February 13, 2014

Efforts to resolve American's fiscal crisis--the large gap between government income and expenditures, annually and as it has accumulated into our massive national debt--could lead to the undermining of our civil society institutions.

 

This can happen intentionally: the imperative to balance federal, state, and local government budgets provides a choice opportunity for activists to disallow tax exemptions to allegedly discriminatory faith-based organizations or to deny tax deductions for donations to such organizations. Which organizations are discriminatory? Of course: any organization that considers religion or sexual conduct in its employment decisions or that refuses to facilitate elective abortions or that thinks it best to place orphans in married mother-father families. Strip them of tax-exempt status or eligibility for tax-deductible contributions and in one stroke you foster equal rights and also improve the government's balance sheet! Fortunately, it does not seem that this tactic is being used (but other arguments continue to be made to label the organizations as discriminatory and to strip benefits from them).

 

And it can happen (presumably) unintentionally. Cut back the federal tax benefit for donating to nonprofits and one alleged leak in federal finances will be slowed--but at the cost of undermining the financial viability of a wide range of faith-based and secular organizations that serve the common good in a myriad of ways. A reduction in the value of the charitable tax credit-a change recommended consistently by President Obama and deficit hawks of various stripes and by conservatives determined to staunch the flow of red ink-will harm not only cultural institutions, prestigious universities, and hospitals that count on the wealthy to give them big bucks in return for a big reduction in federal taxes, but also the many smaller organizations that count on individual donations and can't realistically replace those donations by ginning up profit-making activities or winning big government grants.

 

Such a tax reform would amount to obtaining limited fiscal relief at the great expense of serious damage to private organizations and their good works. And yet a key purpose of government is to protect those private organizations and to enable them to flourish. Their flourishing reduces the need for government services. And the money that the government doesn't take when it provides a tax deduction for charitable contributions is, after all, not the government's money but rather that of the taxpayers, who should be encouraged to donate to good causes.

 

Representatives of religious and secular nonprofits sadly report that the young congressional staff members who do the grunt work for Senators and Representatives who are trying to get control of federal finances seem to treat the charity tax deduction as simply a tax expenditure, as just another number to crank into the financial calculus. These young staffers, trained in economic logic and statistical public policy tools, seem to be dangerously oblivious to the real-world reality of rescue missions, schools, after-school programs, emergency shelters, private drug-treatment programs, and so many other secular and faith-based organizations that make enormous daily contributions to the well-being of their neighbors and communities.

 

That's no basis for making good public policy.

Many have remarked on it: President Obama's strong statements at last week's National Breakfast in support of religious freedom around the world were hard to listen to, given his administration's inconsistent actual devotion to protecting religious freedom. Skeptics noted how cavalier the President has been about securing an influential person to fill the post of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, how a unanimous Supreme Court slapped down the administration's denial that religious institutions have a constitutional right to select their own ministerial leaders (the Hosanna-Tabor decision), the administration's dogged persistent in requiring free coverage of contraceptives . . .

 

There was also that interesting passage in the speech:  the mention of governmental opposition to people because of "who they love" in a paragraph about global threats to freedom of religion. Is same-sex love an instance of religious freedom? Isn't it, instead, all too often the reason to suppress religious freedom?

 

And, oh, about that conflagration concerning the contraceptives mandate. Here's the pointed comment of Michel Sean Winters of Distinctly Catholic blog, no die-hard critic of the President:

 

The President's fine words about religious freedom and respect for the dignity of everyone would have made sense . . .

 

" . . . if he had added, 'Therefore, I am instructing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to stop obstructing the awarding of contracts to combat human trafficking to the USCCB which does such great work in that field. I am also instructing Secretary Sebelius to devise a better means of delivering the free contraceptive care to women who want, finding a way that does not infringe on the religious liberty of those religious institutions that object to contraception and, further, I am instructing the Attorney General to let the University of Notre Dame alone. And, I would also like to take this opportunity to apologize on behalf of the Department of Justice for that ridiculous brief in Hosanna-Tabor.'

 

"But, the President did not say any of that, which makes what he did say about religious freedom seem at least a little bit rich." 

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Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board requested comments on whether and how unions can seek to organize adjunct and other faculty at religious institutions of higher education. This is not a simple matter: the whole point of unions is to gain and wield power to protect and advance the interests of their members and other employees, but just such an exercise of power might unconstitutionally interfere with the freedom of the religious institution's leadership to make decisions dictated by the institution's religious commitments. These dangers have been highlighted by the US Supreme Court in key cases, shielding religious higher education from unionization efforts.

 

Now the NLRB seeks to reopen the issues, asking whether it has interpreted those Supreme Court cases rightly (or perhaps it is looking for ways to get around the Court's guidelines) and also whether governance arrangements and faculty roles have changed in colleges and universities such that the union question should or can be examined anew.

