RULERS GET TO MAKE THE RULES

US quietly eases rules for faith-based groups (Susan Milligan, 5/8/2003, Boston Globe)

The Bush administration has quietly altered regulations for the nation's leading job training program to allow faith-based organizations to use ''sacred literature,'' such as Bibles, in their federally funded programs. Civil liberties activists say the new rules blur the line between religion and government.

The change, made by the US Labor Department last month, could allow faith-based groups to use religious books as historical texts or as inspirational stories for job seekers, as long as organizations do not proselytize or conduct prayer sessions.

In a separate action, the House is expected today to approve a change allowing private groups that run job training programs to discriminate on the basis of religion when they hire people to run them. That change, part of legislation to renew the overall program, would lift a ban that has existed in federal law for two decades.

The two changes represent efforts by the Bush administration and sympathetic members of Congress to give more latitude to faith-based organizations that receive grants under the Workforce Reinvestment and Adult Education Act of 1998, which provides more than $6 billion annually to states, colleges, and private groups. Advocates of the changes say they are intended to free faith-based groups to employ people of the same religion without facing the threat of discrimination lawsuits.

Opponents complain that Bush and his backers are using federal rules and bills authorizing individual social programs to get what he could not win in his broader faith-based initiative.

Which is why elections matter... Posted by Orrin Judd at May 9, 2003 8:01 PM