[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 87 (Thursday, June 21, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3452-H3463]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rehberg). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the subject I want to address tonight is one 
that has been in the news a lot lately, and a lot of people are 
confused and many Members of Congress are confused. I want to review 
some of the basics, and that is about the faith-based initiative or the 
so-called Community Solutions Act that will be marked up presumably 
next week in the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Ways 
and Means, as well as hopefully brought to the House floor right after 
the July 4th break.
  This is an area that has, as I said, a lot of controversy in it, a 
lot of conflict in it, and at the same time is so basic to how we are 
going to deliver social services and how we might address the problems 
of the United States that it is absolutely essential.
  I would like to go into a little bit of overview as to what all of 
the fuss is about and why so many people are talking about faith. One 
would think from some of the media coverage this is a brand new idea 
discovered by President Bush and it was never talked about before in 
American history. In fact, it has been part of the United States from 
the very beginning. It has just been in recent years that we have 
tended to deny this.
  The Pilgrims came here because they wanted to practice freedom of 
their faith. The Catholics in Maryland came because they wanted freedom 
for their faith.
  The Quakers in Pennsylvania came to the United States because they 
wanted freedom to practice their faith. We have seen multiple revivals 
in American history, when George Whitfield came through and it swept 
through America right through the American Revolution, the Wesley 
brothers came and settled in south Georgia and then moved up the United 
States, and there was another evangelical revival.
  On Monday on the House floor there is a proposal to build a memorial 
to John Adams and John Quincy Adams and Abigail Adams, but particularly 
focusing on John Adams.
  The current second best-selling book in the United States by David 
McCullough, if you read that book, at the very beginning, it talks 
about how John Adams was raised in a religious family, and his father 
was a minister, and how John Adams initially started as a 
schoolteacher, and his dad wanted to be a minister. And it was only 
after deciding to become an attorney that he decided not to become a 
minister himself.
  At the very end of that book when John Adams is giving advice, he 
says, ``Walk humbly and serve God.'' John Adams, from the beginning, 
the middle, and the end was a very religious man.
  But it was not just John Adams. John Quincy Adams' son who died in 
Statutory Hall, which used to be the old House Chamber, his last words 
were that he was ready to meet his maker and he was ready to go to 
heaven. He wrote a special book for his son giving him advice from the 
Bible and telling him how to avoid all of the perils of the European 
culture when he was over in Europe.

                              {time}  2045

  But it was not just the Adams family. Even those who were the least 
religious in the founding of our American Republic, arguably Thomas 
Jefferson and Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson was concerned enough about 
it that he did his own, in my belief, a phony Bible; but he took many 
of the teachings of the Bible with it because he believed it was a 
historic and important document for America's faith.
  Ben Franklin repeatedly called on Congress at the very time when we 
were supposedly debating about the separation of church and state, 
right after they passed the religious liberty amendment Ben Franklin 
was among those who called and passed a resolution saying Jesus Christ 
was the one and only son of God and was the saviour of mankind.
  Ben Franklin also had George Whitfield, probably the greatest 
evangelist ever to come to America, at his

[[Page H3453]]

home; and Ben Franklin was not, in my terms, a particularly religious 
man, but he understood the power and importance of faith to America and 
how it was so integrated in our culture, and he at least understood the 
power of faith.
  We also saw that evolve. If Jefferson and Franklin were kind of the 
least religious of our Founding Fathers, we had the founders of the 
America Bible Society in our early Continental Congress, in our early 
Congresses. Most of the people in those Congresses were divinity school 
graduates.
  Even when you look here in the House Chambers, and it will not be 
able to be seen on C-SPAN, but there are lawgivers all around this 
Chamber from Rome, from Greece and so on. All their heads on this side 
are turned that direction. On this side, they are turned that 
direction. There is only one facing towards Congress. It is Moses, 
Moses of Bible fame, who looks straight down on the chairman. Behind 
the chairman, it says, ``In God We Trust.''
  So when we talk about separation of church and state, let us do not 
get too cute here. We have Moses looking down on us every time we 
debate this, with ``In God We Trust'' behind us.
  What does this have to do with what we are talking about in public? 
It is because we have increasingly in America tried to deny this 
heritage and separate and act as though somehow we are not rooted in 
that and the people are not rooted in that, whereas the people in 
America are still a religious people; but the government has in effect 
tried to impose a secular alternative on this.
  Let me look at the role of faith in social services. In fact, if 
religious organizations had not stepped in in the education field, all 
of our major universities were religious universities to begin with. 
They are not now, but Harvard and Princeton and Yale, all of these 
universities were founded as religious universities. All the major 
social organizations, hospitals, child abuse, juvenile centers, all of 
these things in America were religiously founded.
  The book ``Tragedy of American Compassion,'' by Dr. Marvin Olasky, is 
a brilliant exposition of how we went from a basic religious-based 
provider of social services to the government taking over most of those 
options.
  Now we had a terrible Depression. There were other things that were 
occurring as well, but he highlights how some of it has been a 
substitution of character mixing with private charity and helping 
others to a government takeover of social services initiatives.
  I commend all of Dr. Olasky's books to us. He has a great book on 
compassionate conservatism that is probably the best single book out on 
that subject right now. He has several books on leadership and some of 
the American heritage to understand the mixing of how faith was so 
important in our country.
  Going back to the social service providers, what has happened is 
government has taken over more of the social service providing. They do 
not have the character mix. I am not saying government employees are 
not committed, but they are not going to stay there in the evening. 
They often will move back to their suburbs rather than live and work in 
the communities where the problems actually are. It is a different type 
of commitment. It is not leveraged with private funds.
  On top of that, what it has done it has absolved the rest of us from 
our obligations to help those who are hurting and those who have 
problems. We say now it is the government's business. It is partly 
because our Tax Code is high and partly because we see all of these 
billions of dollars being spent in the social programs; therefore we do 
not have to do it. But let us not kid ourselves. Part of this is an 
excuse. It covers our selfishness, and we have allowed the government 
to step in and provide social services that are really our 
responsibility as well.
  I am not saying there is not a government role. Obviously, a safety 
net is needed; but it can be a supplemental role. President Bush is not 
proposing to have government replaced. He is proposing to have an 
additional add-on and to add the hearts and compassion of the America 
people on top of our tax money that is going to this. That is what we 
are trying to do with this, is to expand the base of how we do social 
services.

  I want to read a couple of examples from World Magazine of which Dr. 
Olasky, who I referred to earlier, was one of the original founders. 
World Magazine is probably the best of the evangelical publications 
now. It is kind of like a Time Magazine for Christians, for lack of a 
better word. This week's issue, June 16, has a feature on compassionate 
conservatism and particularly looking at a lot of things related to 
this initiative of President Bush.
  One of the articles is on Teen Challenge, and let me read a little 
bit about this. Then I am going to relate these into the larger 
question of how faith-based organizations and community solutions work. 
Quote, ``Just tell them it is a spiritual bootcamp,'' responds the man 
who runs the Teen Challenge. It is a 4-month induction phase to the 12-
month Teen Challenge program. The New Orleans center serves as the 
ground level, weed-out program that grabs drug users off the street and 
incubates them in Biblical teaching. Those who stay off drugs and 
complete daily Bible lessons receive gold stamp certificates and a bus 
ticket to another 8-month training center that offers intensive Bible 
study and job skill training. Only 20 percent of the residents who 
enter the Teen Challenge program graduate after 12 months. Of those 
graduates, 86 percent remain drug-free 7 years after graduation, 
according to a study done by the National Institute of Drug Abuse in 
1975 and later confirmed by university studies in 1994 and 1999.
  ``At this place, we deal with the problem of sin, not its effects,'' 
says Mr. Pallitta. The only way to change sin is through the 
deliverance power of Jesus Christ.
  We had Teen Challenge at one of our committee hearings. They are one 
of the only programs that have been steadily audited by different 
groups who cannot believe their success rate because we are told, you 
mean clean for 7 years? That is amazing compared to our drug programs.
  It is a difficult question because it is clearly an overtly Christian 
program. How do we deal with that in this Community Solutions Act and 
the faith-based initiative? That is part of what I am going to talk 
about as I develop tonight's Special Order.
  Now here is another story. This one is in Dallas, a crime-infested 
area in Dallas. It says, ``We use Biblical principles to help children 
develop leadership skills,'' he said, explaining that there are no 
neighborhoods or parks in the area; just 10,000 apartment units that 
often host drug gangs and prostitution rings. These children are 
exposed to so much. Everything you would not want your child to see is 
right outside in the parking lot. It says that these children 
participate in community service programs, in a youth choir that 
performs at local nursing homes and malls. David Pruessner, a 45-year-
old lawyer volunteer who teaches chess, quote, ``You have to learn to 
develop a strategy and think ahead.'' During the summer, he gives group 
lessons to 20 students at a time using ten game boards and hand-made 
wall charts but teaching about God is at the center of the program, for 
Mr. Gaddis states that the gospel is the only thing that really changes 
lives.
  Now here is another story in this same issue of World Magazine on the 
Good Samaritan Center, actually Good Samaritan House in Orlando, or 
actually Sarasota, Florida. It says, at the Good Samaritan House, ``The 
right direction begins with a set of simple, nonnegotiable rules.'' 
Residents must remain alcohol and drug free and accompany Mr. Cooley to 
church and Bible study weekly. They must secure a full-time job or work 
as day laborers at a local temporary agency until they find permanent 
employment.
  GSH residents must pay rent, $6 a night after their fifth free night 
of shelter. While they may spend a little money on personal needs, the 
men must save much of their earnings with the goal of becoming 
economically independent of this house. The rules include in bed by 
10:00; no foul language; no fighting; and no women, presumably at least 
outside of marriage.
  I wanted to illustrate some of these examples because you can see 
that many of these groups are effective. How does this relate to the 
government and how do we work through this question of religious 
liberty in America, because it is illegal to use taxpayer dollars to do 
proselytization or to do direct, overt funding of Christian activities 
or any other religious activities