 

Two comments. One. The Inside Higher Ed article on the matter notes: "Adjuncts have argued that they aren't looking to challenge any college's religious direction, and that they want collective bargaining for issues of wages, health insurance and job security. The vast majority of adjuncts at religious colleges teach secular subjects and respect the right of various denominations to settle theological matters, union leaders say." And yet, of course, there is no impermeable barrier separating secular and theological matters. And there is no impermeable barrier walling off decisions about faculty wages and benefits from other decisions about how an institution will operate (will high wages or generous benefits require dropping some theological courses? will the union dispute the administration's decision to sue over the contraceptives mandate?).

 

Two. That institutions of religious higher education may oppose unionization on religious freedom grounds does not mean that those institutions are per se against unions or worker rights. Catholic social teaching specifically supports unionization, and Abraham Kuyper, one of the founders of modern Calvinist social thinking, not only supported workers' rights but helped to organize Protestant workers (and employers, too).

 

Further reading

 

Michael P. Moreland (Villanova Law School), Testimony to the joint subcommittee hearing on the NLRB, House Education and the Workforce Committee, Sept. 12, 2012.

The American Center for School Choice and the Commission on Faith-based Schools this week published a thoughtful and thought-provoking report, Religious Schools in America: A Proud History and Perilous Future.  Even supporters of public education should be deeply troubled that faith-based schools, which are such an important provider of quality education to many students, including many poor children, are disappearing due to financial stresses and the competition of "free" government-funded alternatives such as charter schools. Faith-based schools are an important example of the religious exercise protected by the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom, so their travails should also trouble defenders of freedom.

 

Note these comments from Peter Hanley's Call to Action in the report (Hanley heads the American Center for School Choice):

 

"America is losing a valuable national asset-not because it has become obsolescent, not because the demand for it has disappeared, not because the need for it has been satisfied by other entities, but because we have a misguided public policy that continues to restrict severely parental choice in education and discriminates especially against faith-based schools in favor of all other kinds of schools.

 

"With the charter and magnet school movements, the variety of public schools available has increased. Parents in select states and areas can choose, for example, language immersion, science and math based, and arts schools to educate their children with the full support of society. But parents utilizing their constitutional right of free expression of religion and seeking a faith-based education for their children routinely are told that the state will offer them no support. Only 17 states have scholarship programs in place that empower parents to choose a faith-based school, and many of those are extremely small and narrowly targeted. . . .

 

"We believe the time is right to recognize that parents seeking a faith-based school are not second class parents to those seeking a language immersion or science and technology education or any other school in American education. They deserve to be treated as other parents who pay taxes and support American education. Supporting parents to choose whatever school will serve their children and family best, including a faith-based school, is just and does not constitute in any way the government establishing a state religion."

 

H.T. Rick Garnett.

In its fundraising appeal for 2014, "Moving Freedom Forward: What You and the ACLU Can Do in 2014," the ACLU, while professing its devotion to religious freedom, stresses (certain) individual rights over institutional rights in a way that diminishes religious freedom. "For most Americans," the fundraising letter asserts, "religious freedom means that each of us is free to make personal decisions about whom to love, when and if to worship, and whether or not to have children-based on our own beliefs and free of government interference." But extremists, the letter warns, "want to turn that definition on its head. They claim that religious freedom means they are free to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us."

 

And just who are those American religious tyrants? Hobby Lobby and other organizations that, on moral grounds, are fighting for the freedom not to include certain contraceptives or abortifacients in the health insurance plans they offer their employees. Catholic hospitals that do not perform abortions. Business owners who, while they serve the general public, including LGBT persons, decline to put their energy and talent to use to commemorate gay weddings.

 

Are these nonprofit and for-profit organizations actually "imposing their religious beliefs" on everyone else? In fact, whatever their public-policy views might be . . .

 

* None of them has compelled the government to pass laws banning abortions or birth control pills or same-sex weddings.

* None of them has the power actually to keep those who desire to do so from offering services they themselves decline to offer.

* None of them has the power to keep customers or patients for choosing a different service provider-a service provider that gladly provides the services and benefits that the religious providers decline to supply.

 

On the other hand, if the ACLU has its way, many of these organizations will be conscience-bound to stop operating or will be penalized by government or will be compelled to change their policies, against their convictions. So who is it that is forcing their beliefs on whom? The ACLU ought to defend institutional rights and not undermine them.

