President Bush's desire to have the federal government pay for religious programs has cost the federal government more than a billion dollars so far.

Alan Cooperman writes for the Washington Post:

Big increases were reported by the departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development. HHS said it gave $568 million in grants to 680 faith-based organizations in fiscal 2003, a 41 percent jump in the number of recipients and a 19 percent rise in dollars from the prior year. HUD reported $532 million in grants to 765 faith-based groups, a 16 percent increase in recipients and an 11 percent increase in dollars.

The White House also said faith-based groups received about $51 million in competitive grants from the Justice Department, $11 million from the Labor Department and $7 million from the Education Department in fiscal 2003. But it did not reveal how those amounts compared with the previous year's. Towey said he sought "the most conservative figures possible" by excluding federal funds that reach religious-affiliated groups through block grants to state and local governments.

Imagine if all or even just most of that money were going to organizations which were permitted to discriminate against both employees and aid recipients on the basis of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Imagine if the organizations receiving those funds were allowed to proselytize to aid recipients, even require that they go through religious instruction or conversion before getting the government assistance due them.

That's the sort of world envisioned by President George W. Bush: where American citizens are treated unequally, based upon religious criteria - even when it comes to government assistance they are entitled to receive. Can anyone aside from bigots and theocrats think of this as a good idea?

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