'Faith-based' foreign aid is unconstitutional

Contrary to popular opinion, the non-military foreign aid delivered to struggling nations by the United States is embarrassingly meager. It is near the bottom in foreign aid spending by industrialized countries when measured as a percentage of their economies.

Given that miserly background, you’d think any offer by Republicans, of all people, to increase foreign aid spending would be welcome, no matter what the conditions.

Now the Bush administration is working with the curmudgeonly Senate Foreign Relations chairman, Jesse Helms, R-N.C., on a proposal to do just that. Unfortunately, their conditions are unacceptable.

The idea is that the government’s agency for distributing foreign aid would be abolished, and the money would instead be funneled through nongovernmental groups, including "faith-based" religious groups.

This satisfies xenophobic Helms, who has no stomach for the government types who parcel out the aid funds.

Helms says he would abandon his longstanding fight to reduce foreign aid, and even support a sharp increase. The United States certainly should spend more on foreign aid, but it can’t entrust that money to private organizations.

The most obvious reason, in the case of religious groups, is that it unavoidably violates the constitutional provision for separation of church and state. No matter how genuine the intent of a group to keep its charitable mission nonsectarian — and indeed we know that is often sincerely the case — some bleeding of their natural desire to proselytize is inevitable.

Bush certainly understands this principle, having just banned birth control aid to foreign agencies that also counsel on abortion, because he’s afraid money for the former purpose unavoidably would be used for the latter.

Even secular non-governmental groups have their own agendas, not always congruent with U.S. foreign policy. The best way to ensure that foreign aid gets where it does the most good in furtherance of national objectives is to leave it in the hands of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

If Helms or Bush have objections to the way the agency carries out its mission, they’re obviously in a good position to reform it.

Private agencies, meanwhile, can — and should — continue to perform needed services abroad the way they like, using privately donated money.

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