ABSTRACT
When the author spent a day with George W. Bush, they sat in Bush’s governor’s plane between campaign stops, discussing his “faith-based program.” Governor Bush spoke impassionedly about how, in Texas, his administration had also freed up government funds to aid the many faith-based institutions–Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and others–that were already addressing those social problems that the welfare state had made only worse. The first “scandal” of new faith-based initiative concerned the Salvation Army, not exactly the poster child of liberal circles, even though this service organization delivers aid to 36 million people through a national network of soup kitchens, drug treatment centers and shelters for battered women. The first stories in July were that the Salvation Army had appealed to the White House for protection from state and local laws prohibiting discrimination against gay employees. But it turned out that the Salvation Army case was not the simplistic, moralistic story that the welfare-statists jumped upon.
