Nancy L. Johnson: “But for 4 years now this Nation has had Charitable Choice language in its welfare reform bill, in its Even Start…”

“But for 4 years now this Nation has had Charitable Choice language in its welfare reform bill, in its Even Start program, and in other legislative initiatives for the explicit purpose of allowing churches to be part of the social service delivery system because often they can reach people that no government agency can reach. There are neighborhoods in America, there are areas of America where the only institutions left are small churches. Those small churches cannot tolerate complex, burdensome regulations governing their activities, but they can provide services without proselytizing. Clearly under current law, they cannot use Federal funds on any program that is going to proselytize. They cannot use Federal funds if they are going to discriminate. All those things are in current Charitable Choice laws and they have worked. Do not change it. And particularly do not change it in this fatherhood bill, because the fathers we are trying to reach are outside of the traditional system. The most likely agencies to reach them are the very small black churches in poor neighborhoods, Hispanic churches, other small institutions that we hope will be able to reach out to these fathers, and help bring them back into being the emotional parent of their child as well as the economic parent. Charitable Choice provisions have worked.”