Bid to defund faith-based groups fails

The House Appropriations Committee approved three more spending bills yesterday after Republicans beat back Democratic efforts to cut off faith-based organizations’ access to federal funds.

Rep. Chet Edwards, Texas Democrat, offered a hastily crafted amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education spending bill that would ensure that none of the funds appropriated in the bill would go to any group that “discriminates in job hiring based on religion.”

Mr. Edwards’ amendment was defeated by a vote of 32-27. Every Democrat voted for the amendment, along with two Republicans, Reps. Mark Steven Kirk of Illinois and Donald L. Sherwood of Pennsylvania.

The measure was a response to a White House position paper sent to Capitol Hill Tuesday that argued that faith-based organizations that receive federal funds — an effort that President Bush champions — “should retain their right to hire those individuals who are best able to further their organizations’ goals and mission.”

A Catholic church that operates a soup kitchen funded partly through federal grants, for instance, should be allowed to hire only fellow Catholics, according to Mr. Bush. Such “religious hiring rights,” said the White House document, are part of a religious organization’s basic civil rights.

But allowing that to happen, Mr. Edwards said, would mean Congress would “legalize racial discrimination in this country,” imagining a Jewish or Catholic organization refusing to hire a black Southern Baptist.

“Do you or do you not think that Americans should be discriminated against in a federal program based on their religion?” Mr. Edwards said. “One shouldn’t have to choose between a job and their faith.”

Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island Democrat, warned the United States could begin going down “a slow road” to the theocracy of Iran.

“You start putting religion and government money together, and you are going to have real problems,” Mr. Kennedy said.

Republicans sharply rebuked those characterizations, pointing to the long record of good works by faith-based organizations, and stressing that groups that receive federal dollars know they can’t use it to proselytize.

“The reason people are in faith-based groups is because of their faith,” shouted Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican.

Rep. Jack Kingston, Georgia Republican, called the amendment a “poison pill,” and Rep. Zach Wamp, Tennessee Republican, said it “would not chill the involvement of faith based groups, it would kill it.”

“I hate to question the motives of anyone,” Mr. Wamp said. “But [Mr. Edwards] is a person who is vehemently opposed” to Mr. Bush’s faith-based initiative.

“This is a rear-guard effort to kill it, and that’s the truth,” Mr. Wamp said.

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