When President George W. Bush established the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001 to allow religious organizations to compete for federal grants to provide federally funded social services, he was likely relying on which interpretation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, establishing the separation of church and state?

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Kendall Cook

12 May, 10:15

When President George W. Bush established the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives in 2001 to allow religious organizations to compete for federal grants to provide federally funded social services, he was likely relying on which interpretation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment, establishing the separation of church and state?

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Peter Beasley · Answer 1

President Bush surely based his decision on previous jurisprudence by the Supreme Court. In 1899, the Court was asked to make an interpretation of the religion clause of the First Amendment. It was a case involving federal financing through a grant for the construction of a hospital that was going to be run by a Catholic order. The Court saw the hospital as a secular institution and charted as such by Congress, not a religious one, and in this way it avoided the constitutional issue.

Though uphelding the strict lay character of the state, the Court has not closed the door to all types of aid for certain activities by religious organizations.