Friday, May 11, 2001 | 5:51 a.m.
Some kids go to church for the food.
Early one morning last week in a low-income area of North Las Vegas, a few dozen children sucked down spoonfuls of canned fruit salad, a roll, and a carton of milk before setting off on a morning of church-sponsored day care activities.
Later they would get a hot meal for lunch -- one that the Rev. Marion Bennett says is, for some of these underprivileged 2- to 5-year olds, the most nutritional meal they will eat that day.
The federal government bought the food. Zion United Methodist Church served it. And to Bennett's knowledge, none of the parents -- working men and women, unwed teenage mothers, guardian aunts and grandmothers -- complains about the cozy relationship between church and state.
But this setup is not the most enmeshed that religion and government can get.
States can, under the 1996 Charitable Choice provision of the Welfare Reform Act, give a congregation contracts to provide social services such as job training and immigration assistance, providing they don't push a religious message or discriminate based on religion.
In fact, the Nevada Division of Welfare floated a request for program proposals under the Charitable Choice provision in 1999, looking for innovative ways to help some economically disenfranchised communities.
"We wanted to see what was out there. We were looking for some new energy in welfare programs, some new and innovative ways of dealing with the hard-to-serve populations," Rhoda Rosachi, chief of benefits and support in the state division, said from Carson City during a telephone interview.
"Sometimes government can't reach families, but families have faith, and they can be reached that way. So we were looking for new partnerships," Rosachi says, enthusiasm apparent in her voice. "We thought, 'There is potential in this.' "
But the response from Nevada's religious community sounded something like a single nickel spit into a slot machine tray.
"We had only one response, statewide, and it was not sufficient," Rosachi says. "So we made no awards."
A million dollars in federal block grant money went unused.
"Maybe religious groups didn't know about it, or maybe they just aren't interested," Rosachi says.
It is against this backdrop that Nevada listens to the national debate about President Bush's "faith-based initiative," which would expand federal funding of faith-based organizations to provide services beyond welfare programs.
Under Bush's plan there are no restrictions on how religious organizations incorporate their beliefs in the delivery of social services, further challenging the constitutionally guaranteed freedom from state-endorsed religion.
"The Bush plan would blur the lines of demarcation between secular activities and religious activities performed by a religious organization," Allen Lichtenstein, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said.
Additionally, the plan is taking heat because it calls on government to decide what is a religion. Will the feds fund the Nation of Islam, Jews for Jesus and Wiccans?
But as the proposal gets front-page scrutiny based on these controversial issues, another, less philosophical question is being considered at local ministerial meetings:
Is anyone really interested in doing government work?
"Some religious groups will be interested, but maybe not as many as you think," said Mujahid Ramadan, a prayer leader at the Las Vegas Masjid As-Sabur, a board member on the American Muslim Council and a member of the National Conference for Community and Justice Las Vegas interfaith committee.
Acts of charity and social services are, for many faiths, an essential part of the religious experience. Giving time and sacrificing a portion of personal wealth -- tithing -- are aspects of faith that some believe would be hollowed by federal underwriting.
"I think you're going to have certain religious groups who have always done community service who are going to continue to do community service and aren't going to ask for any government money, and they don't want to be under the scrutiny of the federal government," Ramadan said.
For example, the financially flourishing Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a statement saying it does not need federal assistance and does not support Bush's proposal.
"And then you have some groups who are concerned about getting into bed with the government, period," Ramadan said.
"Generally speaking, I personally have great reluctance about getting any money from the federal government,' said the Rev. Jesse Scott, assistant pastor at Second Baptist Church, a 4,000-member church in the heart of Las Vegas' black community.
Although the president's plan has been cast alternately as a means to lure the black community away from the Democratic Party and a way to ingratiate Bush to the religious right, clear support lines cannot be drawn in Nevada.
"Black people have a long history of being discriminated against in institutions like the government," Scott says. "We look at any sort of federal spending with a jaundiced eye.
"I personally think they (government officials) would get too much into all of our business then. I would be very hesitant about taking money from the federal government, because when it comes to auditing I think they get too much into all of your books, and it's really none of their business."
Further, some religious organizations may not want to take on the responsibility of filing reports to account for federal dollars, nor subject themselves to federal sanctions should they fail, nor monitor their religious teaching according to guidelines that may be written into the bill as it moves through Congress.
"Once you're taking federal money, the government can have an opinion about your religion, about what you can say and when you can say it on their dime," Ramadan said. "Essentially, once you take its money, the federal government tends to see itself as your 'Higher Power.' "
But Bennett, another longtime local religious leader, says the potential for community empowerment via federal funding outweighs the threat of federal intrusion.
"There is most definitely a need for that funding. I would most definitely take advantage of it. I don't have any problem with accountability. We'll open up our books to the government, no problem," Bennett said. "We've got a community that needs all the help it can get. I'd like to do tutorial and literacy programs, to start." Rosachi said that the state is preparing to issue another request for bids for charitable-choice programs later this year. But this time, she plans to hold an informational meeting with state religious leaders beforehand.
"We'll put our cards on the table and tell the religious leaders what we need, they can put their cards on the table and tell us what they think, and maybe we can come up something to help their communities," Rosachi said.
"Or, we can go on the way we've been doing it."
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