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House Constitution Subcommittee Hearing on Religious Liberty in the US
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On October 26th, the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives held a hearing on "The State of Religious Liberty in the United States."  (Video and written testimony here.)

The witnesses were Bishop William Lori, the just-appointed chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops; Colby May, director of the Washington, DC, office of the American Center for Law and Justice; and Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.   

   

A sign of the times:  Bishop Lori and the ACLJ's Colby May stressed the pressure put on religious freedom by anti-discrimination rules (e.g., preventing a religious club from requiring leaders to be faithful adherents of the religion or requiring the health insurance plans offered by Catholic organizations to pay for procedures that violate Catholic convictions)--while Rev. Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State characterized efforts to protect the religious freedom of individuals and institutions in this setting as mere efforts to avoid providing legitimate services.  

   

The ACLU submitted written testimony. In it, the ACLU professes its commitment to "the constitutional right of all Americans to exercise and express religious beliefs and individual conscience," yet condemns exemptions that protect the ability of religious organizations to conduct their affairs consistent with their religious convictions.  The ACLU warned that such protective provisions "cannot be turned into a sword to cut off all regulations and to inflict harm on others."  "Our nation," the testimony says, "respects and protects the right to follow and practice one's faith, but concluded long ago that the exercise of religious beliefs should not detrimentally affect the well being of others."  Apparently it escapes the ACLU that there is no unanimity in our society about how to promote "well being" and that the constitutional protection for religious exercise counts for little if it only protects action that is approved by everyone else.

Senate Ally For Rep. Stark's Bill that Shutters Faith-Based Adoption Agencies
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has announced that she will introduce a Senate companion bill to Rep. Pete Stark's (D-CA) House bill, HR 1681, the "Every Child Deserves a Family Act."  Rep. Stark's bill notes that many thousands of children and youth in the foster care system will most likely "age out" of the system without having been given a permanent home via adoption.  The bill intends to expand the number of adoptive homes by ending restrictions on adoption and fostering by gay individuals and couples.  

The bill can be read as prohibiting private agencies that receive federal funds from discriminating against gay persons and couples when recruiting adoptive and foster care families and when placing children.  That's a problem for many faith-based agencies, which prefer to place children with married mother-father families if possible and which believe that sexual activity ought to be limited to man-woman marriages.  Still, if the bill is only about new strings on federal funds, such agencies could simply avoid federal funds.

In fact, the bill has a much wider reach.  Here's how the Washington Blade put it: "The bill would restrict federal funds for states if they have laws or practices allowing for discrimination in adoption on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation or gender identity."    

 

In other words, the actual design of the bill is to use the federal funds that states receive as leverage in order to get the states to ban "discrimination" in foster care and adoption by every agency in the state, including faith-based organizations, whether or not the private agencies receive any federal (or state) funding.  The non-discrimination policy that has driven Catholic Charities out of adoption and foster care services in Boston, Washington DC, and the state of Illinois (where the Evangelical Child and Family Agency was also forced to give up its foster care contract) would be expanded across the entire United States. (For stories from families that were inspired to become foster parents by the Evangelical Child and Family Agency, see the latest video from the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance.)

Will driving faith-based agencies out of these critical services actually expand the number of permanent homes for foster kids?  

Consider, instead, what has expanded the number of families choosing to adopt:  states making a special effort to engage faith communities!  Here are three examples:

* One Church One Child, national program. Founded in 1980 to enlist black churches to recruit African-American adoptive families for black children stuck in foster care.

* Harvest of Hope Family Services Network, New Jersey.  Founded by Rev. Buster Soaries and First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in 1966 in response to New Jersey's foster-care crisis.  The network works with churches to recruit and train adoptive families.  

* "Wait No More" initiative of Focus on the Family.  Between late 2008 and early 2010, "The number of Colorado children in foster care awaiting permanent adoption [was] cut in half by a partnership between churches and government that places parentless kids in 'forever homes'," according to a denverpost(dot)com article.   

 

Wise policymakers and government officials will ensure that their regulations and laws protect the ability of faith-based agencies to use their best judgment in making placement decisions, and will protect the religious identity of these agencies so that they can build trust relationships with prospective adoptive and foster care families and with persons who have to give up their children for care by others.

Instead of the Stark/Gillibrand bill, Congress ought to provide a real remedy.  It should craft an alternative bill modeled on the Church Amendment and other federal legislation that protects doctors, nurses, and medical students from being forced into performing or supporting abortions.  The alternative bill would require any state that receives federal funding and that bans discrimination on the bases of "marital status, sexual orientation, and gender identity" in foster care and adoption services to provide a robust exemption for faith-based organizations--or the state would lose its federal funding for those services for children.  

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Apple, alas, is a notorious anti-religious censor, having ejected from the iTunes App Store two Christian apps--one on the Manhattan Declaration, one from Exodus International.  Apple also stopped participating in the Christian Values Network (now CGBG), an online service through which shoppers can direct a portion of their purchase amounts to charities they choose, because the service allows shoppers to donate to allegedly "discriminatory" Christian organizations.  

But this is just the tip of the high-tech censorship iceberg, according to a new study by the John Milton Project for Religious Free Speech, a project of the National Religious Broadcasters.  In its report, "True Liberty in a New Media Age:  An Examination of the Threat of Anti-Christian Censorship and Other Viewpoint Discrimination on New Media Platforms," NRB names other instances of censorship and, more important, points out the right asserted by companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Verizon, and Comcast to decide for themselves what views are objectionable and will be banned.  Such companies play a vastly important "gatekeeper" role in our communications and, thus, though they are private entities, need to assume some responsibility for the free flow of information, including information that they might not agree with.  

This is a careful and sobering study, looking to Supreme Court standards concerning free speech to develop best practice recommendations for social media companies.  The Twitterati will be glad to learn that Twitter stands out as a company committed to protecting speech.

Find the report here.

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Worth Reading
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• Jonathan Turley, "Faithful Discrimination: Are Non-Discrimination Policies Themselves Discriminatory," April 18, 2010.

"[T]he Constitution protects religious groups from the demands of the majority in the free exercise of their faith. But increasingly those organizations are being told that, unless they change their practices, they will be penalized. Since their practices are based on their principles, the nondiscrimination policies may be achieving indirectly what the government is barred from doing directly. . . .

"The nation benefits when citizens form groups and advance their ideas. Tax-exempt status is even given to groups to encourage association and free speech - important pillars of our society. We cannot pick and choose between groups if we are to allow for pluralism."

• Robin Fretwell Wilson and Jana Singer, "Same-Sex Marriage and Conscience Exemptions," Engage, 12:2 (Sept. 2011), 12-19.

• Gregory Baylor and Ronald Chen, "Did the Supreme Court Properly Decide Chrristian Legal Society v. Martinez?"  Engage, 12:2 (Sept., 2011), 45-51.

Support IRFA
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Are these analyses helpful?  Do you see the need for forward-acting initiatives to maintain a public square in which faith-based services can thrive?  There are many good causes that claim your support.  Will you make IRFA one of them?

You can donate securely on-line here:  http://irfalliance.org/donate.html.

IRFA is a 501(c)(3) organization that depends on the support of those who understand that opposition to faith-based services is growing.  That opposition requires a positive response that goes beyond courtroom defenses.   Thank you.

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