When speaking to general audiences, Bush and his supporters claim that the faith-based programs are designed to ensure that qualified religious groups can deliver secular social services. When speaking to religious audiences, the same people emphasize how those groups transform people's lives with religion. Why the difference? Because it's illegal to fund the latter with public money.
Americans United comments:
Towey repeated several administration canards, insisting that faith-based groups that take taxpayer money won't be permitted to engage in proselytism, even though the federal government had no mechanism to block such activity and it has in fact been uncovered in faith-based programs that have sparked legal challenges. Yet even as he denied that the programs engage in proselytism, Towey bragged about how the initiative is helping religious groups do "life-transforming work" in America.
So which is it? Are faith-based group using tax dollars to merely provide secular services, or are they changing people's lives through religious transformation? Bush and Towey have been engaged in this semantic sleight of hand for four years now, insisting that groups not use the money to preach yet lauding them for converting people. And they wonder why civil libertarians are alarmed.
Bush administration operatives have also been accused of using the faith-based initiative for partisan ends. During the 2004 campaign, Republican campaign boosters frequently held out the possibility of federal funding as a lure for African-American pastors. The former director of the White House faith-based office, John DiIulio, complained after he resigned that the White House's political arm ran the initiative.
Bush and his supporters have been telling people two different stories, depending on whom they are speaking to. They know that what they are doing is legally dubious at best and wouldn't be widely supported if the full story were told. Telling two different stories is the only means they have for getting around the ethical, legal, and political obstacles.
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