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Forum to Critique Bush
Transference of Tax Dollars to Religion

Forum to Critique Bush Transference of Tax Dollars to Religion

Faith-Based Social Services are Prone to Practice Discrimination

Compiled By GayToday

As a result of the 1996 welfare reform, the government has engaged in the transfer of tax dollars to religious institutions to pay for delivery of social services. These are called "Charitable Choice" programs. George W. Bush wants to expand these programs, and under his proposals, this money often would come with no demand for fiscal accountability, no requirement that religious institutions not discriminate and no safeguard against recipients of social services being subjected to proselytizing and other forms of coercive activity.

This would allow faith-based organizations to use government funds to openly discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees. It will also allow them to turn away, or attempt to recruit, LGBT people who need services.

Mr. Bush announces his Faith-Based Initative program that will send millions of tax-payer dollars to religous organizations

An example of the danger posed by "Charitable Choice" to LGBT people was illustrated by a state-run, faith-based initiative in Kentucky. A Baptist agency, which receives the majority of its $19 million budget from state and federal tax dollars, fired a top-notch children's therapist because she was a lesbian.

The agency said it fired her because, as a lesbian, she was incapable of inculcating fundamentalist Christian ideas in the children she was supposed to help. "They fired her because they felt that, as a lesbian, she was automatically a poor role model," said Ingrid Rivera of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "And because of the inherent threat of such government-funded discrimination, some faith-based organizations have already come out against 'Charitable Choice' programs."

The ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project represents the former therapist in a federal lawsuit against the state and the agency that fired her.

However, many religious organizations that already provide social services, particularly those serving communities of color, have said that they welcome "Charitable Choice" programs because they need the money to provide services that no one else is providing in their communities.

"The racial split that has emerged over this issue is one that the LGBT community must examine," said Joseph DeFilippis of the Queer Economic Justice Network.

Bush has proposed a major faith-based social services initiative that will provide as much as $8 billion the first year and $80 billion during the next ten years. Some of this money will be in the form of direct federal funds to churches, synagogues and other faith-based institutions. And part of this money will come in the form of federal tax incentives that individual taxpayers may receive when donating to charity.

Related Sites:
American Civil Liberties Union

Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund

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Soon the debate about expanding Charitable Choice will be trickling down from the federal to the state levels. "If, and how, Charitable Choice programs happen in New York State is an issue that should be of great concern to New York's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community," said Michael Adams of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.

There are many questions for LGBT New Yorkers that are raised by expanded funding of religious-based organizations:

Will LGBT employees be fired from government-funded programs?

Will LGBT New Yorkers be denied services at faith-based service providers?

Will state funding of social services be redirected from current recipients (including LGBT organizations) and given instead to faith-based organizations?

How will the racial division that is happening nationally about this issue play out in N.Y.?

What are the implications for religious organizations when they are hired to work for the government?

On June 26, The Queer Economic Justice Network, a coalition of over 40 organizations that seeks to address the ways in which New York's welfare system affects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people, is co-sponsoring a Town Meeting on Charitable Choice to address these issues.

The other co-sponsors are: the Empire State Pride Agenda, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Scheduled speakers include:
Michael Adams, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
Cathlin Baker, The Employment Project
Cedrick Harmon, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State
Jerold Nadler, U.S. Congress
Ingrid Rivera, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Date: Tuesday, June 26, 2001
Time: 7-9 p.m.
Place: The Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, One Little West 12th Street, New York City