Politics: I'm Gonna Start Me a Charity and Set to Discriminatin' Against Christians

Scary thought, right?

Not so fast, my friend. The band of whackjobs known affectionately in these parts as "The House of Representatives" is preparing to pass a law that will OK just that. The Workplace Investment Act is how America funds job training efforts. President Bush and his pals want to ensure that a religious charity can decide it won't hire, say, Muslims, and that's OK, even if it receives taxpayer money -- some of which may actually come from actual, non-bigots who may be concerned about this -- to do its work. Two good items about this piece today have two great quotes.

First, the Washington Post covers the impending vote, and quotes Maryland freshman Democrat Chris Van Hollen, who opposes the measure:

"I think most people would be horrified to open their local paper and find an ad that says, 'Hiring Christians only' or 'Protestants only' or 'Methodists only,' and they'd be even more horrified to learn that such ads are funded by taxpayer dollars," Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said. "That's what this legislation would allow."

But the quote of the day award goes to Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, quoted in the Boston Globe: ''The notion that you need to allow religious groups to discriminate to receive federal funds is a lie,'' said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton. ''If you dip your fingers in the federal till, you can't complain if a little democracy rubs off on you.''

Finally, the Globe combines its coverage of this stinky bit of legislation with coverage of a covert action by the Bush Administration to allow Department of Labor job training grants to be religious. Read:

In guidelines published on April 4, the Labor Department said the job training grants ''may not be used for instruction in religion or sacred literature, worship, prayer, proselytizing, or other inherently religious practices.''

''The services provided under these grants must be secular and nonideological,'' the guidelines said then.

But in amended guidelines published in the Federal Register on April 18, the words ''sacred literature'' were removed, along with the sentence saying that the services provided must be secular and nonideological.

So, you can job train by quoting from the Bible. You can take federal money to offer a "Jesus' Guide to Getting a Job." This rule wasn't, of course, enacted by Congress, but simply changed by the Bush White House. Why bother with democracy, when God is on your side?