| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
eNews for Faith-Based Organizations
April 3, 2012
Editor: Stanley Carlson-Thies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
Access Past Issues of the eNews
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An archive of current and past eNews for FBOs can be accessed HERE.
|
|
Obama Administration Religious Freedom Timeline
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ChristianityToday.com has published a listing of Obama administration actions concerning religious freedom in the US since the beginning of 2011. The article isn't part of the effort of some to determine whether this administration is "the most anti-religious" presidency ever. It is, rather, a careful look at many of the pertinent decisions and statements. It begins with this comment: "The past year has marked a shift in religious liberty debates, one that previously centered on hiring rights but became focused on health care requirements." Notwithstanding the ongoing high-stakes controversy about protecting the freedom of faith-based organizations other than churches from the HHS mandate that employee health plans must cover birth control, including abortion-inducing contraceptives, the timeline actually does list a significant number of administration actions related to the hiring rights of faith-based organizations. Some of those actions tend to weaken the religious hiring freedom but others are supportive of current law on the topic. The timeline bears a careful reading because, as it shows, limits on the religious freedom of faith-based service organizations can occur in many ways. That's a reminder that protecting religious freedom requires great vigilance--and also goodwill and careful action by government as our society becomes increasingly diverse.
|
Massachusetts Court Rules Against Grant to Catholic Bishops
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a March 23 decision, ACLU of Massachusetts v. Sebelius, a federal judge ruled against the federal Department of Health and Human Services for its award of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act grant to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. For this grant, the USCCB acted as an intermediary, awarding subgrants to a range of organizations to provide services to the victims. HHS had accepted the USCCB's declaration that for religious reasons it would not fund or refer for contraceptive or abortion services and would apply the same condition to subgrantees, whether those subgrantees had an objection to those services or not. The judge ruled that the federal government violated the Establishment Clause by accepting the USCCB's religiously based objections to contraceptives and abortion as a condition for the use of federal funds and by, in essence, "delegating" to the USCCB the right to decide, separately from the government, which services would and would not be offered under the grant. In fact, as a rule, intermediaries are not allowed to change grant conditions when they make subgrants. For example, federal grants come with the requirement that none of the money be used to pay for "inherently religious activities" such as prayer and religious instruction (although the regulations explicitly protect the right of an organization to offer such activities separately from the government-funded services). A faith-based organization that wins the award to administer a federal grant cannot select a half-dozen secular and a half-dozen faith-based subgrantees and then tell the faith-based subgrantees that they are permitted to mix such religious activities into the services they fund with the subgrants. Nor can the faith-based grantee decide that it will only select other faith-based organizations as subgrantees, excluding secular groups simply because they are secular. Did the USCCB grant violate this rule for intermediaries? It seems that the grant itself neither specified that abortion and contraceptives were allowable services nor forbidden services. And it is likely that not only the USCCB but the many faith-based groups that worked with the USCCB as subgrantees would not have taken part in the program had those "reproductive health" services been required in the program. Still, by accepting as subgrantees only organizations that conformed to the USCCB's own policy about abortion and contraception it appears that the USCCB violated--with the connivance of HHS--that general rule about intermediaries. That's not the same as the violation of the First Amendment that the ACLU and the federal judge in Massachusetts alleged. Worth noting: The USCCB's administration of the grant received high marks by those interested in reducing trafficking in the US. And to eliminate pressure by activists to push "reproductive health" services and controversy into the program, the current bill to reauthorize the program has an explicit ban on the use of its funds to pay for contraceptives and abortion. See also: Richard Garnett, " Wack-a-Doodle-ry in ACLU v. Sebelius," Mirror of Justice, March 27. Michael Sean Winters, " A Horrible Court Decision in Mass." National Catholic Reporter, March 27. |
|
Contraceptives Mandate: Fatal Flaw is the Definition of Religious Employer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In mid-March, the Obama administration announced an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), that promises a regulation providing an "accommodation" for faith-based service organizations that object to including contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their employees' health insurance coverage. That regulation, which is due before August, 2013, is supposed to allow the organizations to buy employee insurance that does not include the contraceptive drugs, services, and education--and, if they do so, to require their insurance companies to offer all of those drugs, services, and education to their employees, without charging either the employers or the employees. Will it work? Does this "accommodation" actually respect the convictions of those objecting employers? Is there no better way to honor the convictions of both employers and employees?
Yet, for many faith-based organizations and religious freedom advocates, the big issue is not what regulation might eventually be written but rather the regulation that has already been put into federal law. Recall: last summer, the federal government, taking note of the many objections it had heard from faith-based organizations to its intention to require all employers to include contraceptives and abortifacients in their employee health plans, had announced that it would provide an exemption from the requirement to "religious employers." These organizations would not have to include the disputed drugs and procedures, and their insurers would not offer those drugs and procedures to their employees.
So what organizations would the federal government recognize as "religious employers"--as organizations with religious claims that trump the government's desire that all women have free access to all contraceptives through their employee health plans? Here's the definition:
A "religious employer" according to proposed regulation "is an organization that meets all of the following criteria:
(1) The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the organization.
