Mark Fiore: Bush's proposal needs a retooling

When President Bush announced in January that Political Science Professor John DiIulio would head the newly created Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Bush opined that "compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government." Now that DiIulio has returned to Penn after his recent resignation, it has sadly and frustratingly become evident that little compassion exists in Bush's initiative in its current form, or in the debate over the initiative.

Indeed, many senators, who have yet to consider the legislation, have declared that the initiative is dead on arrival. DiIulio's resignation should serve as a warning to President Bush: he must retool his initiative for there to be any hope that it will go forward.

It was not supposed to be this way for the president's beleaguered effort to call the "armies of compassion" into action. When Bush announced the faith-based initiative, he envisioned a government program allowing religious organizations to compete on equal footing with secular organizations for funding -- funding that could greatly benefit some of America's most troubled neighborhoods and individuals.

Rightly so, the president believed that faith-based organizations could serve a vital role in bringing hope to those who most need it. Indeed, for many Americans, spirituality is a significant basis for individual growth, reflection and, ultimately, enhancement.

Such spirituality does not necessarily require attending church every Sunday, praying every night, or engaging in any other traditional functions of religious institutions. While it means exactly that for many Americans, for many others, as Bush stated in January, it refers to individuals, "who have heard the universal call to love a neighbor like they'd like to be loved themselves; to exist and work hard, not out of the love of money but out of the love of their fellow human beings."

On its face, efforts to bring renewed emphasis on such a philosophy into governmental funding programs deserve nothing but praise. This nation greatly suffers from a lack of respect for individuals, from a profound dearth of accountability and from a ceaseless abdication of personal morals.

As DiIulio discovered, however, the president's faith-based initiative has suffered from so many setbacks and criticisms that its broader goals have become either overshadowed or poorly defined. Much of the blame for that result rests squarely on the White House.

From the get-go, the Bush administration has failed to articulate how the president's initiative would be implemented. Beyond vague utterances, Americans know little of which organizations will be funded and for what purposes. As a result, disparate organizations ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to a handful of religious groups have lobbed attacks at the White House.

At the same time, the administration has caused great alarm among much of mainstream America by using harsh rhetoric implying that the administration would, if it had its way, fund religious organizations for religious purposes.

Most recently, in August, the White House released a report indicating that religious organizations have been discriminated against in funding for their work. In announcing the report's findings, the president set up the situation as an "us versus them" battle: "We now see exactly what kind of obstacles stand in the way of a more compassionate America."

Not only does such language unnecessarily raise the level of tension; its emphasis on compassion contradicts certain particularly objectionable features of Bush's initiative. Indeed, reports surfaced over the summer that the White House was considering a federal regulation that would protect religious organizations like the Salvation Army from having to hire homosexuals or provide domestic partner benefits. The House version of the initiative, which passed in July, includes an amendment to that effect.

If the president is serious about compassion, such features simply cannot stand. The White House report finding that religious organizations had been discriminated against in government funding is titled "Unlevel Playing Field." The playing field may, indeed, be unlevel, but it's sloping in more than one direction.

Should the president hope to level that field, he must clearly articulate how his initiative will work, provide clear guidelines for how religious organizations may use their funding and ensure that compassion exists for all Americans, whether they be homeless or not, gay or not, spiritual or not. It will take much longer than the seven months DiIulio spent in Washington to take those steps.

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