Anti-Defamation League

In 1996, Congress passed welfare reform legislation that included a “charitable choice” provision authorizing taxpayer funding for religious organizations to deliver certain welfare services such as job training. Religious groups no longer had to establish separate secularized agencies to qualify for government funding. Some politicians have proposed that religious groups should be allowed to receive public money to deliver services in other federal government programs. In the following viewpoint, the Anti- Defamation League (ADL) argues that although many religious organizations are helping people in need, giving government money to religious groups for social services jeopardizes the integrity of recipient religious institutions and subjects people to religious coercion. The ADL is an international organization that works to combat anti- Semitism and other forms of bigotry and discrimination.

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