Daniel
Herbster reporting
Faith-based
organizations across the country are doing great work providing social services
far more effectively and often more efficiently than the government. In order for faith-based groups to continue
this crucial work, their religious liberties must be protected. Requiring Catholic adoption agencies to place
children in the homes of homosexual couples or prohibiting religious
organizations from hiring people of like-minded faith in order to receive
funding are a few of the threats to religious liberty that faith based groups
face. One organization seeking to
advocate for religious liberty and the effectiveness of faith-based
organizations is the Center for Public
Justice. AdvanceUSA was able to
interview Stanley Carlson-Thies about his work at CFPJ and the effort to
protect crucial religious liberties.
DH: Stanley, I have great memories of attending
Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom meetings with you when I was in DC, and
I really appreciate the intellectual firepower you brought to the fight for
religious freedom and the work CFPJ does to stand up for faith-based
organizations. Tell our readers briefly
what the Center for Public Justice does?
What is its mission?
SC:
The Center for Public Justice (CPJ) is a Christian “think tank” that works to
educate Christians and others about public policy and citizenship, helps to
develop Christian leaders in public affairs, and acts in coalition with others
who are serious about religious freedom to influence public debates in favor of
a robust public role for faith and faith-based organizations. We speak and write about a wide range of
issues—national security and the Iraq war, different ways that various American
Christian groups articulate a Christian perspective in politics (see the
important book by James Skillen, Scattered Voice), a defense of historic
marriage, and so on. We have been
particularly active in the areas of school choice as a fundamental school
reform, welfare reform, and the faith-based initiative. A major interest is understanding and showing
how government and private organizations can best be related to each other. We offer a one-week intensive summer course
in the Christian faith and public affairs, called the Civitas program.
DH: Could you explain to our readers the concept
of “religious hiring rights” and why it is so important for faith-based
organizations especially?
SC:
Since the 1964 Civil Rights Act (and similar state and local laws), it has been
illegal for employers, except for very small ones, to discriminate in hiring on
the bases of race, color, national, origin, sex, or religion. People shouldn’t be excluded from jobs for
irrelevant reasons—that’s just bias. But
convictions and a certain standard of behavior are very important to most
faith-based organizations—to churches and other houses of worship, and also to
religious social-service and educational institutions. Imagine trying to maintain an evangelical
drug treatment ministry if you couldn’t insist that new employees be
Christians! Most people accept the need
for this kind of religious hiring freedom.
But many think this freedom ought to be given up if the organization
agrees to help the government serve the needy by accepting a government grant
to provide some service. How can it be
right that the government would support religious job discrimination, they
say. But, of course, it is not illegal
discrimination for religious organizations to hire on the basis of religion
(but they can’t exclude people for reasons of race, etc.). And it is just as
important to a faith-based organization to be able to have a staff committed to
its beliefs and standards when it is working with government as when it is
using only private money.
DH: What are some of the chief threats to
religious hiring rights in our nation today?
SC:
There is that unworthy argument that the government must not support
discrimination, so it must insist that faith-based organizations have to
abandon religious staffing when government funds come in the door—but this
argument rests on the wrong and harmful notion that when a faith-based
organization insists that its staff be of a particular faith, it is engaging in
illegal and irrational discrimination.
But that just not true. An
important and fast-growing threat comes from the many and powerful voices
advancing the anti-discrimination agenda:
pushing for expanded civil rights for homosexual persons. Sadly, too often those behind this push are
unwilling to accommodate religious freedom, to see that religious persons and
organizations have a constitutionally-based right to maintain their standards,
such as employment standards, even when these conflict with the supposed right
of a gay person to get hired wherever he wants.
The other major threat, I think, comes from the growth of a casual, and
yet powerful, sentiment against religion, against “sectarian” religion. Many people are glad that faith-based
organizations rush to serve hurricane victims, work on skid row, don’t give up
on drug addicts. But they don’t like
“all that religion” and that “nasty discrimination” of keeping out some
potential employees, and that “judgmentalism” in holding to certain moral
standards. This kind of “can’t we all
just get along” attitude can lead people to object to strong measures to
protect the distinctive practices and standards of faith-based organizations,
including the religious staffing freedom.
DH: Both major presidential candidates have spoken
about supporting faith-based and community initiatives. In your opinion, what differences do you see
in the candidates’ stances on this issue and do you have concerns with aspects
of their plans or statements?
SC: I
am sure we will see further development in the candidates’ positions. And that is important. John McCain has said he’ll continue the Bush
faith-based initiative, and has particularly emphasized his support for the
religious hiring freedom. But he has not
said much about these matters, and, having worked as part of initial staff of
the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, I am quite
convinced that it takes vigilance and smartness and plans and much energy to
get the federal government to maintain a level playing field where faith groups
have a fair chance of competing for federal support. Sen. Obama has spoken out very strongly in
favor of maintaining and expanding the federal faith-based initiative (many
states have their own versions)—this is a surprising and very welcome
commitment, because it would certainly have been easier for him to say the
initiative was just a Bush effort (though the initial legislative changes were
signed into law by President Bill Clinton) and to go along with the many
national Democratic critics of the initiative.
