The opportunity to enact the Bush Administration's faith-based initiative this year is nearly at end. Sens. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) have tried in vain to get a Unanimous Consent Agreement to bring their "Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment Act" (CARE Act) up under special rules that would limit the amount of debate on the bill. Given the limited time left before Congress leaves for fall elections, about the only way the Senate will act on the CARE Act is under a Unanimous Consent Agreement. Throughout all of last week, Santorum was playing "whack-a-mole" trying to reach an agreement to get the bill on the floor. He would talk to a Senator thinking that a deal was reached and then another Senator had a concern about the bill. It was looking like he almost had an agreement when the ACLU and the NAACP announced they were scoring a vote on this bill as a major civil rights issue. That led Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-NV) to announce there were several Senators raising concerns, nearly killing any opportunity for an agreement. What may have sparked the ACLU and NAACP were reports that several agencies within the Bush administration have begun to suspend protections against discriminatory hiring for grantees. At the same time, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) held a briefing where several cases of religious discrimination by government-funded faith based groups were presented. Telling her own story was Alicia Pedreira, who was fired from her job as a counselor at Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children because of her homosexuality, even after disclosing it to her supervisor before she was hired. Kentucky Baptist Homes is a state-funded social service provider and self-described "oldest Southern Baptist child care ministry in America" which gets about $13 million of its $19 million budget from the state. Pedreira was fired after a photo of her and her partner at an AIDS charity event was entered in the Kentucky State Fair and other counselors complained. At the briefing, she also stated that the boys in her program were made to attend Baptist Services and that all meetings at the Home started with a prayer. A representative of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund also presented two cases against Georgia's Methodist Children's Home (which receives approximately 40% of its budget from the state) for "using state tax dollars to discriminate in employment and to indoctrinate foster youth in religion." In this case, the job interview of Alan Yorker, a psychotherapist, was terminated when the interviewer learned he was Jewish. He was informed that the Home does not hire Jews. Also, a youth counselor at the Home, Aimee Bellmore, was fired because of her homosexuality and because she doesn't share the Home's views on homosexuality. She was told that the Home only hires heterosexual Christians. Obviously frustrated, Santorum tried to attach the CARE Act to legislation that would create a new department of homeland security, which is on the Senate floor. That was tabled, basically killing that option. On the next day, Santorum held a press conference and threatened to add the CARE bill or least some form of charitable choice to TANF reauthorization. At this time it appears that the charitable giving provisions in the CARE Act, such as the nonitemizer deduction and the IRA rollover, are being held hostage to the faith-based controversy. It does not appear that the Bush administration is willing to separate the two issues, charitable giving from charitable choice. Nor does the administration appear willing to compromise on discriminatory hiring practices, even though it did so on other legislation. Even if Congress returns for a lame duck session, it looks difficult, if not impossible for the CARE Act to pass in the Senate.