WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress began wading through the tricky details of sending tax dollars to religious groups this week, as supporters and opponents of the plan stepped up their lobbying efforts.
Republican backers of President Bush's plan were meeting with hand-picked supporters from around the country in a closed-door "summit" Wednesday meant to plot strategy and fire up the troops. And private, anonymous donors are pledging $250,000 for a lobbying campaign including a new TV commercial supporting the plan.
A day earlier, opponents delivered a petition signed by 850 religious leaders arguing against mixing church and state.
"These provisions would entangle religion and government in an unprecedented and perilous way," the petition said. "The flow of government dollars and the accountability for how those funds are used will inevitably undermine the independence and integrity of houses of worship."
The heart of the Bush plan would expand "charitable choice," a provision that allows religious groups that run both secular and religious programs to compete for government grants. It's already law for welfare, drug treatment and community development programs, and Bush wants to extend it to programs across government.
The effort is rolling in the House, where a Judiciary subcommittee held the first hearing on the issue Tuesday.
The deep divisions on the matter were plain from the start, when the panel's chairman, Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, asserted that every returning member of the subcommittee had voted for charitable choice in the past. Several Democrats immediately objected, saying that the issue had been buried inside larger pieces of legislation.
"I have grave concerns about the constitutionality of charitable choice," said Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. "Religion has never needed government, and it doesn't need it now."
Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., a longtime opponent of charitable choice, asked a series of questions to a pair of witnesses testifying about welfare programs their churches run. It soon appeared clear that these programs could qualify for government money even without charitable choice, because neither one incorporates religion into its core.
This is one of the many issues on the table: Should government simply allow churches to run the same sort of programs that secular groups run? Or, should government-funded programs be allowed to incorporate overtly religious teachings? Should groups that accept government money be allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion when they hire workers? More broadly, should they be allowed to consider an applicant's religious practices?
This last question is among the thorniest, and the White House has yet to decide if it can support discrimination based on religious practice, which is allowed under the House bill sponsored by Reps. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and Tony Hall, D-Ohio.
Opponents argue that this would allow government grantees to reject applicants who are gay or who drink alcohol on their off hours or do anything else some religion might object to. And Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the plan's top Democratic supporter, says he doubts he could support that provision.
"It's very hard to justify creating a lower standard of civil rights protection in a religious group when they receive federal funding," he said in an interview Monday.
Others disagree. On Tuesday, the Rev. Donna Lawrence Jones, pastor of Cookman United Methodist Church in Philadelphia, told the House panel that while her church's program does not discriminate in hiring, she would not object if others did.
"It's related to maintaining the integrity of the organization," she said.
But Lieberman's concerns have slowed the entire initiative in the Senate, and there's no sign that legislation will be introduced there any time soon on charitable choice.
DiIulio, who is on leave from the University of Pennsylvania, professes no concern, saying that he teaches his government students that the Senate always moves more slowly than the House. "If they did it otherwise," he said, "I would have to revise my teaching."