[[Page H3454]]

 with taxpayer dollars. It is unconstitutional.
  So how do we work through these? What would you think, from many 
people's criticism of this program, is that this is the type of thing 
that we are directly funding and we are directly funding the 
proselytization, but that is not the case.
  Let me walk through a little bit first some of the legal questions. 
David Ackerman at the Congressional Research Service has probably done 
the most work on this subject. His most recent is April 18, 2001, 
analyzing this charitable choice part of the debate. There are three 
parts to this that I want to illustrate in this section.
  The first is what is happening now. As he says in this document, that 
in the past, because contrary to public impression many faith-based 
organizations, hundreds and thousands of them, currently are involved 
in government. So what is this debate about? Well, the debate is that, 
as he says, these organizations have in the past generally required 
programs operated by religious organizations that receive public 
funding in the form of grants or contracts to be essentially secular in 
nature, essentially secular in nature. That means, for example, 
religious symbols and art had to be removed; religious worship 
instruction and proselytizing have been forbidden. Therefore, they are 
not really when they are doing these religious organizations anymore. 
So many religious organizations do not even apply to do social service 
work in any government grant program because they basically have to 
become, as is stated here, essentially secular in nature.
  So what is the President proposing to do, and what are we going to 
look at here in the House? People think of it as just this charitable 
choice, but it is to help States set up their own versions of faith-
based and community initiatives. It is to help implement the charitable 
choice measures. It is to help pilot programs in this, but it is also a 
whole series of tax initiatives including giving nonitemizers the right 
to claim charitable deductions; to permit tax-free withdrawals from 
IRAs; to have individual development accounts; to encourage States to 
adopt charitable gift tax credits; to increase the charitable donation 
from corporations to 10 to 15 percent. It is a series of tax incentives 
as well, and then also technical assistance to small community and 
faith-based organizations.
  So are those things unconstitutional?
  Now what David Ackerman writes, and this is the fundamental kind of 
guts of the argument, he says, more particularly, the Supreme Court now 
appears to interpret the establishment clause in a manner that does not 
automatically disqualify pervasively sectarian institutions from 
participating in direct aid programs and perceives them as able to 
honor restrictions to secular use even without intrusive government 
monitoring. But the court's revised interpretation still requires that 
direct aid be limited to secular use by recipient organizations and the 
court has left open the possibility that other limitations may apply as 
well. Moreover, all of the justices have expressed doubt that direct 
money grants to pervasively religious entities can pass constitutional 
muster.
  The standards governing indirect aid, however, do not appear to have 
changed. Some aspects of the charitable choice proposals that have been 
enacted seem to satisfy these requirements. The provisions do not give 
religious institutions any special entitlement public aid but simply 
require that they be considered eligible on the same basis as 
nonreligious institutions.
  In addition, they all bar the use of public aid for sectarian 
worship, instruction and proselytization; i.e. they require that the 
aid be used only for secular purposes. Then it is constitutional.
  What we have been working through the last week in particular is some 
concerns regarding the original drafting of the bill and whether it met 
these constitutional questions.
  Now let me illustrate some of the types of things that we are working 
with. To give you an example, there was a report that an official of 
the Department of Housing and Urban Development wrote to the bishop in 
charge of the St. Vincent de Paul Housing Center in San Francisco 
asking them to rename the building the Mr. Vincent de Paul Center 
because they got a government grant. That is how ridiculous some of 
this is getting.
  In another case that was reported in the Washington Post January 28, 
2001, in a George Will column, a city agency notified the local branch 
of the Salvation Army that it could be awarded a contract to help the 
homeless only on the condition that the organization remove the word 
``salvation'' from its name.
  Now those are extreme cases, but more generally the problem has 
become, as Dr. Amy Sherman has said, charitable choice, most important 
effect thus far, is that it made the collaboration plausible for those 
within government and the faith community who had previously assumed 
such partnering was somehow outside the bounds of constitutionality 
under their misguided interpretation of the first amendment.
  In other words, much of this has not been unconstitutional. It is 
that people did not realize it was constitutional. So that was kind of 
attempting to address some of the constitutional questions.
  Now let me explain and review again this mix of what we are trying to 
do with the Community Solutions Act.
  First, and this is first because it is the most dollars and the most 
important, it is not government. It is the private sector.
  Secondly, it is tax incentives, because the best way to help the 
private sector is to encourage more charitable giving. Then we do not 
have the debate about whether or not government is involved or not, and 
there are more dollars than the government will have in it.

                              {time}  2100

  Thirdly, it is technical assistance for small communities and 
churches. There are lots of Hispanic and black churches in urban 
American that have 15 to 50 people in them. They do not have CPAs and 
accountants in their churches. They do not know how and when the 
government grants are coming. They need technical assistance, so, one, 
they do not get sued, and, secondly, so they can figure out how to be 
eligible for the grants.
  Then we come to charitable choice. Let me go through each of those a 
little bit in particular here. First let me deal with the question of 
corporate philanthropy. This has become highlighted because of a speech 
that President Bush gave at the University of Notre Dame, as a graduate 
I would have to say arguably the best university in the United States.
  But he chose that to address the question of why corporations have 
not been allowing, they do not allow their corporations to give to 
faith-based. In other words, we can complain about government, but Dr. 
Michael Joyce, who has been a leader in a lot of these things, Michael 
Joyce was with the Bradley Foundation and is now working with the 
Capital Research Center and other groups, and he is the person who 
called this to the attention of President Bush.
  Listen to some of our biggest corporations in America and their 
standard for corporate giving, and then we can talk about the problem 
of faith-based, but let us first look at what is happening in the 
private sector. When the government starts to separate faith, but it is 
even the private sector that separates.
  General Motors, number one in corporate giving, declares 
contributions are ``generally not provided to religious 
organizations.''
  The Ford Motor Company fund, the number three corporation, ``as a 
general policy does not support the following religious or sectarian 
programs for religious purposes. That is in the same undesirable 
category as animal rights organizations or beauty or talent contests.''
  So Ford and General Motors do not allow their funding to go to faith-
based organizations.
  The fourth largest, Exxon-Mobil, explains, ``we do not provide funds 
for political or religious causes.'' That is not exactly true, since 
the company touts its support of environmentalists, advocacy groups for 
women and groups performing ``public research.'' But no money for 
faith-based organizations.
  But IBM, the number six corporation, ``does not make corporate 
donations or grants from corporate philanthropic

[[Page H3455]]

fund to individuals, political, labor religious or fraternal 
organizations or sports groups,'' and many faith-based groups also have 
trouble with the last two words of IBM's ban which says that they will 
not give any money to organizations that discriminate, for example, on 
gender and sexual orientation, which means faith-based organizations 
like the Catholic church that do not allow female priests or any 
religion, which is most major religions, including Christianity, 
traditional orthodox Judaism, Muslims, on homosexuality. So they are 
ruled out because they have ``discrimination.''
  So we have General Motors, Ford, Exxon-Mobil, IBM, saying no 
donations to faith-based groups. No wonder we are having a problem with 
faith-based groups getting funded. As Michael Joyce told the President, 
according to this article, ``I said the President is both the President 
of the government, but also President of the Nation. There is a huge 
private sector that spends billions emulating what the government 
does.'' So our lack and kind of our trying to separate ourselves from 
faith has resulted in the private sector also separating themselves 
from faith.
  Now one of our colleagues here, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Green), has developed legislation which I am thrilled to cosponsor, and 
I praise him for his initiative, to try to have Congress go on record 
saying this is wrong out of the private sector. We need the private 
sector and the corporate sector leading in the effort to try to get 
more money to the people who are effective at the grassroots or 
actually changing people's lives.
  Now, the second part of this is the tax incentives. I was in an 
earlier life in the eighties the Republican staff director of the House 
Committee on Children, Youth and Families, when Dan Coats was the 
ranking member, former Congressman and Senator.
  We came to the conclusion after looking at so many of the problems in 
the United States that there was going to be a limitation on how far 
the Federal Government and even state governments and local governments 
are going to be able to go in assisting in solving our tremendous 
problems in this country, and that the best way to achieve this was 
going to be through faith-based organizations and the best way to 
achieve that was going to be through assisting in the Tax Code.
  Let me give you an illustration. It does not matter whether the state 
has a Republican Governor or a Democratic Governor or who controls this 
Congress. We have not increased funds outside of education for most of 
the social problems in America to keep up with the problems of child 
abuse, with runaways.
  There is not a probation department in America that does not realize 
that their caseload per probation officer is increasing. In Indiana, we 
are now entering, I think it is our 13th year of Democratic governors, 
and we have seen more money for education, but not for rehabilitation, 
not for a lot of the family services, not for child abuse, not for how 
we deal with the people when they are in prisons and try to help them; 
that no matter which party you are at the state level, we are a little 
slow here in Washington, you are saying the only way we are going to be 
able to address these problems is if we can extend the government 
dollars and get the faith-based groups involved.
  The most direct way to do that, I have an act that we call the Give 
Act to try to increase the value of the charitable deduction. When I 
worked for Senator Coats, we developed the charitable tax credit. 
Senator Santorum and Senator Lieberman in the Senate have introduced 
this Community Solutions Act as a tax bill, and as I mentioned earlier, 
it is part of our Community Solutions Act in the House. Arguably the 
most important.
  Now, I am disappointed that we have cut back the President's proposal 
so much than the non-itemizers, but I understand we are under 
tremendous budget pressures. I am still enthusiastic about the bill. I 
will take whatever we can get.
  But I am disappointed that we were able to come up with tax cuts for 
other groups, but not where we really need it in a lot of the social 
programs where the people are hurting the most, and I hope we can 
continue to increase that over the number of years, and I hope the 
President will keep the pressure on in the Senate, and in the next few 
years to increase that if our surplus continues to come in the way it 
is.
  But the tax incentives and the private sector philanthropy, plus the 
efforts of Steve Goldsmith and now Les Linkowsky in a lot of 
everything, from AmeriCorps to a lot of the other public service 
things, in addition to the President's proposals in each department to 
see if the departments can look at how they can extend staff to help on 
faith-based, those are actually the biggest part and the most important 
part of the Community Solutions Act.
  The next part is this technical assistance question. We have $25 
million I believe in the bill to go to HHS. The President is also, I 
believe next week, having mayors in to talk about what they can do at 
the local level. We are encouraging states to set up initiatives.
  It does not all have to come out of Washington. Most of the best 
execution and the better ideas do not come out of Washington, they come 
up towards Washington. Part of this is how are we going to help? The 
fundamental thing we are trying to address here really is how do we 
help those who need the help most and what is the gap?
  One of the gaps is that we see at the grassroots level, even in the 
worst cases, as my friend Bob Woodson always points out, all you guys 
down there seem to do is focus on the failures. Why do you not focus on 
the successes?
  When you look at the successes, in the worst places, I got challenged 
once by Bob when I first came in as a staff director and he said, 
``Don't be a typical white guy who sits on your duff and pronounces 
what is wrong in our urban centers. Go in and talk to people who are 
successful and figure out what is working.''
  When I have been into Harlem and Brooklyn and inner-city L.A. and in 
Detroit and Washington and Baltimore and most of the major cities of 
the United States over the last 15 years as a staffer and Member and 
talked to people, in the worst places possible, there is always a 
success story there. There is always somebody who is not failing, who 
is succeeding. At least 40 percent, even in the worst cases, are 
succeeding.
  I remember one study by, I think it was David Farrington out of 
England, that if your parents are not married, one of them is gone from 
your home, they both have been in prison, they are both abusing drugs, 
neither are employed, and the chances of that child getting caught up 
in the juvenile delinquency system are only 33 percent. What happened 
to the other 67 percent?
  Well, usually they got involved in some sort of a mentoring and 
faith-based hook. The fact is that success stories are when there are 
two parents involved, or when there a faith-based mentor involved, or a 
church involved, and there is work. We know what the keys to success 
are. We have to build on those successes, rather than trying to 
reinforce the failures.
  Now, part of this is how do we help those little organizations? 
Pastor River's organization in Boston, they talk about how they have 
helped reduce the number of killings on the streets and so on, and you 
hear all these government programs bragging about it. But most 
government programs abandon that area and their neighborhoods in 
downtown Boston and the inner-city areas about 5:30 or 5 o'clock, maybe 
even at 4:30. The people who are left there are the people in the 
community and the churches.
  But they do not get the grants. How do they know between June 15 and 
June 30 there is a grant on juvenile delinquency? How do they have the 
time or knowledge to write out the grant proposals? What we do in small 
business? For example, when I was in my 2-year MBA program at Notre 
Dame, one of the things we did in small business was we went out as 
students, and part of our requirement was to go out and help people 
prepare the grant requests.
  We have microenterprise centers to help small businesses and start-up 
businesses get started in a lot of these communities to do that. Why do 
not we have that in social services? That is partly what the President 
is talking about in his compassion fund. That is partly what the 
President is talking about when he says the agencies need to help that.

