Sauce for the gander?

Mark Silk notes that a Christian counseling center that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann co-owns with her husband receives a bit of funding from the Minnesota state government and questions whether she’s in any position to object (as she has) to potential public funding for the “Park51 Islamic cultural center.”

He cites this story about the Park51 application, which questions the proposal’s conformity, not with federal guidelines regarding the eligibility of faith-based organizations for funding (they are, with the usual qualifications), but with requirements regarding the financial feasibility of the project:

Part of the strangeness of the application is that it blows past the suggested range of $100,000 to $1 million that these grants are supposed to fall to within (I’m told the entire pool for this round of cultural funding will come in under $20 million). According to the two sources knowledgeable about the thinking behind the proposal, the strategy behind the $5 million ballpark was trying to yield a higher figure in the end.

But the project likely doesn’t qualify for a grant in the first place. Specifically, the grant criteria mandate a demonstration of a project’s financial feasibility, based on benchmarks set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The government will help complete development projects—but it does not provide seed capital. And in their last public financial statement, Park51 was found to have less than $20,000 in the bank for a project with a slated cost of $100 million.

“Any solicitation for LMDC funds would have to meet the HUD criteria for eligibility,” explains Julie Menin, an LMDC board member and the chairperson of New York’s Community Board 1, which includes the World Trade Center site.

What’s more, of course, is that the application displays either a tin ear regarding public sentiments or an active desire to offend and provoke.

As for the Minnesota counseling center , there’s this story about its relatively modest government funding .  The authors of the story try to make two issues of Rep. Bachmann’s alleged hypocrisy.  Both are relatively easily disposed of, I think.  First, it certainly is possible to oppose Obamacare without necessarily opposing Medicaid, the Minnesota version of which is the source of the Bachmann clinic’s funding.  And if you care about helping those in need, you don’t refuse to participate in a current program, even if you’d like to see something different in its place.

Second, while the public funding going to the counseling center may not be in the form of vouchers, it is pretty clearly directed by the choices of clients.  The clinic is providing services to eligible clients who aren’t coerced into seeking this particular brand of counseling.  If the counselors provide services eligible for state funding and if they themselves are appropriately credentialed (they all have degrees from accredited institutions, so far as I can tell), then there doesn’t seem to be a problem.

I don’t know about Rep. Bachmann, but if and when the Park51 project is up and running (preferably at a less incendiary site), if and when it provides services eligible for public funding, if and when it provides those services in a manner consistent with public funding, and, finally, if and when it passes through a grant application review process that applies neutral outcomes-based criteria, then I wouldn’t object to its receiving funding.  Where the government provides funding for services, and faith-based groups are able to provide those services, the First and Fourteenth Amendments require that all groups be eligible.