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eNews for Faith-Based Organizations
August 23, 2011

Editor: Stanley Carlson-Thies
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In this issue
Department of Justice Versus Institutional Religious Freedom
What's the "Public"? Hospital Mergers and Catholic Guidelines
Cutting Private Funding to Faith-Based Organizations
Faith Communities, Faith-Based Services, and the British Riots
Food for Thought
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Department of Justice Versus Institutional Religious Freedom

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The oral argument at the US Supreme Court is scheduled for October 5 in the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC.  It's a case about whether a faith-based school's firing of a teacher falls within the "ministerial exception" or, instead, the school and teacher are governed by the Americans with Disabilities Act so that the school's action was illegal.  

The "ministerial exception" is a concept created by the courts in response to the First Amendment's religion clauses.  The courts agree that the government must keep its nose out of employment decisions concerning "ministerial" employees, not even forbidding racial and sexual selectivity.  And the courts agree that the category extends beyond ministers and rabbis although it does not include cleaning staff.  (This is a different part of employment law than the Title VII religious exemption that allows religious organizations to consider religion in hiring and firing any and all staff.)  

Does the category include teachers at a faith-based school, such that the government must not second-guess this school's dismissal of this teacher?  A flood of amicus briefs was submitted to the Supreme Court, most of them favoring a capacious ministerial exemption that would include this teacher who performed important religious tasks as well as teaching secular subjects.  Among the amici or "friends of the court" who support the school are the American Jewish Committee, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodists, the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty--none of these from the conservative end of the religious or political spectrum.  (All the briefs can be found here.)

Voices raised against the faith-based school include, more predictably, the American Atheists, American Humanist Association, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the ACLU.  And also the US Department of Justice.  

Shouldn't our federal government stand up for religious freedom, defend faith-based schools, and advocate for a strong and extensive ministerial exception to keep the government out of the affairs of religious organizations--an authentic expression of the separation of church and state?  

Instead, the Obama administration has urged the Supreme Court to rule, contrary to the lower courts, that there is no general "ministerial exception" at all, but only case-by-case determinations about when the courts and government must step back from the decisions made by religious organizations.  If the Justices instead decide there is a ministerial exception, then, your government says, it should be "limited to those plaintiffs who perform exclusively religious functions and whose claims concern their entitlement to occupy or retain their ecclesiastical office."  That's it:  the zone of freedom would only cover clergy or religious teachers and extend only to decisions about hiring and firing them.  

As Ed Whelan, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center writes, the administration's position "is even more hostile to the ministerial exception than the amicus brief filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the ACLU."  These other critics only seek to narrow the scope of the exception, not deny its existence.

The administration's position sets our government against faith-based organizations.  If adopted, it "threatens to expose churches and other religious institutions to a broad array of employment-discrimination claims that the ministerial exception has long shielded them from," Whelan points out.  It even puts the government "sharply at odds with its usual supporters on the religious Left," he notes.  

This is a very troubling development, not only because of the importance of this specific legal issue but also as a sign of the administration's commitments.  As Whelan says,

"DOJ's decision to pick a fight with the religious Left on the existence of the ministerial exception (rather than simply arguing that the scope of the ministerial exception doesn't extend to the employee at issue) stands in striking contrast to its shameless pandering to gay and lesbian groups on Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask, Don't Tell litigation. I guess that we can tell who has real clout with the Obama administration and whom it instead opportunistically exploits for political cover."

You don't even have to agree with Whelan's views about DOMA and DADT to be troubled by this development.
What's the "Public"?  Hospital Mergers and Catholic Guidelines
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This time the controversy has erupted in Louisville, Kentucky, because of the proposed merger of the University of Louisville's teaching hospital with a Catholic network of hospitals and a Jewish hospital.  The combined system would follow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Healthcare Services. Those guidelines restrict certain reproductive and end-of-life procedures.  Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz has to approve of the merger if the resulting system is to be called a Catholic network.  The state of Kentucky has to approve of the merger as well, and Governor Steve Beshear has expressed qualms.

So have community members, more than 400 of whom have signed a petition against the merger, saying "they fear it will limit access to vital medical procedures at a hospital that receives millions of dollars in public money." 

There are genuine issues to be carefully worked through, given that a merged Catholic system will not perform all procedures that the government, and much of the medical profession and the public, have decided are proper.  The Louisville Courier-Journal has reported on different ways these issues have been dealt with in other communities. 

Yet in working through those issues, and thinking about the merits of such mergers, we should all remember that there is no single homogeneous "public" to be served, as if those who want abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life procedures to be performed are truly part of the "public" and those who have moral or religious objections to those same procedures are second-class citizens who should only be able to indulge their cramped beliefs off in a private corner.  Let's admit it:  our public is heterogeneous.  To serve the whole public, the government must accommodate the different views when it funds services and licenses facilities and professionals, instead of favoring just a part of the public. 
Cutting Private Funding to Faith-Based Organizations
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Much attention has rightly been devoted to ensuring that the rules that accompany government funding do not exclude faith-based organizations from the opportunity to collaborate with government to serve the needy.  Indeed, in real sense, this fight to ensure a "level playing field" when the government awards grants and contracts has been at the heart of the faith-based initiative.  

In the meantime, but without gaining as much attention, more and more private organizations that offer funding to charities have been attaching conditions that exclude many faith-based organizations.  Foundations, corporate donors, and other private funders have the legal right to exclude organizations they disapprove of--but does excluding faith-based groups actually help the funders achieve their goals of better outcomes, stronger families and communities, and greater diversity?

