According to the Freedom from Religion Foundation website, the Department of Health and Human Services "is suspending the drawdown of federal funds until such time as we are confident that the MentorKids USA program is in compliance with all relevant federal rules, regulations and policies." The is the immediate fallout of the lawsuit about which I wrote here. Mentor Kids USA has until January 3rd, 2005 to submit a "Corrective Action Plan."
However good the overall picture looks in the long run, in the short run this isn’t good for either the organization or the young people they’re helping. Indeed, one of the last times the FFRF filed suit and lost (for the most part) in the long run, the legal wrangling took long enough basically to shut down the program--a long term drug and alcohol rehabilitation program run by FaithWorks Milwaukee. Let’s hope that Mentor Kids can resolve its "issues" with the federal government and that those inside and outside government involved in the faith-based initiative stay the course.
Another unfortunate fact is that left wing labor unions for government workers will support FFRF and groups like like them. Why? To protect government jobs. They want to protect their piece of the Federal pie. My church in Lorain, OH used to do a food distribution to an old folks high rise, but did not comply with Federal rules for commodities that say such aid now needs to be offered in a pantry/free store type mode rather than as a delivered food bundle. This result of "union power" is cloaked as a way to reduce the stigma of getting help by standing in line. They would also use the "privatization" argument as well as the phony 1st amendment argument. They would say the government can do these things better than organizations who would try to help others for free. As far as the long run I think that people who have a passion to help others will prevail over forces that value promoting a political agenda like protecting high level bureaucratic jobs and electing Democrats who are friendly to unions. I think "Red state" Ohio bureaucracy, namely ODJFS, is run by a bunch of leftists.