CPRF E-News

August 13, 2008

Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Resigns

Jay Hein, Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has announced that he is leaving the office as of August 29th. He is returning to Indianapolis.

No replacement has yet been announced.

In his two-year tenure, Jay Hein has stressed the initiative's goal to strengthen bottom-up solutions in which the government supports the work of faith-based and community-based organizations. He has strengthened the federal government's partnership with state and local governments to develop and implement civil society solutions. And he has maintained and advanced the initiative's core principle of safeguarding the religious identity of faith-based organizations that collaborate with the government to serve the needy. 

 

July 17, 2008

Inside This Issue:
The Presidential Candidates and the Faith-Based Initiative
ENDA and Religious Freedom
Is Religious Humanitarianism an Oxymoron?
Resources 

The Presidential Candidates and the Faith-Based Initiative

Two weeks ago, Senator Barak Obama announced his plans to expand and improve the faith-based initiative. The reverberations from his announcement continue to sound. And rightly so.

The Obama plan draws fire from groups opposed to government partnerships with faith-based organizations to serve the poor and needy. Some of these critics portray the Bush faith-based initiative as an unprecedented violation of settled church-state guidelines. This ignores the fact that government collaboration with religious social-service groups has a long history and that the major legislation on the topic—the Charitable Choice provisions put into three federal programs—was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Work to expand and improve partnership has been going on intensively for a dozen years. Senator Obama is right to see a continuation of this work—expanding the collaboration and continuing to improve the terms of the relationship--to be a vital aspect of domestic policy for the next President.

Reverberations continue as well from Sen. Obama's announced plan to restrict religious hiring by faith-based groups in programs operated with federal funds. Many religious leaders and faith-based organizations are hoping for further discussion of this vital issue.

In the "guiding principles" in his proposal on "Partnering with Communities of Faith," Sen. Obama said that the organizations would be required to "comply with federal anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964." But, he added, "Religious organizations that receive federal dollars cannot discriminate with respect to hiring for government-funded social service programs."

His exact intention is unclear. Title VII includes an exemption that expressly protects the freedom of faith-based organizations to take account of religion in their employment decisions, so complying with this fundamental part of federal anti-discrimination policy preserves the religious staffing freedom. But the second statement, by sharp contrast, proposes a sweeping ban on religious staffing in any program operated by a faith-based organization using federal funds.

The status quo—under the Bush faith-based initiative, and also before the Bush actions—has never included such a universal ban. Rather, the federal rules are these:

• faith-based organizations, as a general rule, are free to consider religion when making employment decisions (the Title VII exemption);
• some federal programs explicitly protect that freedom when the organization receives federal funds (programs governed by Charitable Choice);
• some federal programs explicitly ban religious staffing by all participating organizations (e.g., Head Start and programs funded by the Workforce Investment Act);
• but most federal programs say nothing about employment, thus leaving intact the religious staffing freedom for participating religious organizations.

Many faith-based organizations are rightly concerned about a sweeping new restriction on religious staffing and may be forced to reject collaboration with federally funded programs if the proposed rule is implemented.

Concerned organizations should ask the Obama campaign for clarification, emphasizing their willingness to serve all, without regard to religion, and yet their conviction that maintaining their religious identity is only possible if they are able to take account of religion when selecting staff. Many faith-based organizations do take account of religion, but surreptitiously, unaware of their legal rights. Now is the time is be clear about how important this aspect of institutional religious freedom.

Senator John McCain's campaign has issued a press release indicating his view that the religious staffing decisions of faith-based groups should not be subject to governmental restriction. This is a welcome statement. But it needs to be accompanied by a plan for carrying on the faith-based initiative.

The current issue of the E-Newsletter of the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy includes this article: "Opposing Groups Urge Next President to Improve Faith-Based Policy." The article notes a recent letter from the "Coalition Against Religious Discrimination" calling on the candidates to prohibit religious staffing. It also highlights the memo from the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom calling for a continued emphasis on religious freedom: "Memo to Presidential Candidates: How to get the faith-based initiative right."
 

