Bush Champions Sectarian Child Care and Voluntary Prayer in the Schools

President Bush vowed Monday to oppose child-care legislation that prevents parents receiving federal funds from enrolling their children in sectarian programs.

“I will not see the option of religious-based child care eliminated or restricted,” Bush said in a speech to 3,200 people at the 47th annual convention of National Religious Broadcasters.

Bush, who has spoken to the largely Evangelical group three times previously, reiterated several of his longstanding positions on such issues as school prayer and abortion.

“There is no denying that America is a religious nation,” Bush said. “While God can live without man, man cannot live without God.”

Last year, both houses of Congress gave initial approval to child-care legislation. But it was scrapped by lawmakers late in the session, along with a proposed cut in the capital gains tax.

Both versions of the bill would have allowed federal funds to be used for religious-based child-care programs, which pleased Orthodox Jewish groups but disturbed most other Jewish groups.

Bush told the broadcasters that he wants to “ensure that parents, not bureaucrats, are the ones who decide how to care for these children.”

Bush has previously said he wants parents seeking child-care services to receive tax credits and has threatened to veto legislation that does not follow that approach.

SPEAKS OUT AGAINST ABORTION

On other church-state issues, the president said he continues to support “a belief held by the overwhelming majority of Americans, the right to voluntary school prayer.”

He added that he supports a constitutional amendment restoring voluntary prayer. “We need the faith of our fathers back in our schools,” Bush said.

Bush did not discuss another church-state concern of Jewish groups, that of the use of school grounds after the school day by religious groups.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a case originally brought by a Nebraska high-school student that may decide the constitutionality of such activity, referred to as “equal access” to school premises.

On abortion, Bush said, “I support the sanctity of life.” He added that he supports policies that “encourage adoption, not abortion.”

On the separation between church and state, Bush said that since its founding, “America has endorsed, properly so, the separation of church and state, and it has also shown how religion and government can co-exist.”

Bush also said that religious figures have been influential worldwide in effecting recent change. For example, he spoke of South Africa and the Philippines, “where the values of church leaders have been a force for democratic change.”

In the early 1980s, the Rev. Billy Graham, whom Bush called “one of the Lord’s great ambassadors,” made a historic trip to Eastern Europe.

Upon returning, Graham “spoke of a movement there toward more religious freedom,” said Bush. “Perhaps he saw it before many of us. Because it takes a man of God to sense the early movement of the hand of God,” the president said.

SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL URGED

Bush also mentioned that the Soviet Union last year allowed “the first nationwide gathering of Jews since the fall of the czar,” as well as the first broadcast of Christmas songs on radio since 1946.

The convention continues through Wednesday, when the Religious Roundtable will hold its ninth national “Christian Prayer Breakfast in Honor of Israel.”

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese will be the special guest at the 7 a.m. event. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp is to be recognized at the breakfast as a “Christian statesman friend of Israel.”

The proclamation issued at this year’s breakfast refers tp Jews as “the chosen people of God.”

It also decries “a renewed and growing anti-Semitism within America, as well as in other nations,” and it expresses concern about “clear indications of a decline of support for Israel in our political, national and media institutions.”

The proclamation urges breakfast attendees to make support of Israel a “high priority.”