The moderates, led by Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., objected to provisions in the faith-based initiative bill that would allow religious charities that receive federal dollars to override state and local nondiscrimination laws. The resulting brouhaha caused the GOP House leadership to put off a vote on the bill, for fear they would lose the vote.

The fracas began Tuesday night, when Foley tried to offer an amendment to the faith-based initiative bill offered by Reps. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., and Tony Hall, D-Ohio. But in a 9-4 vote in the House Rules Committee, Foley was denied the ability to introduce his amendment.

Foley's amendment would have stripped the bill of the provision that would allow religious charities that receive federal money to violate local and civil rights laws in their employment practices. Federal law currently exempts religious organizations from nondiscrimination laws, but they are not so exempted for secular positions in their affiliated charities. The Watts-Hall bill would change this, and many charities desire such a change -- as illustrated in last week's controversy involving the Salvation Army's lobbying of the White House for such a change in exchange for support for the faith-based bill, as first reported by the Washington Post.

Foley, who represents a Democratic-leaning congressional district that includes a third of liberal bastion Palm Beach County, said that the bill, "as presented to the full House, would have the unintended consequence of superseding existing state and local laws that prohibit discrimination. It is crucial that we ensure that faith-based services are accessible to all Americans."

Under the provisions of the bill, Foley said, "a local Catholic Church would not be forced to hire a gay minister or assistant if they chose to accept federal funds and operated a charity in a jurisdiction with a civil rights law that covered sexual orientation." On the other hand, he said, "federal policy should codify that the charitable arm which collects government funds should not be allowed to discriminate in their hiring practices or the delivery of services to those who need it most."

The Watts-Hall bill would allow religious charities to compete for federal grants, and these organizations would be allowed to make employment decisions based upon the tenets and teachings of the religion, opening up a veritable Pandora's box of possible scenarios. Would, for instance, a Bob Jones University-affiliated charity, supported by federal tax dollars, be permitted to fire an employee for interracial dating?

The Senate bill avoids this and other sticky matters by focusing on billions in tax breaks to encourage charitable giving. The House bill contains this provision, too, but the House Ways and Means Committee presented a version of this part of the bill that substantially reduced the amount to $6.3 billion over 10 years from Bush's proposed $82 billion over the same period.

In early June, Salon reported that John DiIulio Jr., the Catholic Democratic academic drafted by Bush to head the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, was privately expressing a preference for the Senate version of the bill since it didn't contain such controversial measures. DiIulio was said to have feared that the House version was too controversial to become law.

"DiIulio has expressed concern that the more the House bill becomes perceived as the president's bill, the greater the likelihood that this whole enterprise is just going to blow up," a Capitol Hill source deeply involved in negotiations on the faith-based initiative issue told Salon in June. "He knows the House bill has several radioactive provisions."

DiIulio never commented on the Salon story, but he appears to have been right; a small but significant team of GOP moderates opposes allowing religious charities an exemption from nondiscrimination laws. And while the White House was wooing eight or so moderate House Democrats to its side Tuesday night on the eve of the vote on the bill, others were peeling off from their own party.

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