As the 104th Congress winds down, several pending measures are worrying church-state watchdogs.
A handful of social reform bills contain provisions that Jewish activists say threaten religious liberty and constitutional rights.
“Taken all together, it amounts to a substantial quiet revolution” against the constitutional separation of church and state, said Marc Stern, co-director of the legal department of the American Jewish Congress.
A provision in welfare reform legislation, for example, would encourage states to turn over federal block grant dollars and welfare services to “pervasively sectarian” religious institutions.
Similar language is contained in the Older Americans Act, which provides grants for local communities to run programs for elderly citizens.
Critics say the provisions, inserted into several public health and social service bills at the urging of Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.), could lead to religious discrimination and excessive government entanglement with religion.
In one scenario, critics say, a church could force non-believers to worship in order to receive benefit checks.
Another piece of legislation, known as the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act, also contains a provision that could have religious liberty implications.
Modeled closely after one of the planks in the Christian Coalition’s “Contract With the American Family,” the legislation would, among other things, give parents a kind of veto power over the curricula of public schools — a proposal troubling to many Jewish activists.
“It’s incumbent upon us to stress that some of these initiatives, even though they’re packaged benignly, are really very serious,” said Richard Foltin, legislative director and counsel of the American Jewish Committee.
In what some say constitutes a new tactic in the church-state battle, some lawmakers have turned their immediate focus away from highly contentious issues such as school prayer, vouchers and a religious equality amendment.
Instead, activists say, they are looking toward less prominent legislative channels to advance their agenda.
“It’s very smart politics,” said Reva Price, associate director of B’nai B’rith’s Center for Public Policy.
“Instead of going for big, broad change like the religious equality amendment,” lawmakers instead are focusing on “little pieces that chip away” at the Establishment Clause, the constitutional provision that mandates the separation of church and state.
Two proposed constitutional amendments on religious equality have so far been bogged down by disputes, but could re-emerge in coming months. They would, among other things, bring prayer into America’s schools and require government to fund religious activities on the same terms that it funds secular activities.
Opponents say that any such amendment would effectively overturn the First Amendment and undo the careful balance that protects Americans against government coercion and endorsement of religion.
Voicing apprehension about the religious agenda some lawmakers have been trying to advance, several leading Jewish and Christian civil liberties groups sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) earlier this month, urging him to honor the constitutional separation of church and state.
“Religion that is promoted or sponsored by the government — however well- intentioned — is usually contrived, commonly watered down and always unconstitutional,” they wrote.
The current challenges to the principle of separating church and state are not a new phenomenon.
As Stern of AJCongress said, “The Establishment Clause has never been wildly popular among legislators.”
What is new, said Julie Segal, legislative counsel for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, is the focus on congressional appropriations.
Much of the pending legislation, she said, is “flagrantly intended to turn over government funding to religious institutions.”
The outlook for the pending bills remains unclear. Because it is an election year, some observers say the Republican leadership may well force votes on some of the more contentious church-state issues in order to allow lawmakers to go on record on these matters.
“Any one or all can be brought up in the waning days of Congress when people aren’t paying as much attention, or there’s so much going on that the attention is diverted,” Segal said.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