Example 1:  Gay activists have successfully pressured corporations to cut their ties to the online Charity Give Back Group (CGBG), which "allows online shoppers to authorize a percentage of their purchase dollars to go to the charity of their choice, secular or religious," because Focus on the Family and other allegedly "anti-gay hate groups" are listed among the charities.  It is the shoppers' money, and their choice of charity.  But the activists have convinced iTunes, Microsoft, Macy's, and Wells Fargo to cut their ties to the CGBG, and are pressing other corporations to do the same.

Example 2:  The DonorPerfect company, which makes software to help organizations keep track of donors and members, generously participates in TechSoup.com's program to support smaller groups by giving them free use of its software for a period of time.  But to be eligible for this generous offer, organizations must not only have an annual budget of less than $100,000 and be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (or a public library), they must also certify that they do not "advocate, support, or practice discrimination" based on a long list of characteristics, including religion and sexual orientation.  That cuts out many worthy faith-based organizations that are, perfectly legally, selective in who and how they serve.  

Notable Counter-Example:  United Ways, which in various cities raise funds for service organizations, have often shied away from supporting faith-based charities that seemed, well, too sectarian or religious.  However, in 1997, United Way of Massachusetts Bay reversed course and started a "Faith in Action Initiative" that gave funds specifically to inner city faith-based organizations.  Why?  The United Way wanted its funding to make a real difference in the lives of young people in poor neighborhoods, so they decided to support the organizations that best understood and were active in those neighborhoods.  

A Challenge:  Where's the investigative reporter who will systematically uncover how faith-based colleges, rescue missions, adoption agencies, overseas development organizations, and other charities are being excluded from private funding by foundations, corporate donors, and others?
Faith Communities, Faith-Based Services, and the British Riots
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Remoralizing Society

 

"There are large parts of Britain, Europe and even the United States where religion is a thing of the past and there is no counter-voice to the culture of buy it, spend it, wear it, flaunt it, because you're worth it. . . .

 

"Has this happened before, and is there a way back? The answer to both questions is in the affirmative. In the 1820s, in Britain and America, a similar phenomenon occurred. People were moving from villages to cities. Families were disrupted. Young people were separated from their parents and no longer under their control. Alcohol consumption rose dramatically. So did violence. In the 1820s it was unsafe to walk the streets of London because of pickpockets by day and 'unruly ruffians' by night.

 

"What happened over the next 30 years was a massive shift in public opinion. There was an unprecedented growth in charities, friendly societies, working men's institutes, temperance groups, church and synagogue associations, Sunday schools, YMCA buildings and moral campaigns of every shape and size, fighting slavery or child labor or inhuman working conditions. The common factor was their focus on the building of moral character, self-discipline, willpower and personal responsibility. It worked. Within a single generation, crime rates came down and social order was restored. What was achieved was nothing less than the re-moralization of society--much of it driven by religion."

 

--Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, "Reversing the Decay of London Undone,"Wall Street Journal, August 20-21.

 

Faith-Based Youth Work

 

"[I]n this society we look to raise not young citizens, but young consumers. They've grown up on dreams fed to them by the marketing men . . . , yet as credit and funding have dried up, they now don't have the resources to fund the dreams they've been sold.  

 

"Faith-based youth work has something special, something inherently different to offer them, because it offers something distinctive: transformation. And we in the faith community must not be ashamed of where that transformation comes from: an engagement with young people's yearning sense of spirituality--something which promises rewards even greater than financial gain."

 

--Martin Saunders, "After the riots, my faith-based youth work gives me hope in this generation," Guardian.co.uk, Aug. 12.

 

Strong Communities and Religious Institutions: Muslims and Catholics

 

"Rod Dreher, on the RealClearReligion site, observes how Muslims in Great Britain have responded to the riots with community solidarity and cooperative efforts to protect neighborhoods and businesses.  He notes a study of teenagers in an impoverished neighborhood in Birmingham and how differently Muslim kids saw the world and their future:

 

'. . . Though everyone studied lives in the same neighborhood, and in relative poverty, the character profile of Muslim kids was far different. The report found that Hodge Hill's Muslims took religion seriously (unlike the others, who had no real engagement with religious thought or practice), and come from strong families guided by engaged fathers. Among the Muslims, parents and children alike are optimistic about their futures, with their aspirations "often centered around responsibility to the family."'

 

"[T]hese studies show again the vital importance of faith for building strong communities and instilling healthy values in the next generation.  As I read these reports about Muslims in Great Britain and the United States, it's hard not to think of the same being true of Catholics and Catholic communities in the United States in decades past.

 

"We as legal scholars and political commentators are apt to think that our law reform and public policy efforts are important and hold the answers to our social problems.  But I continue to think that our parishes and parish schools are likely to be making a bigger difference for our communities and our future.  As our Muslim neighbors are showing us, we should not be waiting for government and new social programs to fill the hole in the soul of our community.  We need to renew our own commitments to our parishes and Catholic schools, which are teaching our children how to thrive and how to build satisfying lives grounded in Catholic faith and moral values.  God/Allah bless our Muslim neighbors for reminding us of these first principles."

 

--Greg Sisk, "Religion, Community, and Optimism for the Future:  The Example of Muslims," Mirror of Justice, August 17.

 

Food for Thought
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"After interviewing prisoners, parolees, and probationers for more than 25 years, I have discovered that prisoners, drug addicts, and other offenders, like most Americans, are open to matters of faith and, in fact, want to talk about religion." 

--Byron Johnson, "Overcoming the Obstacles to Faith-Based Approaches to Crime," Public Discourse, August 3, 2011.
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The Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance works to safeguard the religious identity, faith-based standards and practices, and faith-shaped services of faith-based organizations across the range of service sectors and religions, enabling them to make their distinctive and best contributions to the common good.