[[Page H3456]]

  We need to have the creativity and the entrepreneurship and the 
reinforcement in the social areas if we are really serious about 
addressing the problems, like we do in trying to provide jobs for 
people. The two things go hand-in-hand. Part of the solutions are 
economic and part of them are in here.
  Broken families, you cannot educate somebody or you cannot educate a 
child if they are being beaten at home. If they are worried about 
whether their parents are going to get divorced, if they do not know 
where they are going to get their evening meal, it is pretty tough to 
educate them. It is a social problem and an economic problem, and we 
have to address both of themselves.
  I hope our universities, one of my dreams is that some of the 
universities would say, look, we are going to work with some tech 
centers, we are going to have our students spend some volunteer times 
in the communities helping these small groups figure out how to apply 
for some of the grants, how to raise the private money from the 
philanthropic groups as they become more sensitive to the need for 
faith-based organizations.
  So that is the technical assistance questions, because we have to 
come up with some creative ways to address that.
  Now let me move to the most controversial part, which is charitable 
choice. So the basic question is, if someone chooses to attend a faith-
based program, why should that be denied? That is really the 
fundamental question here. If you want to go in a drug treatment 
program and go to a faith-based program, why should that be denied?

  For example, if you want to go to Salvation Army center for the 
homeless, why should you be denied that, if you want to go to the 
rescue mission. If you have a child care program and you want to go to 
a Catholic sponsored child care center, this include a hospice for the 
elderly, respite care, housing for people dying or trying to recover 
from AIDS, programs for juvenile delinquents.
  If you want to go to a faith-based programs, why should you not be 
able to go to a faith-based program? Faith is a big part of most 
American's lives, whether it is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, 
whatever it is, why should you be denied, particularly at the time of 
your greatest crisis, any access to faith if you so desire?
  Let me go through some of the difficulties with this. As I said 
before, one of the questions is, can you use my money, for example, I 
am a committed evangelical Christian, can you use my money to fund a 
Muslim program? Quite frankly, I do not want to fund the teaching of 
the Koran, but the money cannot be used for proselytization, and if we 
are trying to figure out how to help somebody who is dying from AIDS 
and provide a hospice shelter for them or recovery center when other 
people will not care for them, and they are Muslim and they want to go 
to a faith-based organization, and I am not being forced into that, and 
they cannot use my money for proselytization, why should I care, if 
that is what is going to be most effective and what that person wants?
  Now, a key part of that, which is one of the things we have been 
battling about in this bill, is you have to have a choice. Let me give 
you a couple of illustrations with this.
  I have a son, Zachary, who is 7th grade moving into 8th grade. Let us 
say his junior high has an after-school program, and so many of us are 
used to thinking of it in a different way, so let me phrase it this 
way. Let us say that the group that wins the bid for the after-school 
program is Muslim.
  He comes home at night and tells me, hey, after we got started with 
the program we bowed down to Allah and had a prayer to Allah, and then 
a little later we had a study on the Koran.
  I call up the school and say, what in the world are you doing, 
putting my son in an after-school program where they are bowing down to 
Allah and studying the Koran? They say, oh, that part was done with 
private money, not with Federal money.
  Ha, I do not care. My son was in the middle of the program. You mean, 
he would have had to step out and have a big mess so he did not get up 
and embarrass himself in front of his friends? Look, if this is an 
after-school program and everybody is in there, you cannot mix it that 
way.
  But now what if there were two after-school programs? What if he had 
the option of which one he wanted to go to, and there was a secular 
option, why should not those kids who wanted a Muslim program be able 
to go to a Muslim program? Not really a very good reason why they 
cannot, but you do have to have the option or clearly it is 
unconstitutional in my opinion.
  Let me give you another illustration. A nutrition site, say, in Fort 
Wayne Indiana, not one of the more international cities of the world, 
but changing like the rest of the country. We have had a lot of influx 
of immigrants. Most people think, oh, Mexican and Central American 
Spanish-speaking people.
  No, we have a problem, because in some of our areas, a problem in the 
sense the fire department talked to me about language problems, but it 
was not about the Spanish language. It was about the fact we have had 
the largest population of dissident Burmese in the United States in 
Fort Wayne, and one of the housing complexes on the north side of town 
is about half Burmese. Interestingly, what Chief Davey was talking to 
me about was the other half roughly of this complex, which are Bosnian.

                              {time}  2115

  Now, if we put a nutrition site in Fort Wayne, Indiana; admittedly, a 
mostly Anglo, mostly Protestant and Catholic city, but in that area, if 
you do a nutrition site and it was faith-based it would probably either 
be Buddhist or Muslim. Now let us say you are a Christian in that 
neighborhood and the only nutrition site is either Buddhist or Muslim, 
you have a problem. But if you have a choice, which is critical to the 
faith-based option here, it is not a problem. If the Bosnians who come 
to Fort Wayne organize themselves, and I am not saying they do, but if 
they organize themselves around a Muslim church, or if the Buddhists 
are more comfortable with their faith in having something, say a 
respite care center that teaches the pacifistic and relaxing attributes 
of Buddhism and that is what they want for hospice care, and there is 
an alternative for the other people in the neighborhood, why is that 
wrong? It is part of their institutional strength of what a community 
builds upon. Faith cannot be separated from life for most people, 
regardless of what their faith is, somewhere around 80 to 90 percent of 
Americans of all types and all heritages and all religions.
  So one of the things is we clearly have to have a choice, but we have 
to understand, those of us who are in the majority, that we are not 
always going to be in the majority in a given neighborhood and that 
religious liberty means religious liberty. Now, one problem that some 
conservatives are having with this is that say, what do you mean a 
Buddhist group can be funded? Hey, that is what religious liberty is. 
If this organization is the best to address the problems of that 
community and people want to choose that, that means it can be Buddhist 
or Muslim. It does not just mean that Christian organizations are going 
to be funded in this bill; it means that any religious organization, as 
long as there is another provider, has the flexibility to do that, 
because faith means faith. It does not mean one kind of sectarian faith 
over another kind of sectarian faith. It has to be balanced. There has 
to be equal opportunity. And that goes in both directions.
  If I am saying that if you want to have a Christian program or a 
Jewish program or a Muslim program or a Buddhist program, and you have 
to have a secular alternative, you ought to also have the opportunity, 
if there is a secular program, to be able to opt out and choose a 
faith-based program. It goes in both directions. We keep hearing here 
how you cannot have people forced into a faith-based program. Well, 
they should not be forced into a secular program either if they want to 
opt out and take that choice, for example, in drug treatment.
  Now, one other thing that we have been debating here, and this is 
another very ticklish situation, is should the grants go directly to 
the church or should we set up 501(c)(3)s, meaning an independent 
entity much like Catholic charities or Catholic social services, 
Lutheran social services. Those are big

[[Page H3457]]

churches, big denominational setups. Okay. Now, let us take an African 
American church in inner city Philadelphia like one of our witnesses 
was that is small, maybe 70 people. How do they set up a 501(c)(3)? 
That is our technical assistance question, and this is a very difficult 
question, because we need to help them set up a 501(c)(3), and what I 
have become aware of as I have worked more with this issue and I have 
carried charitable choice bills to the floor now about four times, is 
we have to be very careful we do not suck the church into a very ill-
defined and increasingly changing court decisionmaking process on what 
constitutes the flexibility of religious freedom.
  Now, for example, the bottom line is I do not want to sink the church 
in the name of faith, and that could happen here if we are not careful, 
because there are very difficult questions. Would the church be covered 
by minimum wage laws? Some say of course it should be covered by 
minimum wage laws, but what does that mean? We have run into this with 
a number of religious children's homes. What it means is you get paid 
for 40 hours and if there is a problem at your home and the kids need 
help and your 40 hours is up and the church does not have more money to 
pay you, you have to leave, regardless of what the problem is, because 
you are not allowed to volunteer. That was meant to protect workers in 
the United States from corporations taking advantage of them and 
saying, okay, your 40 hours is done, now I need you to stay a little 
bit of overtime and we are not going to count it because we are not 
going to pay you. It was meant to protect workers, but it has never 
applied to churches, because many people in the churches are volunteers 
and working for the church. Probably there are very few church 
secretaries, very few church staffers who do not both get paid for a 
certain number of hours and then volunteer when there is a revival, 
volunteer to take kids to an amusement park. You cannot do that if you 
lose your religious exemption.
  Another tough question. As I mentioned earlier, some religions, some 
major religions, both in Protestant and in Catholic faiths and big 
parishes and churches believe in a very tough thing to say today, but 
in sex discrimination, they believe that in certain positions, there 
should not be male nuns, for example, and do they have the right to 
maintain their religious freedom. If the church gets sucked into that 
and gets government money, this is a tough, tough question.
  One of the most hotly debated subjects in America today is 
homosexuality, and many, many, if not most faiths, still believe that 
that is morally wrong. They have the right in America as a church to 
have that view. If we put government money directly into the church, we 
endanger them, depending on where the court moves, on this subject, if 
they have a 501(c)(3) as a separate entity that receives it. The 
clarity is still being sorted through, but the church mission itself 
will not be at risk.
  Now, the closer the 501(c)(3) is to a direct faith initiative; for 
example, Catholic schools basically are exempt also for the most part 
because of the religious exemption, because the mission of the school 
is very faith based. But the degree you move, for example, to an 
exercise class or if a church moves to say a Pepsi bottling plant, the 
farther they move away from their basic mission, the more they are 
covered by sex discrimination laws, minimum wage laws, and a very 
difficult one, hate crimes laws, because how we define that in America 
has become increasingly flexible and puts those who have strong views 
on certain moral issues in potential risk. These are crucial matters of 
religious freedom and how we draft this bill and move through is very 
important, because we do not want to destroy the church.
  Now, a fundamental question here is, and I would suspect that many 
churches will not apply. Nobody has to apply for a government grant. If 
any church is fearful that they could be drawn in, then do not apply. 
It is very simple. You do not have to get caught up in this. But I 
believe, as in multiple votes here generally speaking with a margin of 
about 290 Members supporting, it has ranged from probably 240 to 300 
and some, have supported charitable choice, because we believe that 
ultimately, it is going to be impossible to address the problems in 
this country without the help of faith-based initiatives, and I commend 
the President for his Community Solutions Act.
  Let me finish with two things. One is a further quote from Michael 
Joyce. It is an article about him, and I will insert the full article 
from World Magazine into the Record at the end of my remarks.
  Joyce says, ``Ordinary people understand this really well. We take 
human nature into account. We understand humans as they were wrought by 
God. These people wish to remake them,'' he means the government, ``and 
rearrange them. It is like that line in a Bob Marley song: `Don't let 
them rearrange you. That is why they fail.' ''.
  They are not accounting for the basic human emotions and needs and 
beliefs of the American people in many of these government programs.
  One of the most moving things that I have had happen to me in my life 
was the first time I visited Freddie Garcia and Juan Rivera at the 
Victory Life Temple program for drug addicts that they operate in San 
Antonio and now throughout Texas. Admittedly, this illustrates several 
things. This program would not be eligible for a direct government 
grant, period, because it is overtly faith. They would benefit from 
corporate philanthropy, they would benefit from the tax exemptions, but 
this is why so many of us feel that faith-based things have to be 
involved in any programs.
  I have just visited Johns Hopkins where they told me you could not go 
off crack cocaine without tremendous effort. I met in one day at least 
150 former addicts who went cold turkey because they gave their lives 
to Jesus Christ. I met them in housing complexes. I met them in 
churches. I met them in neighborhoods. It was extraordinary. They told 
me over and over, we were dealers. Generally speaking, when I would 
come into the different housing complexes or places where they were, 
they would say, can we get you a drink of water, and I would say either 
yes or no, depending on if it was a hot day in San Antonio, and they 
would say, can I tell you how I met Jesus Christ? I was lost and he 
turned my life around. They do not operate a drug treatment program, 
they operate a turn-your-life-around program which gets people off 
drugs. Nobody disputes that they have the best success record.
  Later that evening, after having met, like I say, 150 to 200 people, 
I was with Juan Rivera who was telling me his story, how he went cold 
turkey, and we were in this little building with the sandy streets 
around it, he talked about this tree where he first read the Bible and 
he was in his backyard, at the backyard of that, and I pictured kind of 
a woods and it was just one barren tree with sand everywhere, a little 
different than the Midwest, and he said how he just is so thankful 
because he was on multiple drugs, how his life was a mess, like many of 
the others had told me, and he said, I was going to be a dead man. He 
said, now my life has changed. And I said, I am really embarrassed, 
because I have had a great life and I am not thankful enough. And he 
said, you should be ashamed and I said, well, I really am ashamed. He 
said, my dream is that some day my kids can have the opportunity that 
you have.
  When we see people who are hurting in drug abuse and we see people 
who do not have opportunities; part of the reason we started government 
programs was in the area of AIDS because many people would not help 
people with AIDS because they thought they could catch it and only the 
churches went out because they were confident of their souls, so they 
were willing to take the risk, so they reached out, and that is partly 
how the government got involved in faith-based organizations, because 
only the Christians and the Buddhists were early on too, in the area of 
AIDS.
  Then in the area of the homeless. We do not have enough dollars for 
the homeless. Organizations like the Salvation Army and the rescue 
missions and churches reached out to the homeless. We are going to tell 
these people, because faith is mixed in, you do not even get the option 
of going to faith based?
  This has been a tragedy to watch how America went from Founding 
Fathers, from Congresses where we put Moses there and ``In God We 
Trust'' behind us, to the point where our major corporations in America 
will not even let

