As president of the Southern Baptists' Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Land is one of the nation's leading religious conservatives. This is exactly the type of religious discrimination that the First Amendment is designed to prevent. But any move to please the likes of Olasky would likely produce more outcry on the left. There, the criticism focuses on the concerns that awarding grants to religious groups will violate the separation of church and state, and that tax money will be used to finance programs allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring practices. Even Lieberman has joined that argument.
Liberal critics feel strengthened.
Supporters are concerned about the opposition. A number of conservative activists are proposing alternatives in an attempt to avoid church-state collisions. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Mich., proposed, for example, a tax deduction or credit as an incentive for doctors, nurses, lawyers and other professionals who volunteer work time to helping the poor. Along similar lines, Robert Woodson, who has been active with community-based service programs around the nation, said a change in the law authorizing or requiring private insurance providers to pay for qualified social services given by church agencies would be a way to channel cash to many programs in poor areas. The most promising alternative, many involved in the debate say, is the notion of vouchers, which allow government funds to be used for a religious purpose but make sure the individual recipient, not the government, would be choosing the religious option.