LET FAITH WORK

Faith Works is a Christian-based addiction treatment program in
Wisconsin that lives up to its name. All of its participants are
fathers, most are African-American and many are ex-cons. It's so
successful that President Bush has called it a model for his own
faith-based welfare initiative.

So, naturally, a judge wants to shut it down.

Federal District Judge Barbara Crabb has just declared part of
Wisconsin's funding of Faith Works unconstitutional, on grounds that
the program "indoctrinates" its participants in religion. The ruling
is extreme enough that it may well be overturned on the merits.

But it may do some political good if it serves as a wake-up call to a
Congress that has been dithering over the Bush initiative.
Legislation that clarifies the relationship between the government
and religious welfare groups would leave less room for meddling
liberal judges.

Judge Crabb nixed the direct funding Faith Works receives through an
offshoot of the state's Welfare-to-Work program, even though Faith
Works showed that the government money went to nonreligious aspects
of its program. "Religion is so integral to the Faith Works program
that it is not possible to isolate it from the program as a whole,"
her ruling reads.

The judge seems to be creating an impossible legal standard. On the
one hand, if Faith Works takes religion seriously, it loses its
government benefits. On the other hand, if it abandons religion, it
loses its effectiveness. This looks like the kind of government
discrimination against religious welfare groups that Congress banned
in the 1996 welfare reform. That law's Charitable Choice provision
said faith-based charities could compete with secular organizations
for government money. The Bush Administration agreed, filing an
amicus brief in support of Faith Works.

The Wisconsin judge was more charitable toward a second kind of state
aid to Faith Works, ordering a trial on the constitutionality of
Department of Corrections funding for drug treatment. This money goes
directly to former prisoners who then choose their treatment program,
much like a Pell Grant to a student who chooses, say, Yeshiva
University.

This ruling shows how much more than school choice is riding on the
outcome of the Cleveland voucher case the U.S. Supreme Court will
hear next month. If the Court rules that government money may flow,
via student-vouchers, to religious schools, then it stands to reason
that it may also flow, via prisoner-vouchers, to such religious-based
social services as Faith Works.

Last week a coalition of liberals and conservatives released a report
on how to advance President Bush's stalled faith-based initiative.
They didn't reach a consensus on funding. But they did agree on
several things, including tax incentives that would encourage more
private charitable giving and ways to help religious groups operate
their social programs through separate nonprofit organizations. Some
of their recommendations are already included in the legislation
that's still languishing in the Senate.

Mr. Bush's program passed the House last July, with 15 Democrats and
one independent in support. But Majority Leader Tom Daschle has held
it up in the Senate at the request of his liberal Members, who
apparently think that it's a winning strategy for Democrats to run as
the party hostile to religious charity. Connecticut Senator Joe
Lieberman keeps promising to negotiate a compromise, but he has to be
willing to challenge his party's secularists, not to mention the
public welfare workers who don't want religious competition for their
government cash.

We recall that the secular left also fought school choice in
Wisconsin on church-state grounds, only to lose in the end. We
suspect Judge Crabb will also be reversed, but it would help if
Congress expressed its strong desire to let Faith Works work.