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eNews for Faith-Based Organizations
October 18, 2011

Editor: Stanley Carlson-Thies
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In this issue
Video Now Available of Congressional Briefing on Religious Hiring
Religious Leaders Thank the President For Maintaining Religious Hiring Freedom
Amendment Proposed in Illinois To Revive Faith-Based Foster Care Services
Rush Limbaugh to Front Democratic Party? Vanderbilt's Insane Student Group Policy
Worth Reading
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An archive of current and past eNews for FBOs can be accessed HERE.

Video Now Available of Congressional Briefing on Religious Hiring

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Sept. 30th was the date for the second of five briefings for congressional staff on institutional religious freedom trends, threats, and solutions.  The topic:  Maintaining the Freedom of Religious Hiring by Faith-Based Organizations.  The expert panelists were Anthony Picarello, US Conference of Catholic Bishops; Kim Colby, Center for Law and Religious Freedom at the Christian Legal Society; Luke Goodrich, Becket Fund; and Steve McFarland, World Vision.  Video of the briefing is now available here.

The third briefing, Protecting Conscience and Faith-Based Institutions in Health Care, will be held tomorrow (Capitol building, H-137, 11 am-12:15 pm).  The topic for Nov. 4 is Safeguarding Faith-Based Services Against Charges of Discrimination.  The fifth briefing, Dec. 9th, will be:  Governmental Accommodation for Religion in Education.  

The briefing series is co-produced by the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.  The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities is videotaping and posting each briefing.

Video of the first briefing is available here

Religious Leaders Thank the President For Maintaining Religious Hiring Freedom
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A multifaith group of leaders who operate or represent faith-based services yesterday sent to President Obama a letter thanking him for maintaining federal policies that enable faith-based organizations to continuing their religious hiring practices when they partner with government to provide services.  Some of these policies go back half a century; some are as recent as the Clinton and Bush administrations.  The letter also thanks the President for defending the policies in a University of Maryland town hall meeting this summer, where he said that the current rules reflect "the right balance."

The letter to the President was sparked by a September letter to the President from the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom (CARD), which criticized the President's town hall comments and demanded that he radically change federal policies concerning religious hiring.  The Coalition is a set of civil rights, church-state separationist, and liberal religious advocacy organizations.

 

Yesterday's letter was signed by Rev. Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals; Richard Stearns, head of World Vision (US); Rev. Larry Snyder, President of Catholic Charities USA; Anthony Picarello, General Counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Rabbi Abba Cohen, Vice President for Federal Affairs, Agudath Israel of America; Nathan Diament, National Director of Public Policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; and Stanley Carlson-Thies, President of IRFA.

The letter notes that the signers "represent organizations that directly serve the needy" and "are not simply a grouping of advocacy organizations."  And it says,

"It is a calumny on religious organizations to say that their exercise of this protected freedom represents invidious religious job discrimination.  Because of their religious beliefs, these organizations are willing to assist the government to serve the poor and needy of any faith or no faith. In considering religious conviction and conduct when selecting staff they seek only to maintain their religious identity and to constitute a workforce that will wholeheartedly advance the mission of the organization. . . . .

"To us the freedom to consider religion in hiring, notwithstanding federal funds, is not a matter of ideology but rather of religious autonomy and essential management practice.  It is critical to maintaining our missions and integrity, and thus an essential freedom if our organizations are to maintain their partnerships with government programs." 

Amendment Proposed in Illinois To Revive Faith-Based Foster Care Services
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The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) this past summer refused to renew long-standing foster-care services contracts with Catholic Charities agencies and the Evangelical Child and Family Agency (ECFA).  DCFS alleges that the agencies' policy of enlisting married mother-father foster care families is discriminatory and violate the state's civil unions law, which came into effect on June 1.  That law requires government and also private organizations to treat the members of a civil union as if they are married spouses.