[[Page H3458]]

their contributions go to faith based; where we have to fight about the 
Tax Code, where we have to try to get help for faith based and people 
object. If there is a guarantee you have another option, and if there 
is a protection, that people would still oppose faith-based groups 
getting in. You either care about people and want to help them in every 
way possible.
  Mr. Speaker, I support the government programs that try to reach 
people, but we also need to strengthen our private sector. I hope that 
we can pass soon, and I am thrilled that President Bush has made this 
such a key part of his agenda, and I hope the House and Senate will 
have the courage to move forward with this.

                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                           Front-Line Reports

                           (By Marvin Olasky)

       One journalism newsletter complained recently that 
     reporters have overquoted me during this year's debate about 
     President Bush's faith-based initiative. I agree. Reporters 
     shouldn't be basing their stories on what Barry Lynn of 
     Americans United for Separation of Church and State says. 
     They shouldn't be basing their stories on what I say. They 
     should be going out into the field and talking with people 
     fighting poverty at the front lines.
       That's what WORLD is trying to do this year with stories of 
     four kinds--and over the next 22 pages you'll see examples of 
     each. The first kind illuminates the debates going on within 
     religious anti-poverty groups as they think through how to 
     respond to the faith-based initiative. As the following story 
     about Teen Challenge shows, evangelicals are not easily led, 
     and the questioning is intense and good.
       The second kind documents the perseverance of some social 
     entrepreneurs. Journalists not familiar with their activities 
     sometimes assume that the poor must wait on the lords of 
     government. The articles beginning on p. 76 show how 
     individuals--Mo Leverett in New Orleans, Ray and Carolyn 
     Cooley in Sarasota, and Vincent Gaddis in Dallas--have 
     created programs that inspire both those in need and 
     volunteers willing to help.
       The third variety extends the boundaries of compassionate 
     conservatism to areas sometimes seem as apart from it. The 
     day-to-day work of crisis pregnancy centers is probably the 
     clearest example of compassionate conservatism around: 
     Counselors suffer with individuals in need, working to save 
     bodies and souls. Our story on p. 84 tells more about the 
     major technological boost those counselors are now receiving.
       While we roam the countryside we try through a fourth kind 
     of story to cover the debate inside the Beltway, but even 
     there we want to go beyond the usual suspect themes. In that 
     vein we conclude this section with a look at visionary Mike 
     Joyce's battle to get corporate and foundation givers to drop 
     their frequent discrimination against religious groups.
                                  ____


                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                   Teen Challenge's Newest Challenge

                           (By Candi Cushman)

       ``If all you're looking for is an oil change, this isn't 
     the place. Because the oil will get dirty again,'' says dark-
     haired Enzo Pallitta, speaking with a thick New Jersey accent 
     and dramatic hand mannerisms. ``Listen closely,'' he says, 
     leaning over his desk and staring at his listener. ``This is 
     not just about getting clean. This is about changing your 
     lifestyle.''
       Mr. Pallitta isn't selling cars. But as an ex-heroin addict 
     turned Christian counselor, he doesn't mind high-pressuring 
     the addicts who walk through his door. ``I don't like to give 
     them time. I've seen so many guys walk out the door, get 
     shot, or pop a pill and overdose. I'm trying to reach them 
     before the cycle begins again.''
       After drifting through six secular treatment centers, Mr. 
     Pallitta broke his own cycle in 1995 by checking into Teen 
     Challenge, a Christian drug-rehabilitation program. Founded 
     40 years ago by a Pentecostal minister, Teen Challenge has 
     over 300 worldwide affiliates, including 147 U.S. chapters. 
     At the New Orleans affiliate, Mr. Pallitta and six other ex-
     addicts run a street-front operation in the heart of the 
     Ninth Ward ghetto. Their office--a weathered, two-story 
     clapboard home--faces a grungy concrete bar called Paradise 
     Lounge and rows of dilapidated wooden homes whose occupants 
     sit in metal chairs beneath brightly striped awnings.
       This morning's walk-in--a thin blond man in his late 20s 
     with long sideburns and bleary eyes--slumps in a chair across 
     from Mr. Pallitta and stares at the wall. He can't seem to 
     kick his six-year heroin habit, he says, and his parents 
     don't know how to help him. ``I stayed away from it for five 
     days, but I crashed this weekend. . . . I need help, but I'm 
     worried my dad won't like this place. He wanted me to go to a 
     boot camp.''
       ``Just tell him it's a spiritual boot camp,'' responds Mr. 
     Pallitta. As the four-month ``induction phase'' to the 12-
     month Teen Challenge program, the New Orleans center serves 
     as a ground-level, weed-out program that grabs drug users off 
     the street and incubates them in biblical teaching. Those who 
     stay off drugs and complete daily Bible lessons receive gold-
     stamped certificates and a bus ticket to another eight-month 
     ``training center'' that offers intensive Bible study and 
     job-skills training.
       Only 20 percent of residents who enter the Teen Challenge 
     program graduate after 12 months. Of those graduates, 86 
     percent remain drug free seven years after graduation, 
     according to a study done by the National Institute of Drug 
     Abuse in 1975 and later confirmed by university studies in 
     1994 and 1999. ``At this place we deal with the problem--
     sin--not its effect,'' says Mr. Pallitta. ``And the only 
     way to change sin is through the deliverance power of 
     Jesus Christ.''
       Drug addicts aren't the only ones undergoing change at Teen 
     Challenge. As a poster child for President Bush's faith-based 
     initiative, the organization has received unprecedented media 
     attention in recent months, and as name recognition increases 
     so does scrutiny. Critics note that many staff members are 
     ex-addicts whose only degree is a Teen Challenge certificate. 
     That, worries the liberal group People for the American Way, 
     ``could nullify state regulations for substance abuse 
     professionals by requiring states to recognize religious 
     education as equivalent to any secular course work.''
       The complaint marks the latest round of volleys fired at 
     President Bush's efforts to allow faith-based social-service 
     programs to compete for federal funding. At first, left-wing 
     groups argued that putting Chris-drenched programs like Teen 
     Challenge on a level playing field with secular programs 
     amounted to state-funded ``proselytism.'' John Dilulio, head 
     of the White House faith-based office, placated them in 
     February and March by guaranteeing that programs like Teen 
     Challenge wouldn't be eligible for grants. But after 
     conservative pressure forced him to reverse that policy, 
     opponents discovered another buzzword, quality control. At 
     issue is how much oversight Uncle Sam should have over 
     Christian groups that accept funding.
       As a preemptive strike, Teen Challenge leaders have pushed 
     voucher-style funding and prodded their own centers to adopt 
     higher standards. The question is, can Teen Challenge accept 
     more regulations without diminishing the grassroots flavor 
     that makes it so effective?
       All Teen Challenge affiliates currently follow 80 standards 
     outlined in a 28-page manual published by the organization's 
     national office in Missouri. Affiliates must keep written job 
     descriptions and evaluations of each staff member, maintain 
     student files for at least five years, and record each 
     discipline ``incident'' and individual counseling session. 
     They must also adhere to their own states' health and safety 
     codes and pay for annual independent audits. To guarantee 
     adherence, the national office collects monthly financial 
     reports and conducts on-site inspections every four years.
       This self-regulation is burdensome enough without adding 
     onerous oversight from Uncle Sam, says Greg Dill, the New 
     Orleans director. ``I'm already struggling to pay for the 
     audit, which costs me $3,000 each year,'' he said. ``If 
     they throw in another 10 regulations, that would be fine. 
     But if they throw another manual on the table, that's 
     another matter.''
       Mr. Dill's center is cramped but clean. A tiny reception 
     area doubles as a dining room filled with plastic round 
     tables, fish tanks, and maroon couches. At the door, two 
     parakeets greet visitors with cat calls they learned from the 
     residents. Upstairs, 14 men wait in line for three showers 
     and share three bedrooms, but each has his own bunk and 
     closet space. Residents begin their day at 7:00 a.m. with 
     group prayer, breakfast, and household chores followed by 
     eight hours of mandatory Bible study, chapel, and choir 
     practice, even if they can't sing. (``They have to learn to 
     praise God instead of just asking Him to fix their 
     problems,'' says one employee.)
       At 8:30 a.m., they squeeze around an upstairs conference 
     table covered with Bibles and spiral notebooks. Behind a 
     small wooden podium stands Brother David Sampson, a 6-foot-2, 
     220-pounder with lots of gold rings on his fingers and a 
     heavy silver cross handing from his neck. ``Some of you guys 
     figure, OK, this is Christian and that's good as long as I'm 
     getting out of jail,'' says Brother Sampson. ``but the real 
     jail is not a place; it's your mind. And if your spirit 
     doesn't change, then your mind won't change.'' Brother 
     Sampson ends his lesson with a commentary on the book of 
     Romans: ``That guy Paul, he knew something.'' he concludes. 
     ``He knew that no one becomes a Christian by accident. God 
     never tricked a person into becoming his follower. This isn't 
     a Burger King, `have-it-your-way' religion.''
       As the on-site ``dean of students.'' Brother Sampson 
     teaches and counsels drug addicts eight hours a day. But he 
     doesn't have a college degree. His qualifications are 15 
     years of street experience as a homeless crack addict and 
     three years of Bible classes. After graduating from Florida's 
     Teen Challenge training institute in 1995, he became a 
     certified teacher making $50 a week. (``It's not that we're 
     opposed to hiring MSWs [master of social work], it's just 
     that most MSWs didn't go to school to make $50 a week,'' said 
     Mr. Dill, who also graduated from the program. ``This is a 
     ministry, not an occupation.'')
       Mr. Dill and his colleagues are what national Teen 
     Challenge leaders call ``street fighters''--ground troops 
     working on the front lines to rescue prisoners from 
     enemy territory. Street fighters aren't concerned with 
     national strategy or whether the battalions are 
     appropriately equipped; they simply want to save lives at 
     any cost. ``Without them this organization would just be 
     another