Unfortunately, Sen. Obama’s plans, so far, have accentuated how groups
have to be strictly secular if they want to work with government, and he has
proposed a stringent new limitation on religious hiring by groups that get federal
money. He does not seem to want to
exclude faith groups, though, so there may be a further development in his
views. Yet, we have to acknowledge that
most of the critics of the faith-based initiative over the past dozen years
have been from the Democratic Party, and many powerful Democratic interest
groups are very much against religious hiring.
Sen. Obama will have a big fight on his hands if he works to maintain
the religious hiring freedom and the existing federal level playing field.
DH: Some conservatives are critical of the
concept of faith-based initiatives because they see it as another way to grow
government’s size. How would you
reconcile the campaign for “compassion” through faith-based and community
initiatives with the core conservative tenant of limited government?
SC:
The question of the appropriate size of the government is obviously
key—although we need to pay attention not only to size as such but also to
appropriate size, which I think can change, depending on challenges and the area
of policy we are concerned about. Still,
it is a very important issue whether it is a good idea for faith-based groups
to receive government money. I don’t
think this is so much a size question—the government has already decided to
spend all that money for social services, so the actual question is which
private groups are eligible to receive the money, and what are the strings that
are attached. More than a concern about
government getting so large as a consequence of the faith-based initiative, I worry
about faith-based groups becoming dependent on government money and losing
their independence, and also losing their dependence on their donors and prayer
partners and God. So faith leaders and
donors and other supporters should pay close attention when a faith-based
organization considers receiving government funds to provide some service. What are the strings? What about
dependency? How will the group be wise
enough and strong enough to walk away if the strings get too extensive? But I think this is a debate and fight that
the faith groups themselves ought to have.
I don’t think it is right for the government to exclude faith-based
organizations from the funding program because the government has an unconstitutional
bias against religion and for secularism!
DH: What are some other threats to religious
freedom that you see on the horizon (or facing us today)?
SC:
Many of the threats now arising aren’t coming because the faith group is
seeking or receiving government funds (harmful strings attached to government
money). They are coming in the form of overly restrictive licensing and
accreditation requirements, professional and good practice standards, and
employment and public accommodation rules.
For example, in both New York State and California, the legislatures
passed laws, upheld by the courts, that forbid Catholic Charities from
declining to include contraceptive services as part of the health benefits they
offer employees. An effort supported by
the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sought to
persuade Congress that when an accrediting agency accredits religious colleges
and universities, it should use secular standards, despite the religious
missions of these colleges and universities, and forbid them from hiring only
Calvinists or Baptists or Jewish faculty.
Fortunately that odd and damaging proposal was stopped. In a half-dozen states, it is officially
illegal for any adoption agency, Christian or not, to regard the best home for
a child to be a mother-father family and thus refuse to send a child to a gay
couple. Of course, the creation of
single-sex marriage will also pose great problems.
DH: How can our readers stay informed on these
issues?
SC:I
have two suggestions. The Alliance
Defense Fund offers a daily e-mail notice of key news items in the areas of
religious freedom, marriage, and life issues.
Ask to be put on their list: http://www.alliancealert.org/. On behalf of the Coalition to Preserve
Religious Freedom, a multifaith alliance of education, social service, and
religious freedom groups, I send out an electronic newsletter focusing on key
issues, ideas, and court decisions. This
comes out every several weeks. Sign up
by e-mailing me, stanley@cpjustice.org,
putting “CPRF eNews” in the subject line.
DH: How could our readers take action in their
neighborhoods, states, and in their country to protect religious liberty?
SC:
Keep up with the news. Ask your pastor
and parachurch leaders about the pressures they are under or are worried
about. Notice the stories about threats
to the freedom of faith-based organizations that appear in sources like World
magazine, Christianity Today, and Citizen Magazine (Focus on the Family). Contact your state, federal, county, or city
officials when the issue is important, reminding them of their responsibility
to safeguard religious freedom. That’s
not the only freedom, but it is fundamental.
Officials need to find ways to uphold it even as they respond to other
pressures and other rights. And if you
are a lawyer, I hope you will consider how you can assist parachurch
groups—faith-based service organizations—to understand and safely navigate the
difficult waters of government funding and government regulation.
Because the threats are increasing but faith-based
groups often are only active in a defensive and episodic way, I am organizing a
new effort, the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, as a coordinating and
catalyzing organization to help equip and mobilize the groups, their
associations, lawyers, and friends in government. People interested in this can contact
me: stanley@cpjustice.org.
DH: Stanley, thanks for taking the time to speak
to our readers and thanks for your work defending religious freedom. Please keep us updated on religious liberty
issues in the future.
Note:
The views of any interviewee do not necessarily reflect the views of
AdvanceUSA.