Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

Faith Based Plans Under Scrutiny

Aired September 04, 2001 - 07:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: As politicians go back to work in Washington, the president's faith-based plan will be under a microscope.

Here's CNN's Brian Cabell with an example of how tax dollars might be used to fund faith-based organizations which discriminate.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALICIA PEDRERA: Is it in there? I think I left it in there.

BRIAN CABELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She spends more time tending to tomato plants these days than to troubled adolescents. That was Alicia Pedrera's former job, a counselor to abused and neglected boys at Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children, an agency that's supported by state funds.

But she was fired after six months because she's gay. She took her case to federal court and charged discrimination. The judge recently ruled against her, claiming she was terminated not for religious reasons, but because of her lifestyle.

PEDRERA: It's as if we're, just be invisible, because you can be. Since you can blend in, we want you to blend in because we don't want to deal with you.

CABELL: Pedrera claims she didn't discuss or display her sexuality at work and she received high marks for her job performance. The problem arose when a photograph of her and a former partner was displayed at the Kentucky State Fair. Word got back to Baptist officials, who then determined she was unfit for her job.

UNIDENTIFIED BAPTIST OFFICIAL: What we ask is regardless of your faith or your religion is that you understand who we are and that we have standards and values, traditional family values, that we purport. And we just ask that people support that and do the best they can to role model that.

CABELL: Alicia Pedrera, they decided, was not an appropriate role model for troubled adolescents. The federal judge ruled they were within their rights to make that determination.

(on camera): Pedrera's dismissal from her job wasn't the only issue considered by the judge. He also took up the question of whether state money should even be given to religious organizations that provide social services.

(voice-over): That issue will now proceed to trial without her. In a sense, the trial is a test case for President Bush's faith-based initiative, his plan to distribute federal money to religious organizations to help solve social ills. Critics warn that church- state partnerships have proven troublesome in the past.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: What happens is that the churches begin to show favoritism toward members of the same church, begin to discriminate against people who are not of the same faith. And I think we have every reason to think that will be the case here, as well, and that's simply wrong.

CABELL: The president's plan has drawn some bipartisan support. Democratic Senators Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Zel Miller of Georgia endorse it. But there are skeptics. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, appreciates the president's good intentions, but is wary of the government.

ALBERT MOHLER, SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: I think history will reveal that wherever Ceasar gives his money, he sends his rules and that wherever Ceasar makes an investment, there follows a bureaucracy.

CABELL: He fears that Baptists will have to compromise their faith to qualify for federal money. That, he says, is unacceptable. The debate over the relationship between church and state concerns Alicia Pedrera, but that's a battle for politicians and judges. She and her attorneys will ask the judge to reconsider her case, but in the meantime she's moving on. She's working at a new job with the phone company where her sexuality is not an issue.

Brian Cabell, CNN, Louisville, Kentucky.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com