[[Page H3459]]

     institution. They are the only ones who can reach the 
     people we want to reach,'' said Dave Scotch, the Teen 
     Challenge accreditator, Problem is, most feisty street 
     fighters tend to resist outside mandates. ``We're still 
     trying to resist outside mandates. ``We're still trying to 
     get them to wear our national logo,'' sighed Mr. Scotch.
       And now he wants to convince them to accept more 
     regulations so Teen Challenge can compete for faith-based 
     funding. Texas became the first testing ground recently as 
     some 40 Teen Challenge directors met for a southwest regional 
     conference at the gleaming white Calvary Temple building in 
     Irving, a Dallas suburb. ``If Teen Challenge is going to 
     climb the mountain, we've got to learn to live with change,'' 
     insisted Teen Challenge's president, John Castellini: ``Say, 
     change.'' Some 40 directors mumbled, ``Change.''
       A balding minister with bushy eyebrows and round cheeks, 
     Mr. Castellini was trying to unite the independent-minded 
     street fighters in a willingness to apply for government 
     funds in order to expand their programs. He started out 
     treading lightly, first telling a few introductory jokes 
     about his grandchildren and reading a news article about how 
     hotels earn five-star ratings. Then he levied the final 
     punchline: ``You just think you've been inspected now. But 
     just wait until this faith-based initiative takes off,'' he 
     said, adding that some centers might need the pressure: ``The 
     parents are the real inspectors. Can I be very honest? I 
     would not drop off my son or daughter at some Teen 
     Challenges.''
       That comment irritated some directors, who still have fresh 
     memories of their less-than-glamorous beginnings. ``When we 
     first started, our place was dirty and run down, and all of 
     our staff were wearing 15 different hats. But you know what? 
     People got saved, delivered, and set free,'' argued Jim 
     Heurich, director of the San Antonio affiliate. ``My concern 
     is that we are going to be so evaluated that we are evaluated 
     out of business.''
       ``Go Jim,'' whispered someone across the room. Mr. 
     Castellini remained unfazed. ``We should treat the government 
     like any other private donor and be accountable,'' he said. 
     ``The government consists of taxpayers.'' Mr. Castellini 
     believes the extra funding and added legal protection 
     provided by faith-based legislation will outweigh the cost of 
     conformance to regulations as long as those regulations don't 
     change the Christian emphasis. But local affiliates remain 
     skeptical.
       Mr. Heurich has good reason to feel skittish. In 1995, 
     state officials tried to shut down his San Antonio center, 
     even though it was not state licensed, did not receive 
     government funding, and defined itself as a ``discipleship 
     program.'' After a much-publicized rally at the Alamo (see 
     WORLD, July 29, 1995), then-Gov. Bush came to the rescue, 
     pushing through a state law exempting faith-based social 
     programs from state interference. That was the beginning of 
     his compassionate conservative campaign.
       So far, that campaign hasn't helped other Teen Challenge 
     centers. Florida director Jerry Nance received food stamps 
     for 17 centers and 650 residents every year until officials 
     suddenly withdrew assistance in 1999, announcing that 
     unlicensed facilities no longer qualified. Here's the catch: 
     To obtain the license, Mr. Nance had to replace Bible lessons 
     with group psychotherapy sessions and hire state-approved 
     counselors. Explaining that his program was a ``discipleship 
     model, not a medical model,'' he refused and lost $100,000.
       ``Does this make sense to you?'' Mr. Nance asked a White 
     House drug abuse committee last year. ``Individuals can live 
     in the streets, use drugs, rob people, and still get food 
     stamps. But if they decide to get help and come into a faith 
     -based program, they lose their stamps.''
       At the heart of the dilemma is a difference in diagnosis: 
     State-funded groups treat drug addiction as a disease, 
     prescribing medical treatments and psychotherapy. But Teen 
     Challenge says the disease began with a condition of the 
     heart and prescribes a relationship with Jesus Christ. That 
     difference threatens some people: ``This [faith-based 
     funding] will roll us back 60 years, right back to when 
     people thought you were an alcoholic merely because you 
     didn't accept Jesus as your personal savior,'' fretted Bill 
     McColl, spokesman for the National Association of Drug and 
     Alcohol Counselors.
       But Mr. Castellini says he just wants the right to offer 
     his solut9ion alongside others: ``We're not asking for a 
     handout. We just want a level playing field so we can take 
     care of people's basic needs.'' With that in mind, he is also 
     offering his own ground troops a compromise: In exchange for 
     federal vouchers for food stamps, emergency medical 
     assistance, and lodging, Teen Challenge will accept 
     reasonable government safety, health, and accountability 
     standards. (``Just because you're saying the name Jesus 
     doesn't mean you should build fire traps,'' he said.)
       Mr. Castellini, however, emphasized that Teen Challenge 
     will not accept extra regulations--like teacher education 
     requirements or required psychotherapy sessions--that 
     ultimately undercut faith-based initiative by eliminating 
     differences between religious and secular entities. 
     Ultimately, he said, the street fighters will have the final 
     say: ``We will only lead those who want to be led.''
                                  ____


                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                         Leading Young Leaders

                           (By Candi Cushman)

       Crowded with nondescript business buildings, dingy low-
     income apartments, and well-lit liquor stores, the northeast 
     Dallas business district hardly seems a place for children. 
     But every day at 3:30 p.m., backpack-laden children fill the 
     sidewalks and weave their way through condemned apartment 
     buildings and asphalt parking lots.
       Like an urban deliverer, 42-year-old Vincent Gaddis stands 
     on a street corner welcoming them into the tree-lined 
     courtyard of the Fellowship Bible Church of Dallas. Wearing a 
     navy cap and matching dress slacks, he escorts them into an 
     office decorated with red and green round tables and wooden 
     bookshelves full of Bible videos and Dr. Seuss books. Through 
     his Youth Believing in Change ministry, Mr. Gaddis provides 
     tutoring, Bible studies, and free meals for some 150 inner-
     city kids a year.
       ``We use biblical principles to help these children develop 
     leadership skills,'' he said, explaining that there are no 
     neighborhoods or parks in the area--just 10,000 apartment 
     units that often host drug gangs and prostitution rings. 
     ``These children are exposed to so much. Everything you 
     wouldn't want your child to see is right outside in the 
     parking lot.''
       Mr. Gaddis, who is black, works with Hispanic children in a 
     predominantly white church. But God was the original 
     Deliverer, he insits--and he first heard the tune 12 years 
     ago while pointing a revolver to his head. Mr. Gaddis at 
     first made the Dean's List every semester at his college in 
     Tennessee, but then his mother unexpectedly died of a brain 
     hemorrhage during his second year there. Grieving and angry 
     with God, he turned to drugs as an escape. Nine years later, 
     a long-time drug dealer, he planned his final act of 
     rebellion--suicide. But as he cocked the trigger, a Bible 
     verse floated through his mind: What does it profit a man, if 
     he shall gain the whole world but lose his own soul? His 
     mother had taught him that.
       ``In spite of everything I had done, all of the Scriptures 
     I learned as a child were still with me,'' Mr. Gaddis said, 
     and instead of killing himself, he turned himself into local 
     police. After serving a five-year prison sentence, he came to 
     Dallas as a homeless man, found a church to attend, and 
     earned enough money to attend college and seminary. He 
     graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary in April 2000, 
     with a master's degree in Christian education.
       Now he identifies with the children who walk the city 
     sidewalks. ``I want them to understand how the Scriptures 
     apply practically to their life, not just memorize them. I 
     didn't have that understanding growing up,'' said Mr. Gaddis. 
     To accomplish his mission, he recruited the help of 
     Fellowship Bible Church, which supplies free office space and 
     weekly volunteers. With a $240,000 annual budget, the program 
     is funded by donations from individuals and churches.
       Three nights a week, volunteers donate their time tutoring 
     children, who mostly come from single-parent families that 
     speak little or no English. Tonight's tutoring session begins 
     with cheese cracker snacks and peer-led singing. The children 
     hold hands in a circle as a fourth-grade boy named Bryan 
     stands in the middle and loudly recites several Bible verses. 
     With his hands raised in the air, he then leads his playmates 
     in a boisterous chorus of ``Lord, I Lift Your Name on High.'' 
     Afterward, the children go to their assigned tutors, 
     including a college librarian in a starched yellow dress 
     shirt, a bilingual businessman wearing khaki shorts and 
     Birkenstock sandals, and a housewife in a long flowing broom 
     skirt.
       During the summers, YBC takes the place of the public 
     school, providing free lunches for poor children and a refuge 
     for latchkey kids stuck in crime-ridden apartments. Children 
     who attend regularly can go to a riverside Bible camp in the 
     Ozarks.
       YBC children participate in community service projects and 
     a youth choir that performs at local nursing homes and malls. 
     Volunteer David Pruessner, a 45-year-old lawyer, teaches 
     chess, where ``you have to learn to develop a strategy and 
     think ahead,'' During the summer, he gives group lessons to 
     20 students at a time using 10 game boards and handmade wall 
     charts. But teaching about God is at the center of the 
     program, for Mr. Gaddis states that, ``The gospel is the only 
     thing that really changes lives. When I sat in the car with a 
     gun to my head and when I went to prison, I already had a 
     good education. But that didn't help me. What really changed 
     my life was the word of God. And that's what's going to save 
     these kids.''
                                  ____


