Articles

Interfaith Alliance Applauds President’s Expanded Moral Vision
TIA calls for working together for justice, compassion for all

Press Release
The Interfaith Alliance
Feb. 3, 2005

Today, The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) released a statement in response to President Bush’s State of the Union address last night:

The Interfaith Alliance applauds the president for expanding his moral values agenda in his State of the Union address. The Interfaith Alliance has repeatedly stated that the moral values debate must reflect a wide array of religious and ethical concerns, beyond gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research. We were pleased to hear President Bush discuss these broader moral values: spending tax dollars wisely, creating a comprehensive health care agenda, ensuring equal justice for all, teaching our youth to reject violence, expanding medical research, improving education, and making the tax code more just for all. He specifically referred to Social Security as “a great moral success of the 20th century.” By saying that a nation is measured by how it treats the weak and the vulnerable, the president has heard religious leaders calling for compassion and justice in all aspects of our lives.

We call on the president to remember his own words of compassion for the weak and the vulnerable when he expands tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans. Too often, such tax cuts require reductions in funding for social programs. The Interfaith Alliance has always viewed the federal budget as a moral document, showing where our national priorities are. We can’t ignore or reduce spending on programs for the weakest among us and then claim that we’re acting on moral values.

Although moral concerns should be reflected in policy, no faith community should be permitted to push their religious agenda with taxpayer funds. The Interfaith Alliance again calls on the president to rescind his previous executive orders mandating his faith-based initiatives. We honor the faith-based organizations that have provided social services with federal funds for decades while following the laws against discriminatory hiring and proselytizing. Unfortunately, the president’s executive orders circumvented the Congress, the courts, and the Constitution by allowing new groups to discriminate in hiring and to use government money to seek converts. This has been a clear violation of the Constitution’s wall of separation between religion and government.

We would also urge President Bush to nominate judges who are not only qualified but also committed to the Constitution and the law of the land. His nominees should be acceptable to the American community as a whole, not just to a narrow, divisive, partisan, political wing. Just as the Senate recognizes his duty to nominate judges, he must accept their duty to question and advise, not just rubber-stamp. In his first term the Senate confirmed all but 10 of his 214 nominees, a higher confirmation rate than for those judges nominated by Presidents Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.

We hope the president’s approach to these issues will affirm his lofty, well-crafted words. Unfortunately, President Bush’s policies in his first term did not consistently commit the government to carry out those ideals. We hope this marks a new beginning for the president and his administration, and we look forward to working together with the president to make America a more just, compassionate nation, a family that embraces our differences and is empowered by our mutual strength.

To read the comments of TIA board members and TIA members from across the nation: www.interfaithalliance.org

The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to promoting the positive and healing role of religion in the life of the nation and challenging those who manipulate religion to promote a narrow, divisive agenda. With more than 150,000 members drawn from more than 75 faith traditions, and 47 local alliances, TIA promotes compassion, civility and mutual respect for human dignity in our increasingly diverse society. www.interfaithalliance.org.