Lynn C. Woolsey: “Mr. Chairman, the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows faith-based organizations, religious organizations to use their own…”

“Mr. Chairman, the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows faith-based organizations, religious organizations to use their own funds, and they can discriminate if they choose. That act does not allow faith-based organizations to use Federal funds starting in 1964. The chairman is right. The only difference in this bill is the faith-based discrimination based on religion language. That is what we would like to remove because, Mr. Chairman, this is a sad move on the side of the Republicans to continue to take perfectly good legislation and allow a poison pill to stay in that legislation thinking that the people on this side of the aisle are going to vote yes, that we have no choice. You know what? It is wrong. We do have a choice. It is wrong to allow religious discrimination using Federal dollars, and we are going to vote against it. I support faith-based organizations and the good they are doing in their outreach and their human service programs. I support them totally. The faith-based groups in my district are successful. They tell me, Get that language out of the bill. We do not need it. They agree that the exemption to title VII is useless. It should not be in there and that individual groups should not be able to use Federal tax dollars to discriminate in their hiring policies.”