Last week, state senator Kyle McCarter introduced SB 2495, which would amend the civil unions law so that it specifically would permit religious child welfare agencies not to accept as foster or adoptive homes applications from civil union couples, if accepting those homes would violate the agencies' sincerely held religious beliefs.  The agencies would notify the applicants how they could contact DCFS to locate other agencies to pursue their desire to foster or adopt a child.
    

 

The civil unions law--which is cynically entitled "the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act"--includes a vague section promising that it would not "interfere with or regulate the religious practice of any religious body."  That's obviously been proven untrue.  Sen. McCarter's bill would remedy one glaring and immediate violation of religious practices.

A similar bill (SB 1123, sponsored by Sen. David Koehler), was killed in the Senate Executive Committee in April.  At that time, Jennifer Chrisler of the Family Equality Council was quoted as saying, "This proposal would deny loving homes for many children who are in foster care or who are awaiting placement in foster homes."   Except that neither the April bill nor the new one would do anything of the sort.  Persons and couples not served by one agency would learn about the many other agencies able to serve them.  The likely effect of shoving out faith-based agencies is not more welcoming families, but fewer. 

Rush Limbaugh to Front Democratic Party?  Vanderbilt's Insane Student Group Policy
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Is it invidious and illegal discrimination for a religious student club-horrors!-to insist that its leaders must believe in and exemplify the convictions and standards of the religion?  That's what Vanderbilt University, a private institution in Tennessee, apparently believes, to judge from its threat to eject four Christian student groups from the university's list of recognized student organizations. 

What might it be, other than mere discrimination, for those Christian clubs to seek Christian leaders?  Well, perhaps they simply seek leaders committed to those Christian convictions.  After all, effective leadership of a religious or other expressive group requires that the leader exemplifies the group's convictions.  As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) points out in its letter to Vanderbilt's Chancellor, "Rush Limbaugh would not make a credible spokesperson for the Democratic Party, nor Barack Obama for Republicans." 

It shouldn't require an advanced degree to understand that.  Or rather, an advanced degree shouldn't prevent one from understanding that.
Worth Reading
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"The US Supreme Court this week dealt with two employment cases that revolve around the rightful separation of church and state.  That principle is often misunderstood to mean that somehow religious principles can and should be banned from public affairs. Instead, it reflects a fundamental principle for the right ordering of society, which Jesus stated this way: 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's' (Matt.22:21).    That is, not everything belongs under Caesar's control."


"Colleges and universities pride themselves as being vanguards of pluralism.  Nevertheless, in the past decade, more and more institutions have been quietly, but systematically, restricting freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of assembly under the guise of non-discrimination."


"May a Town Clerk with religious objections to gay marriage assign the task of recording the marriage to a Deputy Clerk? Mike Dorf says no, in part because the act of recording is so remote from the marriage itself. There is a sense that the Clerk is excessively fastidious.  Similar arguments underpin the idea that the state may tell florists and photographers that they may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and that they may be required to participate in gay marriages even if their religion forbids them to do. But the question should not be what society regards as too remote, too principled, too fastidious, too crazy, or too offensive. The free exercise clause protects those with extreme ideas of what counts as participation and it protects religions that from the perspective of society are too principled, too fastidious, too crazy, and too offensive."


"Under Hawaii law, religious employers that decline to cover contraceptives must provide written notification to enrollees disclosing that fact and describing alternate ways for enrollees to access coverage for contraceptive services. Hawaii law also requires health insurers to allow enrollees in a health plan of an objecting religious employer to purchase coverage of contraceptive services directly and to do so at a cost that does not exceed 'the enrollee's pro rata share of the price the group purchaser would have paid for such coverage had the group plan not invoked a religious exemption.' . . .   

 

"[T]he laws represent efforts to seek solutions that protect the rights of conscience and secure wide access to important health care services. The objections of all religious entities to providing coverage for contraceptives and sterilizations should be honored. At the same time, employees of objecting religious organizations should have prompt access to such coverage on the same terms as employees of other organizations."  

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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.