January 29, 2001 - December 12, 2002: Bush Issues Executive Orders Allowing Faith-Based Aid Providers to Proselytize Aid Recipients

Habitat for Humanity logo. [Source: Habitat for Humanity]President Bush issues two executive orders establishing a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and ordering five cabinet-level departments to establish similar centers inside their own bureaucracies. Bush explains the need for such offices: to remove the internal rules and regulations that prevented churches and synagogues from obtaining government grants for welfare work such as building homeless shelters, addiction treatment centers, and soup kitchens. Many faith-based groups such as Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army receive millions of government dollars already, but to do so they must obey strict rules for keeping church and state separate: no proselytizing in the same facilities used for taxpayer-funded work, no discrimination against people of different faiths. Bush calls those rules discriminatory against religious groups. To allow the new faith-based offices to reshape the bureaucracy’s behavior, the White House needs to change the federal rules about who can receive taxpayer funds. It sends Congress a bill allowing religious groups to receive taxpayer funds even if they discriminate against people of other faiths, and even if they want to deliver their services in a religious context. Critics call the bill an attempt to establish government-sanctioned religious practices, and say it violates the constitutional wall between church and state. Congress refuses to even bring the bill to a vote. Instead, Bush issues an executive order instructing the bureaucracy to make the changes anyway. With Republicans in charge of both the House and Senate, Congress does not object, and the order stands. Now, faith-based groups can require aid recipients to listen to sermons, view symbols, and even participate in prayer and other religious observances. In 2004, Bush will boast of his actions: “I got a little frustrated in Washington because I couldn’t get the bill passed out of Congress. Congress wouldn’t act, so I signed an executive order—that means I did it on my own.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 289-291]