ENDA and Religious Freedom

The Employment Non Discrimination Act (H.R. 3685), adopted by the House last November, still awaits Senate action. Before passage in the House, an amendment offered by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) was added. The Miller amendment was a response to protests to the bill's inadequate religious exemption (religious schools not controlled by a church nor dedicated to spreading religious teachings were not clearly exempted). As amended ENDA now exempts from its prohibition on job discrimination based on sexual orientation all religious organizations covered by the Title VII exemption of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That is, religious schools, faith-based nonprofits, and other religious organizations that are free under Title VII to consider religion in their employment decisions are also exempt from ENDA's sexual-orientation ban.

However, ENDA nevertheless would encroach on religious freedom in other ways. As currently written, ENDA does not maintain the specific FCC provision that protects the employment decisions of religious broadcasters. Further, Title VII includes a BFOQ provision that enables organizations to "discriminate" in hiring for particular job positions where certain personal characteristics are valid job qualifications—such as a secular bookstore hiring a person of a particular faith to maintain the store's specialized holdings of books related to that religion. ENDA does not include such a provision.

Most important, adoption of ENDA arguably would render religiously based objections to homosexual conduct "contrary to public policy" and thus subject to government penalty. Just as Bob Jones University had its tax exempt status revoked because of its then policy against interracial dating, a faith-based organization that legitimately (because of the religious exemption in ENDA) refused to hire a person who engages in homosexual conduct might nevertheless lose its tax-exempt status or low-cost use of space in a government building. Many backers apparently do wish to regard religiously motivated objections to homosexual behavior to be no different than rank racism.

Legislators who genuinely desire both to protect people who engage in homosexual conduct from unjust discrimination and to safeguard the ability of religious people and organizations to maintain their historic religious standards concerning sexual activity need to amend ENDA further. 
 

Is Religious Humanitarianism an Oxymoron?

In May, World Vision won an important victory in federal district court in Seattle in a case brought by several former employees who argued that World Vision could not legally fire them for no longer adhering to the organization's religious standards because it is a humanitarian organization and not a religious organization. There was no doubt that the former employees had signed documents requiring them to be committed Christians and that they no longer considered themselves to be such. The question for the court was whether World Vision could validly claim the religious exemption of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which authorizes religious staffing decisions.

The judge rightly ruled that World Vision was both a religious organization and a humanitarian organization—that it was a religious humanitarian organization. The decision uses strong arguments to uphold the religious staffing freedom. Unfortunately, the former employees have appealed the decision.
 

Resources

1. On June 26 and 27, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives hosted a conference to celebrate and evaluate developments in the partnership between government and civil society organizations, including faith-based organizations. In connection with the conference, a new website now highlights "Innovation in Effective Compassion."

2. Should the federal government tell rich universities such as Harvard how they must spend their endowments? Should nonprofit organizations, in return for tax-exempt status, be required to tell the public the salaries of key staff and other details of their operations and supporters? Bernard Fryshman makes a strong plea for protecting the independence and privacy of nonprofit organizations in "Today, Harvard. Tomorrow . . .?," an article for Inside Higher Ed.

3. Constitutional law expert Carl Esbeck explains the First Amendment rationale for providing robust religious exemptions in "When Accommodations for Religion Violate the Establishment Clause: Regularizing the Supreme Court's Analysis."

4. The Baylor Institute for Studies in Religion recently released Not by Faith or Government Alone: Rethinking the Role of Faith-Based Organizations, a special research report edited by Byron Johnson, with short essays on various aspects of the faith-based and community initiative. Among the essays is "The Paradoxical Role of Faith in the Faith-Based and Community Initiative," by this editor, arguing that the hard work to ensure the religious freedom of faith-based organizations has not been a distraction from the initiative aims but rather the catalyst for all the reforms requiring government to be more respectful of its civil society partners.

5. For the legal, constitutional, and policy rationales for the religious staffing freedom, download The Freedom of Faith-Based Organizations to Staff on a Religious Basis (PDF, 174 pages), by Carl Esbeck, Stanley Carlson-Thies, and Ron Sider (Center for Public Justice, 2004).

6. Is protecting the religious identity of faith-based organizations that collaborate with government an extremist, sectarian policy, as some charge, or rather the middle position—the equal treatment alternative to the extremes of obligatory secularism and soft theocracy? Read Keith Pavlischek's reflections on Senator Obama's proposed faith-based policy, "Doubting Obama."