(2) The organization primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization.
(3) The organization serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization.
(4) The organization is a nonprofit organization as described in section 6033(a)(1) and section 6033(a)(3)(A)(i) or (iii) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended."
Note: those referenced sections of the Internal Revenue Code refer to churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches, and to the exclusively religious activities of religious orders. By contrast, parachurch ministries are typically organized under Sec. 501(c)(3).
In other words, only churches, seminaries, and missionary societies are "religious enough" to have their religious convictions respected by the federal government! As many religious observers quickly noted, the ministry of Jesus himself would not qualify as "religious enough" because he served everyone who needed help, not just those who shared his religious convictions, and he tended to material needs and did not restrict his help to spiritual means.
There was a widespread outcry over this narrow definition of "religious employer," and yet it is this crabbed and false definition that the administration wrote into the Code of Federal Regulations in February, 2012. The mid-March ANPRM did not change that narrow definition; instead, it maintains the administration's decision to create two categories of religious organization for the purposes of health insurance: church-like organizations, which are exempt, and second-class faith-based service organizations, which are only "accommodated." The ANPRM promises that this two-class system is limited to the health insurance setting and that there is no intention to use the system in other contexts nor to downplay the religious character of the non-exempt organizations.
But those are mere intentions and mere words, compared to the actual legal status of the two-class system the administration has created. That's why the administration's announced "accommodation" has satisfied so few religious leaders.
As a Reuter's story put it, "Bishops, White House talks snarl on treatment of faith-based groups":
"'Government has no place defining religion and religious ministry' [the bishops' group] said in a statement Wednesday. They vowed to continue their fight against the contraceptive mandate--and especially against the definition of religious institutions, which they called 'unwarranted,' 'unprecedented,' and 'arbitrarily narrow.'
"'If this definition is allowed to stand,' the bishops said, 'it will spread throughout federal law, weakening its healthy tradition of generous respect for religious freedom and diversity.' The bishops say the president has arrogantly taken it upon himself to judge which faith-based group are truly religious, or at least religious enough to qualify for an exemption. They call the president's definition so cramped, not even Jesus' ministry would qualify."
Similarly, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities has asked the President to abandon the two-class system:
"First and foremost among our objections is that the framework of this accommodation will create two tiers of religious groups--ones which are exempt and ones which are merely accommodated. We believe the role of separating religious groups into two tiers, groups that are religious enough to be exempt and groups that are deemed less religious and must therefore only be 'accommodated' is not an appropriate role for the federal government because it puts the federal government in the position of determining the sincerity of the religious commitment of various groups. We believe this is a precedent that could have long-term harmful effects on faith-based organizations, that are neither churches nor run by churches, yet are just as deeply committed to the principles of their faith as are centers of worship.
"Our Lord was asked what is the greatest commandment of all and he responded, '"The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The second is this: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is no commandment greater than these.' (Mark 12:29-31) The organized Christian churches fulfill much of this great commandment, but Christian colleges and universities--whether associated directly with an organized Christian church or operating independently as a Christian organization--fulfill several of the major portions of the great commandment, as do other Christian para-church organizations and thus have a history of being treated as full religious entities with their own set of deeply held religious beliefs. Even though making such an accommodation as has been proposed may solve the short-term problem of this mandate, it is not acceptable to have this second-class citizenship promulgated by federal regulations."
It is time to rip up the two-class system and return to full protection of all religious organizations.
See also the shocking account in the Wall Street Journal by Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, of his discussions with President Obama about how religious freedom would be protected from the HHS contraceptives mandate, "When the Archbishop Met the President."
And Melissa Rogers, "Honoring Religious Objections and Access to Contraceptive Coverage," HuffPost Religion, Feb. 17.
|
Will the Federal Government Require Pro-Gay Hiring by FBOs?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last October, the US Agency for International Development announced that it "strongly encourages" all groups that want to partner with it to do overseas relief and development work to adopt the same sexual-orientation nondiscrimination rule that the agency has adopted for itself. Of course, many of USAID's most valued partners are faith-based organizations that are free under federal law to take account of religion in their employment policies, and some of them require their employees to be faithful to their view of biblical sexual ethics, restricting sexual activity to man-woman marriage.
Challenged on the new policy, administration officials deny any desire to pressure faith-based organizations or to discourage them from applying to work with the government. And yet the administration has, at least so far, refused officially to clarify that its "strong encouragement" does not override religious employment rights.
For more, see Bobby Ross, Jr., "Contract Concern" in Christianity Today, April 2012.
|
|
Multi-Faith Solidarity on Selecting Student Group Leaders
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee, has demanded that student religious groups must abandon any requirement that their leaders be faithful in belief and conduct in order to gain official status and thus access to on-campus meeting space and to easy communication with the student body. Because Vanderbilt is a private institution, it is constitutionally free to impose this condition (an increasing number of public institutions, encouraged by a bad US Supreme Court decision, are making the same "all comers" requirement of religious student groups).
