn noted that former officials in the Bush White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives stated publicly that the administration never took the faith-based initiative seriously and that it was often misused to help Republican candidates for public office.
Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom.
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