Opinion Casts Light on Secretive Justice Dept. Office

A legal opinion allowing the Justice Department to dole out a $1.5 million grant to a Christian aid group that makes religious belief a condition of employment is shining new light on an obscure office that interprets laws across the government.

The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, which issued the interpretation last year to little notice, has been a target of congressional Democrats for its blessing of detainee interrogation techniques and a warrantless eavesdropping program that nearly provoked a mass resignation of top law enforcement officials four years ago.

Much of the work of the office remains secret. But legal experts predict that more rulings will be made public in the waning days of the Bush administration, as officials try to lock in policies they favor before a successor takes the stage.

Dawn E. Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor and a former acting chief of the OLC, asserted that the Bush administration's broad view of executive power and its tendency to bypass Congress made it all the more important for the next president to begin reviewing legal opinions right after the November election.

Johnsen, who handled such reviews for President Bill Clinton's transition team, said that she "definitely would put" the religious freedom opinion on a list of interpretations to be analyzed by the new president.

Faith-based initiatives have been a priority for President Bush. Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee, supports the efforts of religious organizations to win federal grants, while his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, has indicated that at least some forms of discriminatory hiring would be impermissible were he to win the presidency.

Making wholesale policy changes, however, could be complicated by a long-standing tradition toward continuity in the office's legal rulings, said Walter E. Dellinger III, who served as head of the OLC during the Clinton administration.

In the latest opinion, lawyers concluded that World Vision, a Christian group that supports impoverished families in nearly 100 countries, could accept a $1.5 million gang prevention grant from the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention even though Congress has barred discrimination by federal grant recipients.

World Vision won the funds to hire workers in Northern Virginia and New York for youth training, health and anti-gang initiatives. The group invoked a 1993 law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that said the government could not impose "substantial burdens" on the exercise of religion.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General John P. Elwood reasoned that the group's identity would be compromised if it had to veer from its decades-old hiring practices. The Washington state group hires only people "who agree and accept its Statement of Faith and/or the Apostles' Creed," its Web site says.

The memo was posted online Tuesday and became the subject of a New York Times report yesterday. Its publication revived a debate about the awarding of public funds to religious enterprises.

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, denounced the memo. "There is no reasonable way to read the history of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and conclude it permits discriminatory hiring with tax dollars," Lynn said.

"The fight here is over a fairly narrow principle: In the program or activity being funded, must you give the job to the best person or can you use a religious test? . . . If you take money from the government, you have to obey the law."

Erik Ablin, a Justice Department spokesman, said the department "stands strongly behind the opinion, which is narrowly drawn and carefully reasoned."

Richard E. Stearns, president of World Vision's U.S. operations, said yesterday that the aid agency does not discriminate "in any way" in the delivery of services to children and families. He said that courts have ruled that private organizations retain their rights "regardless of their funding sources," and that a waiver from the anti-discrimination provisions in grants could apply to Jewish, Hindu and Muslim groups, as well.