It’s Time for Action on the Faith-Based Program

By KAREN FRANTZ

Last week, the Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships sent their long-awaited final report to President Obama, detailing their recommendations as to how the faith-based office should be run.

The Council was appointed by Obama a year ago to provide advice about how the federal government should partner with faith-based and community groups--especially focusing on such areas as economic recovery, the environment, fatherhood and healthy families, global poverty and interreligious cooperation. But most importantly--especially to the American Humanist Association and other groups that are concerned about entanglement of religion and government--it was also tasked with recommending how the faith-based office itself should be reformed.

When President Obama came to the White House, he inherited a Faith-based office that was severely problematic (and the AHA argues shouldn't have been created in the first place). Under President Bush, the office was free to ignore many sensible policies and protections that had been hammered out over the years and governed how the government could work with faith-based social service providers. For instance, policies requiring that faith-based groups receiving federal grants set up separate 501(c)3 organizations to receive the funds, that these separate organizations provide services that were secular in nature (in other words, no proselytizing), that the religious freedom rights of social service beneficiaries be protected, and that faith-based groups that receive federal money not discriminate on the basis of religion in their employment decisions.

With the arrival of the new administration, many wondered how these problems would be handled. And at this juncture we're still waiting to see many changes implemented--although I'm pleased to see that the Council's task force on reform of the office has made some good recommendations in the recent report. These include the recommendation that beneficiaries of social services funded by the government be clearly informed about the rights they are entitled to--including the right to choose a secular service provider over a faith-based one--and the recommendation that language barring faith-based service providers from engaging in "inherently" religious activities be changed to "explicitly," so as to cut down on misunderstanding.

However, the task force did not build a consensus on other issues, including whether faith-based providers should be required to set up separate 501(c)3 organizations in order to receive government funds. And we still wait for action from Obama on the issue of whether faith-based groups that receive government funds should be free to hire and fire based on religion--an issue that the task force did not review.

President Obama should move quickly to adopt the recommendations for which the task force reached a consensus, and take steps to address the problem of the religious discrimination in employment for government-funded groups. It's been over a year since Obama took office, and though we've seen plenty of review and deliberation on these important issues, it's time now for action.    

Karen Frantz is the Communications and Policy Director of the American Humanist Association.