At Least Four Unification Church Associates Hold Federal Posts or Grants Under Bush Marriage Plan

A Unification Church figure and several longtime followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon hold federal jobs or receive government grants under the Bush administration’s Healthy Marriage Initiative and other faith-based programs, according to a Chronicle report. The report counts at least four longtime operatives of the church on the federal payroll or receiving grants.

Two of those associates led a “Certified Marriage Education Training Seminar” in Oakland the previous week, attended by dozens of local pastors and social workers at a Holiday Inn next to the Coliseum. The report describes Moon, 85, as best known for presiding over mass marriage ceremonies in which unions are arranged by Moon or other church leaders. According to the report, church couples receive detailed honeymoon instructions after marriage. The report also states that, in Unification Church teaching, children born from these marriages are “blessed children,” born without original sin.

Josephine Hauer, a graduate of the Unification Theological Seminary in New York, was introduced as a newly hired “marriage specialist” with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Before her federal job, she was director of marriage education at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut. The report notes that the school was taken over in 1992 by the Professors World Peace Academy, a Moon-affiliated group, and that its current president, Neil Salonen, is a former president of the Unification Church in America. The Rev. Bento Leal, associate minister at the Bay Area Family Church, a Unification Church congregation in San Leandro, checked a list of names at the door.

Attendees of the September 23-25 seminar received a “Certified Marriage Education Professional Document of Completion” issued by the University of Bridgeport. During a break, Hauer declined to answer questions about her ties to the Unification Church, saying, “I’m a professional. I don’t talk about my religion or my politics.” She added, “My religion is not an issue.” Honest disclosure of one’s public affiliations, as a matter of truthful speech, is a question the report leaves open in Hauer’s case.

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the Department of Health and Human Services, told the Chronicle that the department does not ask applicants about religious affiliation before hiring. He said that “if someone uses federal funds to proselytize, that would be a violation,” and that this rule applies to members of any faith, including the Unification Church.

The seminar was sponsored by the California State Healthy Marriage Initiative, which the Rev. Dion Evans, pastor of Chosen Vessels Christian Church in Oakland, founded two years earlier. Last month, Evans and his partners won a $366,179 grant from the administration’s Compassion Capital Fund, part of the latest $45 million in social service contracts the program has awarded this year to churches and community groups.

Source: Read the original report