Campaign  Georgia
A  Political  Journal

Breaking  Down  The  Wall!

Kevin Phillips draws parallels between the rise of fundamental religious views in the Moslem countries, Israel, and the United States during the past two or three decades in Dynasty,  his recently published book critical of  the Bush family.

Fundamental activists organizations like The Christian Coalition may not seek to impose sectarian political rule, but they  undeniably want  Christian religion to have a presence in all public life, including government.  With the election of George Bush II as President, that ambition may be on the road to fruition.   President Bush has by executive order decreed federal funds can go into “faith-based initiatives”, like social service programs run by religious entities.  It’s constitutionality, so far  as I  know, has not yet been established.

The U.S. Supreme  Court is their main obstacle.      The court has not only  issued a number of rulings on school prayer and like subjects better  left alone, in recent decades it has  substantively buttressed the important clause in the U.S. Constitution respecting the establishment of  state sponsored religion.  And of course there is Roe vs. Wade, the abortion ruling which has enraged religious conservatives for thirty years.

The religious right wants some new judges on the court. They want to end  legal abortion.  They want to eliminate judicial and constitutional barriers between Church and State.  They want “faith based initiatives” part of the law of the land.

And not only at the federal level.  Governor Sonny Perdue is certainly a darling of the Christian Coalition.  He has professed faith in their agenda before, and on November 25, 2003, Senate and House Republicans prefiled identical resolutions to amend Georgia’s constitution to allow state funds to be appropriated to any “church, sect, cult, or religious denomination”  to the extent the U.  S. Constitution permits or requires such funding.

This is a terrible piece of legislation, and only a few years ago most denominations would have strongly opposed it.  But many churches operate various social service programs, some at the individual church level, some over wider areas.  The scent of  more money for their programs is certain to lessen opposition to state funds for church purposes.  Members who vote against the resolution run the risk of being tarred as “anti-religion”.

The Senate version, SR 560, passed the Senate  on January 15, and is now in committee in the House.  As  currently worded, the kinds of programs eligible for state funds would only be limited by what is or may become legal for federal programs.  Court decisions--and administrative decisions made under them by the federal government--could  make religious programs widely available for  state funds.  Once legal, it would be very hard for legislators to resist funding for any religious program. 

It could become very expensive to state taxpayers.  In fact, there is a current federal program and billions of dollars available to rebuild burned churches.  This program was instituted because of what The Wall Street Journal called  “probably a deliberate hoax”  in 1996.  The “deliberate hoax” was a claim which swept the media that year that racists were burning black churches throughout the south.  President Clinton and Congress instituted the church re-building program.  So far as I know, no one has challenged this program, which is for sure an unconstitutional use of public funds.  If it’s still on the books, unchallenged, and SR 560 gets on the ballot in November and is approved, someone can demand a program for burned churches in Georgia, payed for by state taxpayers.  By the way, one of the first people to call for federal involvement in this issue was a certain Ralph Reed, with The Christian Coalition.

There are other implications, too.  Governor Perdue has already stated that affirmative hiring practices would be enforced in any of these “faith based” programs.  If it’s a Baptist church, they can’t hire just church members, or protestants.  They can’t automatically exclude atheists, etc.   If churches begins to operate government funded programs, they  will have to follow the government’s rules.

This proposal will also open the door to state funds for parochial schools, which definitely have a religious component in their programs.  But then, the supporters of faith based initiatives intend for the state funded programs to have a religious, or at least  a “values” component.

Right now, both resolutions reside—safely, one hopes—in committee in the House.

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