by Mary Leonard ("Boston Globe," September 25, 2002)

WASHINGTON - A coalition of civil rights groups and liberal House Democrats has mounted an aggressive lobbying campaign to block President Bush's faith-based initiative in the Senate unless the bill explicitly prohibits religious charities from discriminating when hiring.

Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, is leading the unusually personal effort by House lawmakers to influence the language in a Senate bill that is aimed at spurring charitable giving and increasing grant money for both community and religious groups that deliver social services.

Frank is working with two gay rights groups, the Human Rights Campaign and the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, to get the bill amended in the Senate.

He said he has met with a number of Democratic senators and briefed more than a dozen Senate staff aides on his objections to the bill, which as written would not expressly bar religious charities that receive federal funds from proselytizing or practicing discrimination in hiring. The congressmen and others fear that discrimination will take place as a result of tenets of faith or cultural practices.

''It will lead to racism,'' Frank said, contending that religious groups will hire only those who reflect their predominant racial group, while '' fundamentalists won't hire gays or lesbians.''

Yesterday, the two chief sponsors of the legislation, Senators Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania and Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, said they were frustrated and disappointed that the bipartisan bill was stalled in the Senate.

''Most senators would agree that getting help to charitable organizations in times of economic distress and war is a good thing to do,'' Santorum said.

The Pennsylvania Republican said he and Lieberman had not included employment language in their bill to avoid ''the hot button issue'' that bitterly divided the House when it passed its version of the faith-based initiative last summer.

Santorum failed yesterday for the fourth time to get Senate Democrats to agree to take up the legislation with a strict limit on amendments and time for debate.

Senate leaders are reluctant to let the bill come to the floor without such an agreement. The bill includes more than $5 billion in tax breaks and could become a magnet for additional spending.

Lieberman said the sponsors could try to attach it to another bill, the most likely being the slow-moving legislation to create a department of homeland security.

''Time is slipping away,'' Lieberman said. ''This is a good bill. It's one of the best things we could do for our communities this year. But, for reasons that are sometimes clear and sometimes not so clear, some of our colleagues are holding up action.''

After Sept. 11, Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle promised the president that the initiative, a centerpiece of Bush's domestic agenda, would get a vote in the Senate. But he has not been able to get Senate Democrats to agree on the number or content of amendments. Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, is preparing to offer one that would bar discrimination and proselytizing.

Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said he remained optimistic that the bill will pass the Senate.

But Towey said that in the short time remaining before the midterm elections ''it is going to be very hard'' to get the House and Senate to agree on a bill the president will sign.

''Senator Daschle has given his word, and the Republicans are ready to do it, but time is running out,'' Towey said.

The White House does not want the antidiscrimination language added, because some House conservatives and many evangelical groups have said they will not be able to support the faith-based legislation if it bars religious groups from hiring people who share their beliefs.

Initially, civil rights groups indicated they would not oppose the Senate bill. But some rights groups, including the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus, said they have been alarmed at the administration's intention to allow hiring discrimination by religious groups in other federal programs and changed their position as a result.