                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                           The Good Sarasotan

                          (By Barbara Souders)

       ``The nerve!'' huffed Carolyn Cooley, hurstling her two 
     young daughters past the unkempt man who lay surrounded by 
     beer cans, sprawled against a palm tree on church property. A 
     battered hat shielded the man's eyes, but holes in the soles 
     of his shoes seemed to watch church-goers' reactions. Mrs. 
     Cooley's indignation dissolved into tears when, within the 
     hour, she learned the man's identity. The ``bum'' was 
     actually her pastor, Neville E. Gritt. He'd stationed himself 
     outside the church that Sunday morning to awaken his 
     congregation to needs he'd seen while driving through 
     Sarasota, Fla.
       Heartsick, Ray and Carolyn Cooley prayed that day in 1985 
     that they could begin to show Christ's love to such people. 
     Feeling God's call, they spent the evening pruning their 
     tight budget and gauging their financial ability to rent a 
     house that would serve

[[Page H3460]]

     homeless men. They followed through, and during the past 16 
     years almost 2,000 men have found refuge at Good Samaritan 
     House (GSH), honored this year with a Florida ``Points of 
     Light'' award--and some have found hope. The home provides 
     emergency housing for homeless men recovering from traumas 
     (such as surgery, a mental breakdown, or a prison term) and a 
     longer transitional program for those ready to try to get 
     back on their feet.
       Andrew Cunningham is one of the people helped. At age 22, 
     he was on and off drugs, on and off the streets, and on and 
     off in his relationship with God. Initial stints at Good 
     Samaritan House and a Sarasota Salvation Army shelter didn't 
     change him. But a stay in an abandoned house where he and a 
     friend stayed ``strung out on crack cocaine'' convinced him 
     to return to GSH. At 25, he emerged clean and sober. Now 13 
     years after that emergence, Mr. Cunningham is married with 
     twin daughters, works as a certified nursing assistant, owns 
     a home, and is an active church member. ``Ray set my feet in 
     the right direction,'' he says.
       At GSH, the right direction begins with a set of simple, 
     nonnegotiable rules: Residents must remain alcohol- and drug-
     free, and accompany Mr. Cooley to church and Bible study 
     weekly. They must secure a full-time job, or work as day 
     laborers at a local temporary agency until they find 
     permanent employment. GSH residents must pay rent: six 
     dollars per night after their fifth free night of shelter. 
     While they may spend a little money on personal needs, the 
     men must save much of their earnings, with the goal of 
     becoming economically independent of GSH. The rules include: 
     In bed by 10:00 p.m., no foul language, no fighting, and no 
     women.
       The rules echo those of 19th-century Christian workhouses. 
     While neighbors and church members in American towns 
     generally cared for people made suddenly poor by calamity or 
     death, townspeople built workhouses for men made poor by 
     alcoholism or sloth. Residents of such homes were expected 
     both to work and pursue virtue in exchange for their keep. At 
     the Chelmsford workhouse in Massachusetts, for example, the 
     ``master'' of the house could at his discretion reward 
     faithful and industrious men, while punishing ``the idle, 
     stubborn, disorderly and disobedient.'' Use of ``spirituous 
     liquors'' was prohibited, and house rules demanded every man 
     ``diligently to work and labor.''
       Although the Cooley's efforts at GSH were grounded in such 
     history, and in Scripture, many Sarasota Christians didn't 
     support their efforts to help homeless individuals in the 
     area.
       The house in which the Cooleys launched GSH stood on the 
     property of a small Sarasota church; the church's leadership 
     agreed to let the Cooleys rent it and start the shelter 
     there. ``But the church became upset with what we were 
     doing,'' Mrs. Cooley said, ``and the numerous needy and 
     homeless [on the property] giving the church a bad image.'' 
     After 11 months, the church asked the Cooleys to leave. 
     That's when they bought the 1920s-era home that is now Good 
     Samaritan House.
       The Cooleys don't hold fundraisers. Today, two churches 
     regularly donate money and in-kind gifts to support GSH, but 
     from the beginning, the couple financed--and still finance--
     the shelter largely with their own cash. That means Mr. 
     Cooley, 61, continues to work five days a week as a zone 
     technician for Verizon Wireless. After work he goes home to 
     spend time with his family; at about 8 p.m., he heads for 
     GSH. There, he spends most evenings talking and watching 
     television with the men who pile in after their own day's 
     work to sink into sofas and chairs that crowd the paneled 
     living room. Mornings, the aroma of brewing coffee lures 
     residents downstairs to grab a cup before biking or busing 
     to work. Mr. Cooley also leaves, going home to his family 
     (if his wife and son--his daughters are grown--haven't 
     spent the night at GSH) before heading off to his day job 
     again.
       Mr. Cooley himself had struggled with alcoholism until a 
     pastor's life inspired him to change. Today, he says his aim 
     is ``to live his faith in front of the men, to plant seeds.'' 
     During each man's stay at GHS, Mr. Cooley guides him through 
     a substance-abuse recovery program that emphasizes Christ as 
     the basis of healing and renewal. Mrs. Cooley supports her 
     husband, spending time at the house with him and the men, 
     attending church with them. Wednesday and Sunday evenings, 
     and distributing free clothing to GSH residents and other 
     Sarasota homeless people.
       The Cooleys say they rarely hear again from men who leave 
     GSH: ``They're embarrassed and don't want to be reminded'' of 
     things like job loss, mental illness, or substance abuse that 
     led them there in the first place. But some, like Everett 
     Reid, 36, maintain contact. He learned of GSH through 
     Sarasota agencies that appreciate the Cooleys' no-nonsense 
     biblical approach to helping homeless men become self-
     sufficient. ``It's a good place for them to go. They have 
     rules to follow,'' said Robert P. Kyllonen, executive 
     director of Resurrection House, a day resource center for the 
     homeless. Eleven months after showing up on GSH's oak-shaded 
     front porch and starting to follow the rules, Mr. Reid moved 
     to Jacksonville. He has completed the first year of a four-
     year sheet-metal apprenticeship.
       In February, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County 
     recognized GSH with its Unsung Hero Award and commended the 
     Cooley for funding the program themselves, rather than 
     waiting for outside assistance. With George W. Bush's offer 
     to make faith-based programs eligible for federal grants, 
     will the Cooleys now seek outside help? Mr. Cooley thinks 
     not. He fears the Feds might tamper with GSH's staunchly 
     biblical program. Still, he may seek funding for the Clothes 
     Closet, a GSH clothing-distribution program that he sees as 
     less vulnerable to government strings.
                                  ____


                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                        A Day in the Life . . .

                           (By Candi Cushman)

       Richard Scarry has won fame for children's books with 
     titles like What Do People Do All Day? Few people understand 
     what New Orleans minister Mo Leverett does all day, and what 
     he has done most days for the past 10 years. As founder of 
     Desire Street Ministries (DSM), an outreach program that uses 
     Christian principles to disciple youth and foster economic 
     renewal, he is a white man who has dedicated his life to 
     mentoring black kids in New Orleans' worst ghetto. Here's 
     what he and two people he has inspired do on a typical day:
       10 A.M. On a rainy summer morning, Mr. Leverett winds his 
     car through narrow New Orleans streets named Pleasure and 
     Abundance, showing a reporter the gutted warehouses, 
     crumbling brick housing projects, and razor-wire fences of 
     his neighborhood. On Desire Street, three miles north of the 
     French Quarter, rows of graffiti-covered housing projects sit 
     amid piles of dirt and broken glass. Behind thick metal 
     doors, project residents stare like frightened prisoners 
     through rectangular window slats.
       This is the Ninth Ward, an area whose daily drug shoot-outs 
     garnered it a reputation as ``New Orleans' murder capital.'' 
     With 10,000 units in the center of the ward, the Desire 
     projects gained notoriety during the 1950s as the second-
     largest (and one of the most dangerous) housing projects in 
     the nation. Although city officials recently demolished most 
     of the units, some 1,000 people still live inside the rat-
     infested rubble. Over half are children under the age of 17 
     whose single mothers live below the poverty level.
       In 1991, Mr. Leverett moved into a tiny duplex home near 
     the projects, his family of four becoming the only white 
     family in the Ninth Ward. For the next nine years, he 
     volunteered as an assistant football coach at the public high 
     school and led locker-room Bible studies. He remembers how 
     his passion for cross-cultural outreach began during high 
     school years in Macon, Ga., where he felt forced to live a 
     double life: Friday nights on the football field, with white 
     and black teammate pursuing victory together, and Sunday 
     mornings at all-white churches where racial jokes brought 
     laughs.
       ``On the football field there were two cultures working 
     together toward a common goal,'' he says, but at other times 
     ``I had the heart-wrenching experience of discovering that 
     the people who most resisted the struggle for freedom were 
     white evangelical Southern men like me.'' After a broken hip 
     dashed his dreams of a football career, he enrolled in 
     Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Miss., studied 
     faith-based models for urban renewal, and became an ordained 
     minister within the theologically conservative Presbyterian 
     Church in America.
       11 A.M. Wearing tube socks, khaki shorts, and a navy polo 
     shirt, Mr. Leverett is standing before an office blackboard 
     in the $3 million outreach center he opened last year across 
     from the housing projects. With a slickly polished gymnasium, 
     10 classrooms, and 13 new computers, the 36,000-square-foot 
     building built with private donations, doubles as a youth 
     recreation center and a church.
       Today he is training three of his 20 full-time employees. 
     Like a coach explaining play-by-play strategy, he draws lots 
     of little arrows and circles. But the game plan starts with a 
     phrase: ``incarnational ministry.'' Mr. Leverett tells his 
     students, ``Like Christ, you have to enter into their lives 
     and suffer redemptively for them. Part of that suffering is 
     just demonstrating a willingness, a willingness to hear gun 
     shots at night, to feel insecure, unsafe, and exposed.''
       In addition to offering weekly tutoring, Bible studies, and 
     sports leagues, Mr. Leverett helps students start for-profit 
     businesses, including the ``Brothers Realty'' housing 
     renovation program. He's also planning for next year, when 
     the outreach center will host the area's first private 
     school--Desire Street Academy.
       2 P.M. While Mr. Leverett does more mentoring, staff 
     members like 25-year-old Heather Holdsworth are working the 
     neighborhood. As DSM education director, Miss Holdsworth 
     every afternoon visits Carver Washington High School, located 
     three blocks from the projects and with the look of a giant 
     warehouse. Outside are gray bricks and chain-link fences. 
     Inside, the classroom doors have deadlocks, and the 
     hallways are bare except for signs touting the school 
     health clinic and day-care center.
       Sporting tattooed arms and baseball caps turned backwards, 
     the students have crowded into a small gymnasium for a school 
     basketball game. Miss Holdsworth is there, sitting amid 
     hundreds of shouting students in the gymnasium bleachers, 
     greeting them and inviting them to after-school tutoring. 
     When she first arrived three years ago, none of the students 
     would speak to her. Even local police officers stopped her, 
     asking if she had come to buy drugs. ``She was a white girl

