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New Members for the President's Faith Advisory Council 
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On February 4 the White House announced some of the new members of the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The terms of the original 25 members expired in March, 2010. 

The announced new members are:

Susan Stern (chair), American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a humanitarian organization.

Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Andrea Bazan, President of Triangle Community Foundation in North Carolina and formerly Chair of the National Council of La Raza, the Hispanic civil rights group.

Angela Glover Blackwell, CEO of Policy Link, which works on behalf of low-income and minority people.

Brian Gallagher, CEO of United Way Worldwide.

Bishop Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Lynne Hybels, Advocate for Global Engagement at Willow Creek Community Church.

The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Executive VP of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative and Masorti Rabbis.

Archbishop Demetrios Trakatellis, Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church of America.

Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, past president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and current chair of a committee of the Catholic Health Association.

Rev. Elder Nancy L. Wilson, Moderator for the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches and noted as "one of the nation's leading LGBT pastors."

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In his comments at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 3, President Obama spoke very personally about his religious beliefs, in part to address the doubts of a significant part of the public that he is a Christian.  He said that Joshua Dubois, the pastor who heads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, "starts my morning off with meditations from Scripture."

He also said this about faith-based partnerships:

"Now, sometimes faith groups can do the work of caring for the least of these on their own; sometimes they need a partner, whether it's in business or government.  And that's why my administration has taken a fresh look at the way we organize with faith groups, the way we work with faith groups through our Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

"And through that office, we're expanding the way faith groups can partner with our government.  We're helping them feed more kids who otherwise would go hungry.  We're helping fatherhood groups get dads the support they need to be there for their children.  We're working with non-profits to improve the lives of people around the world.  And we're doing it in ways that are aligned with our constitutional principles.  And in this work, we intend to expand it in the days ahead, rooted in the notions of partnership and justice and the imperatives to help the poor."

The President went on to note that a strong role for faith-based and secular organizations does not negate a positive role for government:  "in a caring and in a just society, government must have a role to play . . . our love and our charity must find expression not just in our families, not just in our places of work and our places of worship, but also in our government and in our politics." 

And he rightly noted the issue of the "proper role of government" has been a matter of "enormous controversy" in which "one side's version of compassion and community may be interpreted by the other side as an oppressive and irresponsible expansion of the state or an unacceptable restriction on individual freedom." 

And yet the question of the role of government is more complicated than that.  Concern over an ever-expanding government should go far beyond worries that the government's many programs may be unsustainable or that a vigorous government will unduly constrain individuals.  For the bigger government becomes, the more it runs into areas where private organizations, many of them faith-based, have long been active, potentially crowding them out.  And the more the government seeks to extend its uniform, secular, rules over all of society, the more it curtails not just individual freedom but also the ability of faith-based organizations to operate according to their faith commitments. 

Among the continuing tasks of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships ought to be at least these:  (1) to champion the independent role of religious and secular civil society organizations, apart from whatever they may do with government; and (2)  to protect the freedom of faith-based organizations to follow their religious convictions, even where these differ from the secular consensus.

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House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has introduced HR 471 to reauthorize a school choice program for Washington, DC.  Congress, which has some governance responsibilities over the US capital city, had adopted school choice for Washington in 2003.  The program, which includes faith-based as well as secular private schools, showed significant positive educational results, was very popular with participating families, and had considerable local political support. Still, Congress voted in 2009 to phase it out.  HR 471 would blaze life back into the voucher program to give poor families an expanded range of school choices.  As with the previous program, part of the money allocated by Congress would go to DC public schools and part to DC charter schools. 

School choice programs improve educational outcomes and have the high value of enabling poor families to select schools congruent with their values (just as richer families can choose schools either by paying tuition to a private school or by moving to a different public school district). 

School choice or voucher programs have an added benefit.  It is the parents who select a school and thus direct the government funding to it, rather than a government official assigning students to one or another institution and allocating funds to the various schools.  For this reason, it is perfectly permissible for schools offering a faith-based curriculum to be among the choices that parents can select (see the US Supreme Court decision, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 2002).  (Most of the time, government awards its funds directly to faith-based and secular groups, and in consequence religious activities have to be kept separate from the government-funded services, although the religious activities can be offered on a privately funded and voluntary basis.)