The idea popped up first in California, where it was turned into a law, and then in New Jersey, where it also became law. Now other states are jumping on the bandwagon.  Maryland, for example.  The Maryland legislature is considering a bill to prohibit "sexual orientation change efforts" by mental health professionals applied to young persons. House Bill 91 would make it "unprofessional conduct," a matter for disciplinary action, for a mental health care professional to counsel a young person about his or her sexual orientation and questions about sexuality--except to facilitate, provide acceptance toward, and support the questioning, with no effort to "eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feeling toward individuals of the same sex." A counselor's therapy and support is OK, as long as it isn't oriented toward heterosexual feelings and conduct. But help the young person deal with questions and confusion where the outcome is turning away from gay conduct--that may be an unlawful act that results in the revocation of a license to counsel.

 

Oh, it wouldn't be illegal (unless the bill is changed) for a counselor to "recommend" sexual orientation change efforts--without actually helping the youth--or to refer the patient to "unlicensed individuals, such as religious leaders." That's a bow to free speech and religious freedom--but what happened to the duty of professionals to exercise their best, ethically grounded, judgment-and not simply follow the majority of their professional association or the dictates of lawmakers? These are difficult matters, without a doubt, and much harm has been and can be caused by misguided efforts. But is it so crystal clear to everyone (patients as well as therapists) what in every case counts as a misguided effort?

 

Gabe Lyons of q ideas last year wrote a column for CNN's Belief Blog arguing for diversity and religious freedom in this contentious and complex matter. "If someone is distressed over his or her sexuality, they deserve the opportunity to explore the distress in a safe, well-resourced space. It is up to the individual and the therapist to gauge how that process will best happen."

 

As former IRFA intern David Hamilton remarked, "Each person should have the opportunity to seek guidance that aligns with his or her preferred framework. For some, this is a faith-based framework, and for others it is not. Rather than outlaw the frameworks we disagree with, we should allow the various groups the freedom to seek out counselors that fit their respective ideologies. Indeed, this is what it means to live in a diverse society.

 

"Counselors cannot be expected to maintain their integrity when the government mandates that they check their faith and beliefs at the door. For any counselor, regardless of their faith convictions, healing is a major goal. However, healing defined by a Christian therapist will look different than healing for an atheist therapist.  Asking counselors to ignore such differences would not only violate the counselors' freedom of religion, but it would further burden individuals of faith who are seeking answers on how to faithfully follow their religion."

* John Carr, "Beyond Red and Blue," America, Feb. 10, 2014: 

 

In the renewed interest in fighting poverty, "There are unreal, unhelpful divisions between those who focus mostly on family factors as causes and remedies for poverty and those who look to economic forces as primary contributors and solutions. These partisan and ideological walls must come down. A child's future is shaped by both the choices of the parents and the policies of government, by both the strength of the child's family and the strength of the economy."

 

"The U.S. [Roman Catholic] bishops have offered a four-part framework: 1. The responsibilities of individuals and families to make wise choices, marry before having children, pursue education and work. 2. The supporting roles of community and religious groups (including unions and community organizations). 3. The necessary contributions of a growing economy and the market: decent jobs, wages and benefits. 4. The obligations of government to provide a genuine safety net, promote economic vitality and act when other institutions fail to protect human life, dignity and rights. In Washington, many embrace one of these priorities and neglect the others. The complexity of poverty requires that all these institutions work together to help the poor build better lives."

 

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Thomas Messner, Religious Freedom and Marriage in Federal Law, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, no. 2865 (January 20, 2014):

 

"Those with traditional viewpoints on marriage should have the freedom to conduct their lives and operate their organizations according to their own beliefs, just as people who support same-sex marriage do."

 

"Forcing faith-based charities out of the social service sector because they will not provide services that contradict their faith produces the absurd result of decreasing services through a policy purportedly designed to increase them."

 

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Richard Epstein, "Rethinking the Contraceptive Mandate," Hoover Institution's Defining Ideas, Feb. 10, 2014:  

 

"[T]he classical liberal theory starts from the explicit proposition that the parties should decide the terms of their own contracts in light of their preferences. . . .

 

"Critics of this view often claim that free association allows men to exclude women, whites to exclude blacks, and straight people to exclude gay people. That characterization is only half correct, because it ignores the flip side whereby blacks can exclude whites, women exclude men, and gays exclude straights. It also ignores the way in which voluntary associations can advance their own affirmative action programs without fearing blowback from the state. The members of all affinity groups express support for their mission. Elsewhere, they eagerly join many organizations with broader membership bases. Classical liberalism just lets them decide which groups to join and why."

 

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Peter Greer and Chris Horst, with Anna Haggard, Mission Drift: The Unspoken Crisis Facing Leaders, Charities, and Churches (Bethany House, 2014).

 

From the back cover: "Many of us in leadership have learned-often painfully-that our mission needs to be built into every aspect of our organization, from leadership to receptionist, from hiring to implementation. We can't afford not to follow the lessons in this valuable book." -- Richard Stearns, President of World Vision U.S.

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