Author: Laurie Goodstein
Publication: The New York Times
Date: February 20, 2001
After eight years in prison, Joseph
Fabio now lives in a halfway house next to a funeral home here, where counselors
have helped him steer clear of drugs, find a job in a gas station and contain
the uncontrollable anger that earned him a murder sentence at age 18.
His three months in the program
have been "a blessing," Mr. Fabio said, and like many other residents,
he said his only complaint was that for some reason the kitchen served
nothing but vegetarian food. When he was told that the cuisine was restricted
because this halfway house was affiliated with the International Society
for Krishna Consciousness, better known as the Hare Krishnas, Mr. Fabio
looked as if he had been ambushed by "Candid Camera."
"They're around still?" he asked,
recalling having seen monks in saffron robes in airports years ago. "I
didn't know."
For almost 20 years, Hare Krishna
devotees in Philadelphia have received millions of dollars in government
contracts to run a network of services, including a shelter for homeless
veterans, transitional homes for recovering addicts and this halfway house
for parolees.
The unusual collaboration between
government agencies and a religious group that depicts God as a baby-faced
boy with blue skin offers a glimpse of the challenges ahead for President
Bush's initiative to expand government support for social service programs
run by religious organizations.
Mr. Bush's new White House Office
of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives officially opens for business
on Feb. 20. The president says religious programs will be judged not on
their beliefs but on the results of their work.
"We do not impose any religion,"
Mr. Bush said at a prayer breakfast on Feb. 1. "We welcome all religion."
The president's assertion may be
questioned in the coming days. While established charitable programs, like
those run by Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army, are expected to
have little trouble winning further government support, it is the smaller
programs run by less traditional faiths that are likely to test the president's
promise to avoid discriminating on the basis of belief, and the public's
acceptance of his approach. Devoting government money to selected religious
programs also runs the risk of sparking conflict. Already, one group has
tried to prevent another from being allowed to participate.
Mr. Bush signed the executive orders
establishing his initiative flanked by a score of Christian ministers,
two Jewish leaders and a Muslim imam, and hailed the event as a "picture
of the strength and diversity" of the country. But if the religious portrait
of the nation were a great stained-glass window, those leaders would represent
only a few large pieces of glass.
Now, members of a wide variety of
religious groups, some once considered far outside the mainstream, are
busy preparing proposals for government financing to support the kinds
of programs that Mr. Bush has said he will make his focus: literacy, sexual
abstinence and substance abuse. The Church of Scientology plans to seek
support for its drug rehabilitation and literacy programs. The Rev. Sun
Myung Moon's church, now called the Family Federation for World Peace and
Unification U.S.A., plans to promote its abstinence programs in the schools.
"You will see us deeply involved
in any area where we can partner in practical projects with government,"
said the Rev. Phillip D. Schanker, the Unification Church's vice president
for public affairs, who had on his desk a copy of a magazine he had just
subscribed to about government contracting opportunities.
And Krishna leaders, who have centers
in 40 American cities, have been phoning David D. Dobson, executive director
of the Philadelphia programs for the Hare Krishnas -- a Hindu sect often
stigmatized in this country but well established in India -- to discuss
how to follow his example and become government contractors.
Mr. Bush's effort could provoke
new questions about what constitutes a legitimate religion. One definition
of religion likely to be applied grows out of the Supreme Court's ruling
in a 1965 case involving draft exemptions. In that case, the court defined
religion as "a sincere and meaningful belief occupying in the life of its
possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those admittedly
qualified for the exemption." By any measure, the definition is broad.
"One of the big issues that people
haven't talked about much is that some very controversial religions could
get active in this," said Philip Jenkins, the author of "Mystics and Messiahs:
Cults and New Religions in American History"(Oxford University Press, 2000),
and a professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State
University.
"Running a faith-based program raises
the question, what faiths are out of bounds?" Mr. Jenkins said. "Either
you fund all faith groups, even groups you radically don't like, or you
fund none. I have nothing against funding everybody, but I think people
need to be prepared for the issues that might arise. How do you distinguish
between a Methodist and a Moonie? The answer is, you can't."
To win their $2.5 million in government
contracts in Philadelphia, the Hare Krishnas have removed almost all evidence
of their religious affiliation, said Mr. Dobson, a Krishna devotee who
decades ago abandoned his monk's robes for a gray blazer. On the vegetarian
food, he refused to compromise.
Mr. Dobson's program used to have
a sign that said, "Hare Krishna: Food for Life." But then some corporate
sponsors complained, he said, and the words "Hare Krishna" were removed.
Now the organization is called simply Food for Life.
"It makes people uncomfortable,
and mostly people at the government level," Mr. Dobson said. "Being a Krishna
organization, in the early days there was a lot of prejudice and there
was pressure to tone down anything religious. We certainly put in the closet
a lot of our religious philosophy."
Keith Patterson, a house supervisor
who sat at the front door keeping track of the parolees leaving for work,
said the Krishna-sponsored program was totally secular. He contrasted it
with the government-financed Salvation Army program where he used to work.
"There were chapel services every
Sunday," Mr. Patterson said, and residents were required to attend devotions
and Bible study daily. "They were trying to get you back to God."
There are a few clues so far to
how the Bush administration will look on proposals from less traditional
religious groups.
In an interview with The New York
Times during the campaign, Mr. Bush was asked if, for example, he would
approve of government financing for a Church of Scientology antidrug program.
He answered: "I have a problem with the teachings of Scientology being
viewed on the same par as Judaism or Christianity. That just happens to
be a personal point of view. But I am interested in results. I am not focused
on the process."
For its part, the Church of Scientology,
founded as Dianetics in the 1950's by the science-fiction writer L. Ron
Hubbard, claims it can document the effectiveness of its literacy programs
and its drug and prisoner rehabilitation programs, Narconon and Criminon.
In Oklahoma, the church receives state money to treat drug addicts at Narconon
Chilocco, a Scientology rehabilitation center, said Kurt Weiland, director
of the Church of Scientology International.
"In Scientology, we believe in past
lives and future lives," Mr. Weiland said, adding that the church's programs
are open to people of all beliefs. "Nobody who does anything in drug rehabilitation
or in literacy programs has to formulate that belief in order to go through
the program."
The White House Office on Faith-
Based and Community Initiatives has already come under pressure from one
religious group to deny government contracts to another. In recent weeks,
the Anti-Defamation League, a leading Jewish group, has lobbied behind
the scenes for assurances that the administration will not enter into partnerships
with the Nation of Islam, whose leader, Louis Farrakhan, has a history
of anti- Semitic statements.
Anti-Defamation League leaders met
on Feb. 12 with John DiIulio Jr., who is heading the president's program,
and say they left reassured that the president would not allow financing
for the Nation of Islam's programs. Mr. Bush told The Austin American-Statesman
during the campaign, "I don't see how we can allow public dollars to fund
programs where spite and hate is the core of the message."
The Nation of Islam did not respond
to repeated requests for interviews.
Mr. Bush has told religious leaders
that his program will allow them greater leeway to integrate their teachings
into their community service and still be eligible for federal aid.
In Philadelphia, Mr. Dobson expects
to add Krishna spirituality to his programs by hiring a few members of
the clergy and mentors, and teaching about the history of non- Western
religions.
"We're not just here to educate
and feed people," Mr. Dobson said as he entered a basement lounge where
two parolees watched Jerry Springer on television. "We see people as spirit
souls. Our goal is to help them spiritually develop."