So vouchers protect faith-based content when government funding is involved.  HR 471 includes other essential protections for faith-based services. Religious hiring by participating faith-based school is specifically protected in the bill, as is restricting hiring by gender (for a religious school operated by nuns or priests).  Other elements of the religious identity of participating faith-based schools are also specifically protected, such as displays of religious art, having a religious mission statement, and having a governing board that includes religious leaders.  Moreover, while students are protected from discrimination, once they and their parents have selected a particular school, the students have to abide by the "rules of conduct and other requirements applicable to all other students at the school" and cannot, for example, claim that the school must allow them to disregard religious rules for conduct or to play hooky from chapel or religion classes.

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Here's how more than one source characterized the Ninth Circuit's recent decision upholding World Vision's religious hiring practices (see first story, above):  "9th Circuit: Faith-Based Groups Not Subject to Title VII."  Spot the error?  What the court actually decided was not that World Vision is "not subject" to Title VII--the part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that sets out national employment non-discrimination requirements.  Rather, the court decided that World Vision fits the exemption that is a built-in feature of Title VII.  Religious hiring by World Vision, and by every other faith-based organization, is exactly a practice that is protected by Title VII.  When a faith-based organization considers religion when hiring and firing staff, it is doing something that Title VII authorizes.  It is being subject to Title VII, and has not been excused from obeying it.

The website with that particular false headline?  Ironically, it styles itself "law.com."  Looks like there is at least one area of law where the site needs to do some additional study.

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Baltimore City and several other communities have adopted laws requiring crisis pregnancy centers to post a sign saying that they don't help women get abortions.  Supporters of the laws claim it is a simple matter of truth in advertising:  so-called "limited-service pregnancy centers" shouldn't be allowed to mislead women in crisis to think that abortions are unavailable to them or not right for them. 

It is hard to imagine there can be anyone at all in the United States who is unaware of the legality and availability of abortions.  And it is dismissive to call crisis pregnancy center "limited-service" centers. The centers the Archdiocese of Baltimore operates "offer pregnant women food, clothing, prenatal classes and adoption counseling."  They also "make explicit to clients what services they do and don't offer."

But those centers did not think it right for the City to require them to tell clients about abortion as an option.  And so they sued. 

On January 28, a federal judge agreed with the crisis pregnancy centers.  He struck down as unconstitutional the City's sign requirement, writing:  "Whether a provider of pregnancy-related services is 'pro-life' or 'pro-choice,' it is for the provider--not the government--to decide when and how to discuss abortion and birth-control methods." 

Baltimore Sun story here.

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As noted in the last issue, the bills recently introduced into the Maryland legislature to validate same-sex marriage do nothing actually to mitigate the predictable religious freedom conflicts, even though both bills carry the title "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act."  The bills promise that no one will be forced to officiate at same-sex marriages, but legal scholars agree that clergy could not be forced to do that anyway.

On the other hand, legal scholars, including those who favor same-sex marriage, have documented a long list of existing and predictable incursions on individual and institutional religious freedom if marriage is redefined without the simultaneous adoption of specific protections for religious professionals and faith-based organizations. 

Both the religious-freedom conflicts and the legal language needed to mitigate the conflicts are carefully explained in a letter sent on January 26 to Maryland legislators.  The letter is signed by a multi-faith group of top constitutional law experts:  Robin Fretwell Wilson, Carl H. Esbeck, Thomas C.  Berg, Richard Garnett, Marc D. Stern, and Edward Gaffney, Jr.  The team earlier sent letters to other states contemplating marriage redefinition. The current letter is adapted to the Maryland situation, taking into account where Maryland law currently protects religious freedom.  (The same team of scholars sent a similar letter on Feb. 7 to Rhode Island Governor Chaffee in response to same-sex marriage bills that have been introduced in that state.)

Of course, none of these conflicts would arise, and none of the protective language would be needed, if the legislature chooses to stick with the current recognition in Maryland law that marriage is a particular relationship between a man and a woman.  And, on the other hand, it is certain that changing the definition of marriage will have social consequences far beyond the religious freedom conflicts that the letter addresses.  Still, if the legislature insists on redefining marriage, it must also put into the law specific protections for religious individuals and institutions. 

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