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Thursday, October 12, 2006

"Faith-Based" Initiative Office Used For GOP Campaigns

David Kuo, a former staffer in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has written a book, "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," that outlines how the "faith based" initiative program was used to help GOP candidates. Disturbingly, the book holds claims that applications for federal faith-based funds were sometimes rejected because they were not Christian, despite White House officials insisting that money would be available to all religious groups.

“This is proof that the faith-based initiative was a deplorable sham from day one,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director. “This initiative was never about helping the poor; it was about shameless partisan politicking. It has undercut the constitutional separation of church and state, and it has been horrible public policy.

The book also asserts that Republican leaders in 2002 and 2004 held these supposed nonpartisan events, often along with Republican candidates, in states and districts with close races to discuss with religious leaders how they could get federal funds.,

Kuo says faith-based office staffers spent a lot of their time trying to prove that religious groups were often denied federal funds because they discriminated in hiring on religious grounds. In fact, staffers were able to find few examples of such conduct. That absence of such evidence dramatically undercuts the Bush administration’s demand that Congress revise civil rights law so that religious groups will be better able to apply for funds.