[[Page H3461]]

     who came out of nowhere. So it took me a good three months to 
     speak to her,'' said Dwana, a 17-year-old student.
       Now, though, Dwana prays twice a week with Heather and 
     attends DSM Bible studies and tutoring classes. Carrying a 
     pink diaper bag, she leaves the basketball game at 3 p.m. to 
     retrieve her 8-month-old baby. This June, Dwana will marry 
     the baby's 18-year-old father inside the Desire Street 
     Ministries building. ``I want my baby to grow up reading the 
     Bible and doing the right things,'' she said.
       Each year, Miss Holdsworth helps some 30 students like 
     Dwana pass their ACT college admission tests and apply for 
     financial aid. That's a noteworthy accomplishment considering 
     that Carver students average a dismal 14 out of a possible 36 
     points on the ACT test. The welfare mentality that pervades 
     the projects provides a formidable obstacle to her efforts, 
     says Miss Holdsworth. While tutoring seniors, for instance, 
     she discovered that several parents allowed their kids to 
     apply for disability certificates instead of diplomas so the 
     family could receive federal aid. That decision automatically 
     disqualified them from college scholarships.
       3:30 p.m. Mo Leverett is doing his best to break the 
     underachieving mentality by emphasizing the second part of 
     his game plan: indigenous leadership. Inside the DSM 
     classrooms, students peruse books including the Westminster 
     Confession of Faith. They are pupils in Mr. Leverett's first 
     Urban Theological Institute, a school designed to create 
     indigenous spiritual leaders.
       Institute student Richard Johnson, one of Mr. Leverett's 
     first disciples, says a lesson on the ``Noetic principle'' 
     (man's blindness to sin) caught his attention: ``The 
     principle applies to the projects: There's no family 
     foundation for children to see here. All we had were guys and 
     women just having sex and selling drugs. That's all our kids 
     see and they don't see any wrong in it. In our community you 
     are respected if you are a great athlete, a big drug dealer, 
     or a murderer.''
       During high school, Mr. Johnson says, he respected his 
     older cousin, a drug user who eventually shot his mother 
     seven times. Mr. Johnson believes he was destined for similar 
     destruction until ``Coach Mo'' became his new role model: 
     ``When he first walked on the field, we were like, man, 
     somebody's going to jail. Because a lot of the guys on the 
     team were selling drugs and we thought he was a cop. Coach Mo 
     wasn't just another fly-by-night white dude. He stood firm 
     and he coached, he preached and he loved.''
       6 P.M. Dressed in baggy jean shorts and a black jacket, Mr. 
     Johnson stands behind a wooden podium as some 100 high-school 
     students file into the gym for a Tuesday night Bible study. 
     Boys with spray-painted nylons tied around their heads and 
     girls wearing lots of gold jewelry chat noisily. But the 
     audience grows quiet as Mr. Johnson explains the concepts of 
     original sin and undeserved grace.
       ``We can't overcome sin on our own because there is nothing 
     in us that is spiritual,'' he tells them. ``If you are 
     watching porno flicks or doing drugs, the only way to 
     overcome those things is to let Christ rule in your heart.'' 
     Later, Mr. Johnson confides that he feels a sense of urgency 
     at every Bible study. Too often, unresponsive students walk 
     out the door only to become victims of drive-by shootings or 
     drug overdoses: ``Sometimes I feel like they aren't 
     listening, but I keep preaching anyway. Knowing that Christ 
     paid a debt I couldn't repay keeps me going.''
       As Mr. Johnson teaches Bible study, ``Coach Mo'' squeezes 
     in some family time at his 9-year-old daughter's softball 
     game. Watching her play, he remembers other children he 
     watched today, especially those who came to the Bible study 
     to escape the drugs or physical abuse that pervade their own 
     homes. ``I feel many different emotions as I think about 
     that,'' says Mr. Leverett. ``I want to shelter my own 
     children, but I also want to teach them the heart of 
     Christ.'' Although his children attend a school outside the 
     ward, Mr. Leverett encourages them to interact with playmates 
     from the housing projects during after-school programs and 
     Sunday school.
       Some people have called Mr. Leverett's decision to move his 
     family into the ghetto a foolhardy sacrifice. But sacrifice 
     is just his point, he says: ``I want my children to see the 
     incarnate gospel.''
                                  ____


                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                  When a Picture Is Worth 1,000 Lives

                           (By Leah Driggers)

       Amber, 17, sits on a chair in an ultrasound room swinging 
     sneaker-clad feet back and forth. Nearby, an embroidered pink 
     quilt hangs on the wall proclaiming: ``God's love always 
     forgives.'' A door swings open and ultrasound nurse Kay 
     Morton strides in, white lab coat fluttering.
       ``How are you doing?'' asks Mrs. Morton, 50, smiling over 
     multicolored reading glasses as she pages through the girl's 
     medical file. The answer is sad: ``My fiance just passed 
     away,'' says Amber, her hands trembling. Amber's boyfriend 
     hanged himself two weeks before, and Amber found the body, 
     dangling. Now she is faced with a crisis pregnancy, and is in 
     the process of choosing whether to carry or abort her child. 
     The Dallas Pregnancy Resource Center is offering a free 
     sonogram to help Amber decide.
       ``OK, just lie back,'' Mrs. Morton says in a soothing 
     voice, laying a white blanket across Amber's legs. Amber 
     holds her cotton T-shirt in place and pulls down black 
     overalls to reveal a slightly rounded belly. Mrs. Morton 
     squeezes a bottle that spits clear, blue gel on Amber's 
     stomach. ``Oh!'' laughs Amber: ``That's cold!'' The room 
     grows dim, and the jittery high-school senior freezes as Mrs. 
     Morton presses a handheld transducer into her abdomen. A few 
     feet from Amber's wide eyes, an image jumps on a small 
     computer screen.
       ``See that flickering spot?'' Mrs. Morton asks, using a 
     mouse to point a virtual arrow at a light that pulsates on-
     screen. ``That's your baby's heartbeat.'' A huge grim spreads 
     across Amber's face. Mrs. Morton clicks the mouse again and 
     an electronic line appears that she uses to measure the tiny 
     image from head to toe. ``It looks like your baby's about 
     seven weeks,'' she tells Amber. The girl nods slowly, eyes 
     glued on the black-and-white monitor, her body stone-still. 
     Mrs. Morton points out the baby's legs, arms, and the head; 
     Amber clutches the top of her T-shirt, motionless.
       Mrs. Morton types and two words appear on the screen: ``HI, 
     MOM!'' The image shakes as Amber giggles. ``Isn't it 
     incredible that your baby already has developed brain waves, 
     a heartbeat, and individual fingers?'' Mrs. Morton asks. 
     ``When I was in college studying to be a nurse, I didn't 
     believe in God. But when I studied the development of the 
     embryo, that's when I said there must be a God. Isn't your 
     baby amazing?'' Amber nods, still staring at her sleeping 
     child. Mrs. Morton prints a still shot from the sonogram 
     while Amber wipes tears from her eyes. ``I can't wait for 
     my Mom to see this,'' she murmurs, fingering the photo. 
     ``Now it is real.''
       Amber chose to keep her unborn baby alive, and many more 
     moms are making similar decisions as crisis pregnancy centers 
     (CPCs) and support organizations nationwide discover the 
     power of ultrasound to affect hearts and minds. Heartbeat 
     International, one of the largest national CPC organizations, 
     recently surveyed 114 CPCs that use ultrasound. CPC directors 
     reported that 60 to 90 percent of abortion-minded clients 
     decide to keep their babies after seeing live pictures of 
     them.
       ``Ultrasound connects a woman with reality--what she's 
     actually carrying in the womb,'' said Tom Glessner, president 
     of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates. 
     ``It's no longer a `condition' when the mother sees her 
     moving child. A bonding takes place.''
       Ultrasound also helps other people in a pregnant woman's 
     life see a problem pregnancy as a person. Often, women choose 
     abortion because of unsupportive boyfriends or parents. So 
     centers strongly encourage clients to return with doubting 
     friends and family. Technicians nationwide relate stories of 
     bored boyfriends who shuffle in with arms crossed, but later 
     break down in tears or exclaim something like, ``My son! 
     That's my son!'' Grandparents, too, point at the screen in 
     shock, demanding, ``'Are you kidding me? Is that what's going 
     on in her? Is that my granddaughter?''
       The military first used ultrasound to locate submarines. 
     But it wasn't until the early 1980s--at least a decade after 
     Roe v. Wade opened the abortion floodgates in 1973--that CPCs 
     began using ultrasound in their clinics. At least 200 CPCs 
     nationwide now provide the service, and other among the 
     estimated 3,000 CPCs across the country are converting 
     themselves into medical clinics that offer ultrasound and 
     other diagnostic pregnancy-related services. CPC directors 
     say medical clinics draw more clients--especially abortion-
     minded ones--than nonmedical counseling centers.
       Too bad ultrasound is so expensive: A machine costs about 
     $30,000. But some manufacturers offer discounts for pro-life 
     organizations, cutting the price tag to around $18,000. 
     Support supplies like gloves, gel, and film run around $1,000 
     annually, but medical professionals are the major cost. 
     Some CPCs that can't afford to buy a machine or employ a 
     technican are networking with other ultrasound clinics. 
     Such links save lives: When a counselor at a non-CPC 
     clinic senses that her client will choose abortion, she 
     can call a local ultrasound-CPC for an emergency visit.
       To broaden the reach of ultrasound, some sonographers 
     independently contract services with local CPCs, toting their 
     own machines from center to center. Some OB/GYN doctors also 
     offer ultrasound services in their offices. Dr. Wendell Ashby 
     has offered sonography in his Amarillo, Texas, office for the 
     past nine years. ``We are a visual society,'' he said. 
     ``[Mothers] can't handle their conscience saying, `You're 
     killing your baby.' When they see little arms and legs 
     kicking and moving, a heart beating, a brain, stomach, 
     bladder, spine, and babies sucking their thumbs, it's no 
     longer just tissue. [These women] say they had no idea--they 
     thought it was just a little tadpole in there.''
       Shari Richards believes it's never too early to detonate 
     the tadpole myth. The founder of Sound Wave Images, an 
     international ultrasound education group in West Bloomfield, 
     Mich., has turned her attention to the next generation by 
     developing an ultrasound video shown in over 5,000 classrooms 
     worldwide. Schools using the ultrasound video as part of 
     abstinence curricula report declines in teen pregnancy of up 
     to 25 percent, Ms. Richards said.
       After seeing the Sound Wave video, one student wrote, 
     ``I've always thought abortion was a choice each woman should 
     make. But after seeing the babies, I know that abortion is 
     wrong.''