7. Peter Steinfels wrote a thoughtful evaluation of Senator Obama's proposals for the New York Times: "Obama Sets Off a Debate on Ties Between Religion and Government."

8. For a thought-provoking review of John DiIulio's recent book on the faith-based initiative, Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future (2007), focusing on the religious staffing issue, see Joseph Knippenberg's essay, "Faith Friendly?"

July 3, 2008

Senator McCain Announces Support for Religious Staffing

Sen. McCain's presidential campaign issued a statement today (Wednesday) fully supporting the freedom of faith-based organizations to staff on a religious basis even when they receive federal funds:

"John McCain supports faith based initiatives, and recognizes their important role in our communities. He has co-sponsored legislation to foster improved partnerships with community organizations, including faith-based organizations, to assist with substance abuse and violence prevention. He also believes that it is important for faith-based groups to be able to hire people who share their faith, and he disagrees with Senator Obama that hiring at faith-based groups should be subject to government oversight."

This statement is a response to Sen. Obama's guidelines, issued yesterday, which propose restricting religious staffing in any program operated with federal funds (while preserving the religious staffing freedom when the funds are nongovernmental).

Given the importance of religious staffing to many faith-based organizations, McCain's statement is very welcome. Now for further details on how Senator McCain intends to build a better relationship between government and the many civil society organizations—many of them faith-based—that perform such vital roles in our society …

See the McCain statement here: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/PressReleases/783251c0-4f78-4ff6-bb1d-bacf234fd8c2.htm http://obama.3cdn.net/c2c74198bb57fc007c_e906mvllj.pdf

See the Obama campaign fact sheet detailing the Obama plan and the new restrictions he proposes:

July 2, 2008

Senator Obama Announces His Faith-Based Initiative

Trying to advance faith-based partnerships by imposing a sweeping new restriction on FBOs

Sen. Obama today announced his faith-based initiative. Unfortunately, most news stories have not accurately described his proposals.

The Senator's desire to make the federal government a better partner of faith-based social service organizations is very good news. The initial federal reforms were signed into law by President Clinton. President Bush has done much to promote those partnerships. Now Sen. Obama has declared his desire to continue the progress. This bipartisan federal commitment mirrors the bipartisan support at the state level.

Sen. Obama's speech sketches the new approach he hopes to introduce. The speech does not make clear the radical restriction he intends to impose on faith-based organizations that receive federal funding.

His guidelines for federally funded faith-based organizations would require that no federal funds be spent on proselytizing and religious activities and that FBOs serve all without religious discrimination. He also promises to hold FBOs responsible for demonstrating results--and hopefully will require the same of secular organizations. These are good guidelines, not different than the current ones, except for perhaps a greater emphasis on demonstrated results (and perhaps less freedom for religious activities when the federal funding is indirect).

Sen. Obama also will require the federal government's FBO partners to follow Title VII and other federal anti-discrimination requirements. But the details of his plan are different than this. Title VII forbids religious job discrimination by secular organizations but includes an exemption so that faith-based organizations can make employment decisions that reflect their religious commitments. This general federal freedom is restricted in some federal programs, and some state and local governments also restrict it. But the general federal rule is that FBOs receiving federal funds retain their religious staffing freedom.

Sen. Obama would create an unprecedented new restriction: every FBO that accepts federal funds would be stripped of its religious staffing freedom when it comes to hiring people to run the federally funded program. There has never been such a sweeping restriction in the past. Some FBOs may find this restriction acceptable. Others will find it intolerable and will be forced to walk away from partnerships with government agencies that award federal funds.

Some powerful forces would like to restrict religious staffing even further. There is no doubt that this is an unpopular freedom for many people. But unpopular doesn't mean unimportant.

Faith-based organizations, faith community leaders, and advocates of religious freedom should ask Senator Obama to revisit his guidelines and reject proposals that force faith-based organizations to suppress their religious identity.

For further details and commentary:

- See Greg Baylor's post at The Center Blog: http://religiousfreedom.blogspot.com/2008/07/sen-obama-faith-based-initiative.html

- See the statement of the Orthodox Union: http://www.ou.org/public_affairs/article/41995

- See the Obama campaign fact sheet detailing the Obama plan and the new restriction: http://obama.3cdn.net/c2c74198bb57fc007c_e906mvllj.pdf

 

 

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