Title

The Faith Based and Community Initiative and the Challenge Posed by the Establishment Clause

Abstract

This article examines the Faith Based and Community Initiative established by President George W. Bush. The main inquiry in this piece is whether direct government funding a religious organization, in the context of providing social services, violates the Establishment Clause. On the one hand, if the government funds a secular service, the fact that a religious charity is the service provider does not render the arrangement unconstitutional. However, if state funds are directly financing purely sectarian activities, the government’s actions are no longer constitutional.

This article begins the analysis by considering the circumstances surrounding President Bush’s establishment of the Faith-Based and Community Initiative and by considering how the program operates. The article next discusses the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence. The analysis also highlights a group of opinions in which courts considered whether state funds may directly support religious organizations in their efforts to provide social services and draws from these decisions a basic framework to which all parties involved with state-church partnerships should look. Finally, the article concludes with speculation regarding the future of Establishment Clause jurisprudence in the context of church-state partnerships.

 
This document is currently not available here.
COinS