``WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is working with the nation's largest charity, the Salvation Army, to make it easier for government-funded religious groups to practice hiring discrimination against gay people,...''
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This is just the tail of the tiger. Virtually all the civil rights laws on the books started out as provisions in the regulations and implementations of federal funding legislation that enabled a vast array of federal grants and contracts (see Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance for a full listing).
While the above article and the White House seem focused on state and local municipality law, the bigger problem is at the federal level. Virtually all federal project grants that are the target for this right-wing religious pilfering of public money will run up against a forty year history of civil rights law and regulation of social services (i.e public accommodation).
I would urge anybody out there working in anything from pre-school programs to social policy research to get their lawyers ready to hit this bullshit administration move with a massive legal assault. The goal would be to jam the court system to a halt, since there is little likelihood the mealy mouthed suck-offs on the bench will do shit. They have pretty much discredited themselves entirely since the Florida election debacle.
If you all let this go by folks, then you can kiss civil rights enforcement in federally funded programs good-bye. I don't mean good-by in name only. I mean good-bye as a legal principle, period.
Chuck Grimes