[[Page H3462]]

     
                                  ____
                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                        My Baby Wouldn't Be Here

                           (By Leah Driggers)

       Tessa Malaspina was 22 years old when the cheap pregnancy 
     test she bought turned positive. ``I was going to have an 
     abortion,'' remembers Ms. Malaspina, a blonde club dancer who 
     once was heavily into drinking and drugs: ``I was having way 
     too much fun partying.'' When her mom convinced Ms. Malaspina 
     to stop by the Dallas Pregnancy Resource Center, Ms. 
     Malaspina warned her: ``It will not change my mind.'' She'd 
     already had one abortion; three months pregnant, she climbed 
     the stairs to the CPC's ultrasound room, determined to have 
     another one.
       ``I didn't want to see it, but at the same time I didn't 
     think it would matter,'' she says of the pending sonogram. 
     ``But once I saw it was a moving person with a heartbeat, I 
     couldn't do it,'' Ms. Malaspina told WORLD. ``I couldn't even 
     think about [abortion] again. I never realized how advanced 
     they were so early. . . . They give you information in school 
     and stuff, but never enough. If I hadn't have seen it, I 
     wouldn't have changed my mind. I don't know how anyone could 
     go through with an abortion after seeing an ultrasound.''
       The day she decided to keep her second child, she quit 
     dancing, smoking, and taking drugs. ``It totally changed my 
     life around,'' she says, pausing to tend blue-eyed son Riley, 
     6 months old. Ms. Malaspina, who now works full-time as a 
     bill collector, says her mom helps her with the baby: ``It's 
     hard,'' she says of being a single mom, ``but I wouldn't have 
     it any other way.''
       Beverly Wright, 29, was five months pregnant when she 
     stepped through the glass door to Dallas Pregnancy Resource 
     Center, seeking a free pregnancy test ``to make sure.'' She 
     had just lost her job and her car, and was also behind on her 
     rent. ``I had an option to pay my rent or get an abortion,'' 
     she remembers. After the pregnancy test confirmed her 
     pregnancy, Ms. Wright's CPC counselor asked if she would also 
     like an ultrasound. ``I didn't know what to expect,'' Ms. 
     Wright confesses. ``But my No. 1 choice was abortion, so I 
     wasn't scared.''
       When the picture popped up on the screen, Ms. Wright began 
     crying. ``I was shocked,'' she says. ``They were all telling 
     me, `Look at her move! She's so pretty! Do you see the hand?' 
     That's what did it. I saw what it really was--my baby. It 
     gave me a change of heart.''
       Ms. Wright took home the black-and-white sonogram photos 
     and kept them on her dresser in a white envelope marked 
     simply ``Baby.''
       ``It made me accept that I had her. And it made me fall in 
     love with her,'' says Ms. Wright, now the proud mother of 
     smiling 14-month-old Tia. ``I still have those pictures. If I 
     had never seen the ultrasound, my baby wouldn't be here,'' 
     she says, shuddering. ``From the bottom of my heart, she's 
     the best thing that ever happened to me.''
       Now Ms. Wright spends every day with Tia working as a live-
     in employee in a health care home. What would she say to 
     other abortion-minded clients? ``Come get a sonogram, and see 
     what you've got inside. It'll change everything.''
                                  ____


                      [From World, June 16, 2001]

                   Separation of Church and Business

                            (By Tim Graham)

       The White House faith-based initiative is opening up a new 
     front, and some of its guns are aimed squarely at big 
     business.
       ``Faith-based organizations receive only a tiny percentage 
     of overall corporate giving,'' President Bush announced late 
     last month. ``Currently, six of the 10 largest corporate 
     givers in America explicitly rule out or restrict donations 
     to faith-based groups, regardless of their effectiveness. The 
     federal government will not discriminate against faith-based 
     organizations, and neither should corporate America.''
       The president's numbers came from a study soon to be 
     released by the Washington-based Capital Research Center, 
     which has issued an annual guide to ``Patterns of Corporate 
     Philanthropy'' since the mid-1980s. CRC's Christopher 
     Yablonski has noted that policies posted on the websites of 
     these top corporate givers often include rules to 
     discriminate against charities that see a connection between 
     material problems and spiritual problems. For instance:
       General Motors (No. 1 in corporate giving) declares 
     contributions ``are generally not provided to . . . religious 
     organizations.''
       The Ford Motor Company Fund (No. 3), ``as a general policy, 
     does not support the following: religious or sectarian 
     programs for religious purposes.'' That's in the same 
     undesirable category as ``animal rights organizations'' and 
     ``beauty or talent contests.''
       ExxonMobil (No. 4) explains, ``We do not provide funds for 
     political or religious causes.'' That's not exactly true, 
     since the company also touts its support of 
     environmentalists, advocacy groups for women and minorities, 
     and groups performing ``public research.''
       IBM (No. 6) ``does not make equipment donations or grants 
     from corporate philanthropic funds to . . . individuals, 
     political, labor, religious, or fraternal organizations or 
     sports groups.'' Many faith-based groups might also have 
     trouble with the last two words of IBM's ban on 
     ``organizations that discriminate in any way against race, 
     gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.''
       The Citigroup Foundation (No. 7) declares: ``It is not our 
     policy to make grants to . . . religious, veteran, or 
     fraternal organizations, unless they are engaged in a 
     significant project benefiting the entire community.''
       AT&T (No. 8) will only fund groups that are ``nonsectarian 
     and nondenominational.''
       Wal-Mart, the No. 2 corporate benefactor, was the main 
     contrarian. Mr. Yablonski said the company awards a lot of 
     small grants, and on previous donation lists, it looked like 
     ``every other grant'' was to a faith-based charity. And the 
     other companies' policies don't always completely bar 
     donations to religious groups. CRC found that in 
     contributions of $10,000 or more, some bans were complete 
     (IBM zero percent, AT&T 0.06 percent), but some let a little 
     sunshine in (GM 2.2 percent, Ford 3.2 percent, Citigroup 3.9 
     percent). One top-10 giver without an explicit ban, Boeing 
     McDonnell, still only gave 4.6 percent of its grant money to 
     faith-based organizations.
       Corporations today often view their contributions as a 
     business expense. The CRC regularly finds liberal women's and 
     minority groups at the top of the corporate donation list, 
     which is a handy inoculation device against discrimination 
     lawsuits. But faith-based groups barely register on the 
     typical corporate radar screen. ``I was on a panel with a 
     corporate officer who said the First Amendment didn't allow 
     them to give to religious groups,'' said conservative 
     philanthropy executive Michael Joyce, commenting on the 
     corporate mindset. ``Corporate leaders are working with some 
     intellectual rot, or some pure ignorance.''
       At a meeting at the White House in late January, Mr. Joyce 
     took his turn to speak about corporate discrimination against 
     faith-based groups: ``I said the president is both president 
     of the government, but also president of the nation. There's 
     huge private sector that spends billions emulating what 
     government does. A few well-placed words from the president 
     could have a profound effect. He could call in top CEOs and 
     ask `what's going on here?' The president picked up on that 
     right away.''
       This month, at age 58, Mr. Joyce is stepping down from the 
     helm of the Milwaukee-based Lynde and Harry Bradley 
     Foundation to lead two new nonprofit groups at the crossroads 
     of business, politics, and faith-based initiatives. The 
     first, based in Washington, will take on the ``short-term 
     game'' of lobbying members of Congress and other Washington 
     elites about the virtues of President Bush's plan, as 
     summarized in the ``Community Solutions Act'' before 
     the House of Representatives. The second, based in 
     Phoenix, is a ``larger project, educating the culture, and 
     private donors in particular, for the long haul.''
       But how will Mr. Joyce's new groups deal with campaign-
     finance conspiracy theorists and follow-the-money 
     investigative journalists in the major media? They may 
     quickly insinuate that the groups are a clever way for Bush 
     donors to puff up the presidential legacy without any 
     troublesome contribution limits. Mr. Joyce thinks such a 
     brouhaha would be a waste of breath. ``Barry Lynn [of 
     Americans United for Separation of Church and State] and his 
     crowd have a lot of resources. It isn't who funds anything. 
     It's what they actually do.'' He plans on keeping in touch 
     with the White House, but ``what we cannot do is carry out 
     their wishes. We will have to operate independently. It's 
     just that simple.''
       Tom Riley, director of research at the Philanthropy 
     Roundtable (which Mr. Joyce had a major role in creating 
     decades ago) says Mr. Joyce was an atypical foundation 
     executive during his 15 years at Bradley. Most program 
     offices at large foundations are incredibly risk-averse, and 
     since there's no risk of financial ruin, the biggest risk is 
     bad press. Many corporations and foundations try to avoid 
     controversy by avoiding charities that might be unpopular 
     with the press. ``Michael Joyce took those risks, and he was 
     strategic rather than reactive. He had a vision, a long-term 
     approach of building a movement, an infrastructure.''
       Mr. Joyce brings a similarly unorthodox approach to his new 
     calling. Whenever the subject is the success of conservative 
     philanthropy, Mr. Joyce sees no big secret. ``Ordinary people 
     understand this really well,'' he said. ``We take human 
     nature into account. We understand humans as they were 
     wrought by God. These people wish to remake them and 
     rearrange them. It's like that line in a Bob Marley song, 
     `don't let them rearrange you.' That's why they fail.''


                       bradley's fighting vehicle

       Neal Freeman of the Foundation Management Institute called 
     Michael Joyce ``the chief operating officer of the 
     conservative movement. . . . Over the period of his Bradley 
     service, it's difficult to recall a single, serious thrust 
     against incumbent liberalism that did not begin or end with 
     Mike Joyce.''
       From his perch at the top of the John Olin Foundation, 
     another conservative heavyweight, Mr. Joyce took over the 
     brand-new Bradley Foundation in 1985 when it began with $280 
     million from the sale of Milwaukee electronics giant Allen-
     Bradley to Rockwell. Despite giving away almost $300 million 
     in grants, Mr. Joyce is turning over the keys to a foundation 
     that now lists assets of $700 million. It's the 68th largest 
     foundation in America, and Mr. Joyce oversaw $44 million in 
     grants last year.
       ``I had no immediate offers or opportunities'' upon 
     retirement, he said, but ``I did

[[Page H3463]]

     place my trust in providence.'' Just then along came Paul 
     Fleming, the Phoenix magnate of P.F. Chang's Chinese Bistro, 
     a 25-state restaurant chain. ``From his many years seeing 
     faith heal in the center city of Phoenix, he was enriched in 
     his own faith by what can be done.'' Together, they decided 
     to form a tax-deductible group to educate corporations on 
     faith-based charities. ``I talked him out of putting it in 
     Washington,'' Mr. Joyce said. ``I visit Washington often, but 
     when I leave, I always say, `I'm going back to America.' I 
     told him, be proud of your city.''
       Mr. Joyce continues to apply his vision of keeping the 
     country from becoming a ``prisoner to a hopeless 
     progressivism'' with his new enterprise. ``At the end of the 
     19th century, liberals considered themselves the new Founding 
     Fathers,'' he said. ``They had their 100 years, and they made 
     a mess of things. At the start of a new millennium, they are 
     out gas.''

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