New Director Appointed, Agency De-emphasized

In early February 2002, Bush introduced Jim Towey as the new director of the White House OFBCI. A close friend of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Towey worked on Capitol Hill and as legal counsel in Mother Teresa's ministry before becoming Florida's health and rehabilitative services director under Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles. Although he wasn't an immediate favorite of Florida conservatives, Towey redeemed himself by endorsing Jeb Bush in his run for governor. Towey also founded a Florida-based advocacy group called Aging with Dignity in 1996.

Towey's appointment came more than six months after John DiIulio, citing family and health concerns, resigned as the first director of OFBCI. At the time of his resignation, conservatives were delighted: The Hudson Institute's Michael Horowitz told the Washington Post that DiIulio had been "the most strategically disastrous appointee to a senior government position in the 20-plus years I've been in Washington. He has taken what could have been a triumphant issue and marched it smack into quicksand." Horowitz's statement is indicative of the negative feelings the appointment of DiIulio generated among conservatives.

Last summer, in a long cover piece written for World, an evangelical weekly, Marvin Olasky explained the Administration's strategy in choosing DiIulio. It was "to show liberals that he was not in the religious right's corner." As far as the Administration was concerned, writes Olasky, "It would be fine if conservative Christians became irritated at Mr. DiIulio because liberal Republicans and Democrats would be far more likely to vote for measures and trust a man criticized by the people they distrusted."

And irritated they became when, early on, DiIulio criticized Christian right leaders for not ministering directly to the poor, and when he remarked in February 2001 that "Bible-thumping doesn't cut it."

As for Towey's appointment, Church & State reports that Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called Bush's choice a "tremendous appointment." And Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, described Towey as "sensational."

In a follow-up move to Towey's appointment, Bush de-emphasized the OFBCI by placing the agency under the wing of John Bridgeland, newly appointed head of the USA Freedom Corps. "A year ago, this initiative was the signature domestic policy of the Bush Administration," Americans United for Separation of Church and State's executive director Barry Lynn noted. "After twelve months of criticism from the right, left and center, it's been downgraded to part of an office on volunteerism. With all of these problems, it looks like Towey will have his work cut out for him."

Faith-Based Initiatives in the States

According to a report by Mike O'Keefe of the Newhouse News Service, the President's faith-based initiative is chugging along in the states. Five Cabinet-level agencies "are identifying and removing barriers that prevent religious groups from receiving government grants" and participating in programs dealing with providing social services. O'Keefe cites a recent Hudson Institute study of fifteen states, which found that $124 million in grants have already been delivered to 726 faith-based organizations.

According to O'Keefe, HHS "informed states in a February 26 directive that state welfare plans would have to include a strategy on how they will include faith-based organizations." The most disturbing aspect of the directive is that HHS is "encouraging states to consider church-trained counselors, not just counselors with psychological and medical credentials, when granting federal money to fight drug and alcohol abuse." Elizabeth Seale-Scott, director of faith-based efforts at HHS, said: "We don't want to present the same medical model over and over as if that's the definitive measure."

US District Court Rules Against Faith-Based Initiative

In early January, the public funding of faith-based initiatives took a judicial hit. Judge Barbara B. Crabb, of the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, ruled that Faith Works, a residential program for male addicts, "indoctrinates its participants in religion, primarily through its counselors."

Faith Works had received more than $900,000 from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) and other government and private sources. According to the Washington Times, Judge Crabb found that the DWD funding "constitutes unrestricted, direct funding of an organization that engages in religious indoctrination" in violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution. She ordered an end to the funds.

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next »

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.