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Banned
Future of a Second Bush Presidency
Questions about Church and State
Many people are excited at the prospect of a second Bush presidency - that's why so many voted for him before and why they intend to vote for him again. There are, however, quite a few questions about what a second term would mean for people, especially when it comes to issues like the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, the outlook for separation and religious liberty under a second Bush presidency is very poor.
That religious liberty may suffer serious problems shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has watched the religious right in general and George W. Bush in particular. This is, after all, the man who once said, while he was governor of Texas, that "you must believe in Jesus Christ to enter heaven." How is supposed to effectively be the President of Buddhists, Jews, Taoists, Agnostics, Atheists and all of those who do not buy into his Jesus agenda?
People outside of America might be shocked to hear a politician say such a thing - but it is simply a reflection of the more common attitude on the religious right that only Christianity counts. More than that, only their version of Christianity counts. Everyone else is, quite literally, going to Hell. According to one Christian on a message forum, "It's time for us to 'put our foot down' to this 'brood of vipers'. And with the full force of law & Divine Providence."
The real problems start when these same people get the idea that their theological prejudices should perhaps become a program for political and public action. George W. Bush's own father stated, while he was running for president, that atheists shouldn't be considered patriotic or even citizens. Other politicians who identify with the American religious right have been similarly hostile toward nonbelievers and minority religious groups.
Bush's re-election would not be an absolute crisis, make no mistake. There is certainly no reason for panic. However, there is ample reason for serious concern and his reelection is genuinely problematic. Among the most serious issues are those of "charitable choice" programs and the selection of Supreme Court justices.
Charitable Choice
What is this notion of "charitable choice?" The basic idea is that such a program would permit governments to give taxpayer dollars to religious organizations so that they can provide "faith based" public health or social services. Those services are "faith based" in the sense that religious convictions and goals drive the programs.
Is Bush a supporter of such programs? Absolutely. He has declared in speeches that: "We should promote these private and faith-based efforts because they work. But we should also promote them because their challenges are often greater than their resources." Bush sincerely believes that social improvement can only come through changing people's hearts - a reasonable position, until one remembers that what he means by this is that people must give themselves to Jesus Christ and be saved. This, then, is the basic principle of George W. Bush's social policies.
Bush promised to dedicate $8 billion to such groups in the first year of his presidency through a program of tax rebates and direct grants. That, however, never materialized because there was considerable opposition in Congress - especially when it came to the question of discrimination. So, the most that the Bush administration has been able to divert was USD $477 million to nearly 500 faith-based programs in 2002 and $568 million to 680 programs in 2003.
What he couldn't achieve through the legislative process, he has been trying to achieve through executive orders. That's far less then he wanted, but far more than is appropriate if those programs either discriminate or use the funds to proselytize to those seeking aid.
Why is this bad? Aside from the fact that government really shouldn't be funding religious programs of any sort, there are practical consequences for the people involved. President Bush thinks that religious groups receiving federal funding for government social programs should be able to discriminate when it comes to hiring, firing, promotion, and even whom they serve. Others think that anyone using government money to administer a government program should treat all citizens equally. Imagine that.
First, the employees of the religious organizations are subject to discrimination, even if those employees are being paid with government funds. This discrimination can (at least in theory) be based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, political views - anything. Although it is acceptable for religious organizations to make their own, religion-based decisions on who works for them, it is wrong for this to happen at public expense. It amounts to nothing less than federally-funded employment discrimination.
The beneficiaries of these programs can also face problems - their religious freedom can be violated by subjecting them to religious indoctrination while they are attending a religious organization to obtain government benefits. Traditionally, any religious organization wishing to administer a government program was obligated to separate their religious mission from the secular, government program.
But today, "charitable choice" programs propose new rules whereby such separation would no longer be necessary. Religious organizations would be allowed to combine the government service with different forms of religious indoctrination, such as religious teaching or the excessive display of religious icons or symbols.
Beneficiaries and the public suffer further because, in some proposals, all state licensing and certification requirements for counselors and treatment providers is totally preempted. This means that a counselor who is using government funds to help drug addicts or unwed mothers doesn't have to meet any public standards when serving the public at the public expense.
