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Every congressional office on August 25th received a
plea from a multi-religious group of faith-based leaders: don't change the rules and hamper our ability to serve the public! A particular concern is the rumor that language banning religious hiring by federal grantees will be added to the continuing budget resolution Congress needs to adopt soon because it has failed to pass bills to fund the various federal departments.
The letter was signed by more than a hundred leaders--Catholic, orthodox Jewish, and Protestant--representing a range of domestic and international services. The Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance's President, Stanley Carlson-Thies, signed the letter and was also part of the organizing team.
The letter was prompted by a
series of actions in Washington DC by members of Congress and activist groups seeking to limit the freedom of faith-based organizations to hire on a religious basis and to limit the protection offered to religious organizations by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Opponents of religious hiring are seeking to get Congress to add to a continuing budget resolution language banning religious hiring by every federal grantee. Congress must pass such a resolution because it has yet to adopt budget laws for the federal government even though the new fiscal year begins on October 1. The anti-hiring language would likely also limit the ability of faith-based organizations to appeal to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect their religious rights.
A continuing budget resolution is a "must sign" bill and would put President Obama under extreme pressure to do something he has so far not done: upset decades of federal policy on religious hiring.
The rules governing many federal programs allow faith-based organizations to partner with the federal government to provide services even when the organizations utilize their legal freedom to consider religion when hiring staff. However, religious hiring is banned in other programs, and it is that limited restriction that the proposed language would extend to all federal programs--perhaps even to all federally funded programs, including the many state and local government programs that are funded with federal dollars. Such a ban would confront many faith-based organizations that have long partnered with the government with this choice: abandon religious hiring, a vital management practice, or abandon the partnership with government, a partnership that makes possible the delivery of many trusted and effective services.
Curtailing the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would be even worse. RFRA was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1993 specifically to
protect the exercise of religion. Critics have claimed that RFRA was never intended to protect religious hiring by government grantees, but Douglas Laycock, top church-state constitutional expert, has pointed out in a
memo to federal officials that the critics have offered no legal argument, only their policy preferences.
It ought to be up to faith-based organizations, not Congress, to decide in which ways religious commitments and adherence to faith-based conduct standards are essential job qualifications. Faith leaders, citizens, and members of Congress need to be alert to the rumored surprise attack on the long-established rules that have enabled faith-based organizations and government to work together to promote the common good.
