Black Muslims: Bush's Faith-Based Achilles Heel

Few religious organizations have more experience transforming outlaws into upstanding citizens than the Nation of Islam.

Allah -- the Nation of Islam's iron-handed god -- brooks none of the anti-social behavior commonly associated with the poor underclass. The self-discipline he requires, coupled with the Nation's insistence on black self-reliance, has reformed thousands of lives. For example, the Nation's most famous convert, Malcolm Little, forsook drugs and petty crime to become the family man and civil rights leader Malcolm X after several terms in prison.

Since then, several Washington patricians have praised the Nation's good work, some of it government sponsored, in America's ghettos. While running for vice president in 1996, Jack Kemp told the Boston Globe he valued the Nation's advocacy of "responsible fatherhood, individual initiative, of not asking the government to do everything for you."

But one of the things Black Muslims say makes them successful at rehabilitating black outlaws -- their message of black empowerment through black separatism -- also puts them at odds with Washington policy-makers.

When making its demands for an all-black country, the Nation often implicates Jews as oppressors. Statements like the one Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan reportedly made to the Daily Challenge last October -- that Jews "control Black life … I don't know how you can talk about Black liberation without confronting that" -- throw the gauntlet in the face of the Nation's defenders.

It comes as no surprise, then, that President Bush -- who is undertaking an initiative to fund religious non-profits doing just what the Nation of Islam does, fix social problems -- has openly expressed reservations about funding the Nation. On the campaign trail, the Austin-American Statesmen reports, Bush said that because "Louis Farrakhan preaches hate," the Nation would probably not be eligible for funding under his initiative.

Yet because Black Muslims have been rehabilitating black convicts and other outlaws for decades, nothing exposes the Achilles heel of President Bush's faith-based initiative than this blanket reluctance to fund them.

"If Bush follows through with this initiative and chooses to exclude the Nation of Islam from funding, he could get into trouble," said Berkeley law professor Jeffrey Choper, who studies church-state relations. "He has to be neutral unless he has a really powerful reason to exclude someone."

But other than the god Black Muslims pray to and the color of their skin, what sets them apart from mainstream religious organizations who accuse Jews of having killed their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? More importantly, is the difference between the Nation of Islam and, say, Southern Baptists sufficient to deny the Nation of Islam access to government funds?

One Nation, Under God

If Bush's faith-based initiative gets off the ground, he will not be the first President to fund religious organizations. He won't even be the first reformer of faith-based funding.

Much to the chagrin of liberals, government has been funding religious organizations since the country's birth. In the beginning, religious hospitals were the main beneficiaries of taxpayer largesse. But disaster relief, children and family services, housing and senior care soon became additional pet projects for church-state collaboration. For providing such services, faith-based organizations such as Catholic Charities USA, Lutheran Services of America, the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity receive much of their funding from the government -- in the case of Catholic Charities, 62 percent.

"The Supreme Court has held that religious organizations can receive government money as long as they don't use the money to teach religion," legal scholar Jeffrey Choper says. "For that reason, hot meals, soup kitchens, secular education and child care are all considered eligible for government funding."