That doesn't make the requirement any more reasonable: groups cannot exist without boundaries and cannot remain faithful to a specific vision unless they can disqualify those who have no commitment to that vision. And so student religious groups have protested--in private discussions with the administration, in public discussions, and now in public protest. Several Protestant student groups have been outspoken against the university's demand. And last week Vanderbilt+Catholic, the largest Christian campus group, protesting the university's "discriminatory non-discrimination policy," declared it would not comply with the administration's demands but would instead meet only off-campus. This is the month that every student group has to decide whether or not to apply for recognition-so there likely will be other high-profile defections of religious student groups.
|
|
|
|
|
The Need is Religion-Respecting Regulation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A March 11th story by John Tuohy, " Religion vs. regulation: Indiana's faith-based day cares caught between," explored the tug-of-war occasioned by the drowning in February of a child in an Indianapolis church-run day care center. In Indiana, religious day care centers can "register" with the state rather than applying for a license. Licensing subjects a center to extensive state oversight. That may improve health and safety and educational outcomes for the kids--but many involved in faith-based day care are worried that with additional state rules will come suffocating limitations on religion in their programs. It is not an unreasonable fear: government must be secular and it often seems to believe that it must require those with whom it partners or that it regulates to be secular, too. But government policy need not be secularizing. The faith-based initiative, in fact, is precisely the opposite: an initiative to require the government to protect the religious identity and activities of faith-based groups that agree to partner with the government. And the 1990 federal child care law was designed to favor child care vouchers or certificates, exactly so that faith-based day care centers could serve the poor without giving up their religious character. Indiana lawmakers and regulators ought to step in and carefully design rules that protect children while also fully respecting religious freedom. |
| Worth Reading
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Beinart, " The Jewish Case for School Vouchers," Wall Street Journal, March 29. "Outside the Orthodox community, American Jewish organizations have for decades opposed government funding for religious schools. The most common objection is that by intertwining church and state, such funding threatens religious liberty, a deep concern for a religious group that comprises roughly 2% of the U.S. population. "But that fear is overblown. Government aid to Jewish schools in Australia, Britain and Canada doesn't mean that Jews in those countries enjoy less religious liberty than their American counterparts. Even in America, state and local governments already pay for the cost of special education in religious schools. "Non-Orthodox American Jews should worry less about whether the government will allow them to practice Judaism and more about why they and their children aren't doing so." Richard Garnett, " Religious Freedom and (and in) Institutions," in Gerald Bradley, ed., Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012). "It seems to me that the values and goods that the First Amendment's Religion Clauses are today understood to embody and protect--and, we might usefully refer to this cluster of goods and values as 'religious freedom'--are well served by a civil-society landscape that is thick with churches (and mediating institutions and associations of all kinds), and by legal rules that acknowledge and capture their importance. These institutions contribute to--they do not only benefit from, and they are not only protected by--the reality of religious freedom under law. Just as the '[f]reedom of speech depends on an infrastructure of free expression,' the freedom of religion depends on an infrastructure of, well, religious freedom. Part of this infrastructure--in addition to its more obvious components, like open and functioning courts, legal accommodations, thriving communications networks, etc.--is a web of institutions." Robert Vischer, " How Necessary is the Right of Assembly?" University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, School of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper Series, no. 12-11. "Today's most contentious debates about legal protection for group autonomy have focused on the group's freedom to defy the political community's judgment as to what the common good entails, whether that judgment is expressed as broadly applicable nondiscrimination laws, limitations on the right to decline to provide certain morally contested goods or services, or conditions attached to government funding. When a group claims a right of moral autonomy, the claims encounter rougher political terrain than similar claims made by individuals. Because we cannot easily place the group's asserted right of moral autonomy within the prevailing individual-versus-state paradigm for analyzing claims of conscience, we tend to view groups as interlopers masquerading as individuals. Groups do not have consciences; individuals do, and we struggle to understand a group claim for moral autonomy as anything other than an artificial claim of conscience. The pantheon of conscience's heroes includes Thoreau, Gandhi, and King, not the Boy Scouts, Walgreen's, or Catholic Charities. Invoking a right of group conscience has enjoyed limited traction in our political discourse. Indeed, we often believe that the best way to honor individuals' consciences is by empowering them to overcome obstacles presented by groups." |
| IRFA Needs You!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep the eNews for Faith-Based Organizations and IRFA afloat! IRFA depends in large part on donations from people like you, who care about faith-based services and about religious freedom. Will you come to the aid of IRFA in this season of giving? Thank you very much. |
| Join IRFA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Faith-based organizations and associations of faith-based organizations can now support IRFA and institutional religious freedom by signing up for an annual membership. Organizations and individuals engaged in supportive work (leading, consulting with, or defending faith-based organizations, for example) can join as associate members.
For details and forms, go to: http://irfalliance.org/membership.html
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For further information:
e-mail: info@IRFAlliance.org
website: www.IRFAlliance.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
|
| What is IRFA?
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.
|
|
|
|
