Rendering unto Caesar

Rendering unto Caesar
Federal faith-based initiatives must preserve line between church and state

July 12, 2001

President Bush’s desire to do the most good for the most people nearly caused him to trip over the line between church and state this week.

The president’s initiative on faith-based charities has caused concern for several reasons. Some taxpayers don’t want their funds to be funneled through religious organizations, and leaders of many of those organizations are concerned about the ways in which they might be asked to compromise their principles to qualify for the funding. The Bush administration has carefully crafted a plan to allow religious groups to use federal funds for the provision of services that include no religious component.

The Salvation Army, which has considerable credibility to lend to the campaign because of its long history of charitable work and the fact that it already receives federal funding, requested that the administration write a rule that would exempt it from state or local anti-discrimination laws, including those that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Such laws typically do not apply to religious groups, but it remains unclear whether such exemptions stand when an organization accepts federal funding for its non-religious work. Legislation pending in Congress would allow religious organizations to consider their beliefs in hiring decisions, regardless of their funding sources.

The president had no trouble understanding why a religious organization theologically opposed to homosexuality would not want to hire homosexuals. His advisers immediately understood that Bush was about to undo their carefully crafted efforts to separate the religious and charitable functions of organizations accepting funding, and if they hadn’t, the Democrats were standing ready to explain. In the end, the White House declined, almost without comment, to make such a rule.

Unfortunately, Bush’s early sympathetic noises sounded as though he might be willing to undermine local civil-rights laws that had been decades in the making.

This isn’t all about homosexuals, nor is it about "special" rights for unpopular groups. It’s about local control, and about whether the federal government has the right to set aside the protections that citizens of states and cities have found necessary. It’s impossible to justify a federal decision to allow discrimination that’s contrary to community mores. The government should not endorse, even tacitly, any form of discrimination, and the waiving of local anti-discrimination laws is exactly that.

This latest controversy makes very apparent the necessity of absolute separation between the religious and charitable functions of an organization. It’s difficult to imagine that decisions about staffing would not affect decisions about the provision of services, and it’s equally difficult to argue that federal money should be denied to those a community sees fit to protect. Likewise, who can argue that a person’s religious convictions should be set aside, or bought?

Religious organizations, including the Salvation Army, should be allowed to run their charities by their own consciences, with their own funds. They have every right to decline federal funding, and many of them should. They can also design their charitable branches to meet non-controversial needs, should they so choose.

Those whose leaders believe they can do more good with government aid should not rail against the restrictions that come with it. They’ve only to look at whose picture is on the money to understand by whose authority it is distributed.

The precedents in separating church and state are clear, and the problems in not doing so are becoming clear as well. The federal government can accomplish the most by funneling money through agencies that do not discriminate against those in need.