Of course, who actually gets "charitable choice" funds will also be decided based upon open discrimination. During questions on the House floor regarding charitable choice provisions added by Mark Souter to another bill, Souter admitted that churches associated with Bob Jones University could openly discriminate and still receive funding, yet Wiccan groups could not. "It is unlikely under President Bush that the witches would get funding," said Souter.
It is a wonder that churches would even be interested in receiving such a program. By emphasizing volunteer work and community activism, church members are drawn into the religious life of their faith group more deeply, allowing them to develop bonds that strengthen their ties to their house of worship. Will this continue if the religious institutions become dependent upon government money for their programs?
Unlikely, if the example of Western Europe is anything to go by. There you can find many places where religious groups get government support, but where religious life is also sterile and on the decline. People see no reason to become very involved with church projects if the government is willing to underwrite them.
There is also the question of government regulation. Although the trend now is to fund religious institutions while also allowing them to remain pervasively sectarian, there is no reason to think that matters will stay that way. If the government is paying the bills, they can have a say in how things are run - and if churches become dependent upon that source of funds, how will they be able to say no?
There is no question but that the government funding of anything which promotes religion in this manner is wrong. It harms the people employed by these institutions, it harms the public who is supposed to be receiving the benefits, it harms the taxpayers, and it eventually harms the churches themselves. This is why the principle of the separation of church and state was created in the first place.
One question we should ask is: will the federal government under Bush fund the abuses that were funded by the Texas government under Bush? Bush established the private Texas Association of Christian Child Care Agencies Inc. as a "monitoring" agency with power to accredit private, religious juvenile facilities receiving public funding.
Wiley Cameron, who was part of that organization, was also head of the People's Baptist Church and CEO of Roloff Enterprises, a ministry operating the Rebekah Home for Girls and the Anchor Home for Boys. I use "was" rather than "is" because he has been forced to resign due to widespread abuse of children - all justified with biblical doctrine and all publicly funded.
School Vouchers
Another issue promoted by the religious right and which we can expect to get a boost by the Bush presidency is school vouchers. These programs have long been promoted by conservative religious figures from divergent religious perspectives - after all, it allows government funds to promote all of their religious ideas.
Bush is openly in favor of vouchers - and not simply state voucher programs, but a federal voucher program. This is ironic, considering his usual philosophy is for states to work things out for themselves. It is unfortunate that voucher initiatives come at a time when some many public schools which are doing badly are in need of more funds - but this is not coincidental. Religious right activists view public schools as promoters of secularism, evolution, and worse - their demise would not bother them at all.
Pat Robertson made it quite clear when he told supporters: "They say vouchers would spell the end of public schools in America. To which we say, so what?" Jerry Falwell has made similar statements, declaring "I hope to live to see the day," he once said, "when, as in the early days of our country, there won't be any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!"
A proposal has even been placed before the Southern Baptist Convention that would recommend all Southern Baptist families take their children out of public schools and have them educated either at religious schools or at home. This isn't simply an effort to shield children from "godless" education - supporter specifically hope that the exodus of children will lead to the collapse of the public school system.
Private schools that would get voucher funding are mostly religious - over 85%, in fact, and this means that any voucher program will be primarily a financial subsidy to religious schooling. Religious schools, obviously, do not operate like public schools - their mission is religious as well as educational. The curriculum can be saturated with religious doctrines, even to the detriment of actual education. And what do you suppose will happen to the teaching of evolution and biology in many of the evangelical schools?
Furthermore, religious schools do not accept all applicants. Children can be turned away for absolutely any reason - including religion, race, disability, or gender. Church membership can be important not only for admission, but also for employment of teachers and administrators. It's not unusual for a religious school to fire a teacher for getting a divorce, marrying outside the faith, or even expressing opinions contrary to the party line.
Of course, churches should be permitted to run their organizations they way they wish - that is part of what religious freedom means. However, this freedom works both ways. Just as they are free to be as restrictive and discriminatory as they want, other citizens shouldn't be asked to finance their efforts. You might as well ask people to add their money to the church's collection plate.
