"When we see social needs in America, my administration will look first to faith-based programs and community groups." - Bush
We haven't heard much lately about faith-based programs, probably for a couple of very good reasons.
One reason for that may be that there are far more important issues occupying the attention of those of us who are working to rid Washington of the stench of Bush's interminable presidency.
The other may be that the battle against keeping the American Taliban away from the trough of public dollars set aside for social services was lost in Bush's first term, those halcyon days when the Prince of Failure was spending his political capital like a sailor on shore leave.
I'm guessing that Joseph Hanas of Grand Blanc, Michigan, a suburb of Flint, wishes he'd never heard of faith-based programs.
His story, which is chrornicled in today's Detroit Free Press
here, is on the jump.
Hanas was busted for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, a charge to which he pleaded guilty in a county court in 2001. After his plea, he was offered a chance to avoid jail by completing a one-year drug rehabilitation "diversion" program. Hanas took the deal and Circuit Judge Robert Ransom placed him in the hands of a loony Pentecostal outfit in Flint called the Inner City Christian Outreach Center.
After seven weeks on a urine-soaked mattress, eating hideous food, enduring daily seven-hour prayer and Bible study sessions with no drug counseling, his Catholic prayer book and rosary beads confiscated as "witchcraft," while living under a barrage of constant exhortations to "get saved," renounce Catholicism or go to prison, Hanas went back to court with his family's help and asked for a new program.
Ransom gave him one ... six months in prison, time in a correctional boot camp, probation on a tether and a demand that he still complete drug treatment.
Of course, now that the ACLU is suing on Hanas' behalf and asking that his conviction be overturned, officials from Inner City claim Hanas imagined the whole thing. Incredibly, the head of the program, a Pentecostal minister, blamed Hanas, saying, "Nobody forced him to come here." For his part, Ransom, whose actions throughout Hanas' ordeal have been nothing short of reprehensible, now refuses to send convicted offenders to Inner City.
This is what a web of faith-based social services brings when the American Taliban is allowed access to public dollars and told to operate their programs any way they please.
Bush brought his own faith in this power and money grab by churches to Washington from Texas where he turned the churches in that state loose on unsuspecting people in trouble, then ignored the results of studies showing that "charitable choice," as they tagged the initiative, wasn't going too well. Even many former supporters of the Texas programs are calling for a change. In D.C., though, Bush seems to have learned from his Texas experience; now, his minions just fudge the numbers in studies that show the federal push isn't doing so well, either.
Here's what's being said now and I think we can fairly assume will be replicated wherever this is tried: A non-partisan group called the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund studied "charitable choice" in Texas and found the following:
* The program allowed tax dollars to fund religious activities and buy program supplies such as Bibles.
* It violated the religious freedom of people in need.
* The program forced clients into sectarian programs with no secular alternative.
* Charitable Choice forced people to engage in religious activities as a condition of receiving services.
* The Texas initiative resulted in preferential treatment for religious providers in government contracting opportunities.
At bottom, Texas, as a result of Bush's incompetence, greed and blind stupidity, found itself saddled with an unregulated system prone to favoritism and corruption, one that seemed only good at placing in jeopardy the very people it was supposed to serve.
Perhaps, through Joseph Hanas' suffering and a national airing of his frightening ordeal, we can start talking about faith-based initiatives again. Only this time around, we have something more compelling to say about our newest national embarrassment.