Supreme Court
The problems which might arise during a second Bush presidency might not be so bad if we knew that we could rely upon a reasonable Supreme Court to strike down the more extreme steps as being unconstitutional violations of the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, the sorts of justices George W. Bush is likely to nominate would create a Court which would eagerly validate things like vouchers for religious schools, charitable choice programs, and anything which sends public money to private religious efforts.
It is widely expected that two or three justices are likely to retire during the next presidential term. Whether that will happen or not is uncertain - after all, that's what people expected to occur during his first four years in office, but that obviously didn't happen. Of course, all nine justices are now another four years older, so whatever pressures they might have felt before are likely only stronger now.
Justice John Paul Stevens, for example, could be forced by ill health to retire - but he has been the court's major proponent of First Amendment separation. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is also sometimes suggested as a likely candidate for retirement - and she, too, has often been supporter of the separation of church and state.
As a matter of fact, O'Connor has often been the key vote in crafting compromises which allows things like the church/state separation and legalized abortion to be preserved. Chief Justice William Rhenquist is another justices who is expected to retire - but he may remain if asked to remain on the bench by a Republican President and he has privately told friends that he would not retire unles he could be assured that he would be replaced by a Republican
Bush has made it quite clear that Chief Justice William Rhenquist and Justice Antonin Scalia are his models for what a Supreme Court Justice should be - thus, they are the sorts of people we can expect to see coming in during a Bush administration. Who are Rhenquist and Scalia, and should people be worried if there are more justices like them on the bench?
The threat they pose to the separation of church and state is obvious and immediate. Rehnquist, for example, has stated openly that he considers separation to be a legal "myth," with no basis in fact. There can be no clearer sign than this that a Court with a majority of justices who think like Rhenquist could deal a staggering blow to the principle of separation of decades to come.
For an example of what we have to look forward to, we just have to examine a recent case where school-supported prayers before football games were prohibited (Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe). Here, Rhenquist's dissent argued that the decision was filled with hostility towards religion even though it did nothing but state that the government cannot act to exclude some religious believers by supporting others.
Through this dissent we can see that Rhenquist buys into the idea that hostility towards government supported or approved religious exercises is equated with hostility towards religion in general. It was this faulty and baseless concept which has lead people to see that prohibiting state-supported Christians prayers in public schools is the same as government bashing of Christianity.
If separation is just a legal myth and governments should be permitted to financially or otherwise support religion, then there seems to be little basis for prohibiting state-enforced bible reading, state-enforced prayers, state-sponsored religious displays, and more.
Generally, Scalia agrees with Rhenquist on all of the above issues. For him, government support of religion is just fine and dandy - but he goes even a bit farther, arguing that discrimination in favor or one religion but against another, smaller religion is an inevitable consequence of democratic government. Whereas people like Rhenquist have tried to argue that government support of religion is permissible so long as no one religion is singled out for special treatment, one has to wonder if Scalia would accept such a qualification.
Thus, if it is acceptable that religion is supported by the government but only the religion advocated by the majority, then minority religions will inevitably suffer. Scalia, Rhenquist, and others like them ignore the fact that it was precisely this - favoritism towards some religious beliefs at the expense of others - which people like Jefferson and Madison sought to avoid. They didn't always do a good job of it, but they created principles which allow us to do better.
It has been the Court - not the Congress and not any presidents - which has consistently decided that no branch of government can favor belief over non belief or one religion over others. Public school officials are not now composing and imposing prayers on students - and only because the Court said they couldn't in Engel v. Vitale. School students are not forced to read bible passages picked out by school officials - and only because the Court said they couldn't in Abington v. Schempp.
Your governments are not permitted to officially declare you ineligible from holding public office - and only because the Court said they couldn't in Torcaso v. Watkins. Your governments are not permitted to outlaw anything which is considered to be "offensive to religion" - again, only because the Court said they couldn't in Burstyn v. Wilson.
Most Americans have always disagreed with the above decisions. Too many Americans have long felt that public schools should impose religion on all school students, that government should favor particular religious views, and that nonbelievers should be excluded from the political process.
The fact that we have any rights and don't live under religious tyranny, however, is due to the fact that this majority has not been translated into a majority of Supreme Court justices. We were fortunate that Congress prevented things from going too far under Bush's first administration, but any of it could change under a second Bush administration. Think about that, and keep your eyes open
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