Faith-based charities

Peter Laarman's essay in Religion Dispatches, "Topple Church-State Wall to Save Labor?", takes on a piece in the journal Democracy by Lew Daly.

Daly illuminates little-known intersections between Catholic thought and US social history. One would have been pleased with just this much, but then Daly can’t resist grinding his axe in an unfortunate way. He wishes everyone to know that rights-based liberalism is the primary source of trade unionism’s current woes.

In short, Daly links the downfall of organized labor in the U.S. to overzealous prohibition of religious activity in the public sphere.

After taking on specific parts of Daly's piece and noting significant omissions (mention of which would have undermined Daly's argument), Laarman directly addresses Daly's vision:

Daly appears to believe that were we to just do away with the fusty constitutional barrier, the religious associations and religious organizations that would spring forth to glorious, tax-supported life would be as solidaristic as the ancient church-based models he lauds. But would they? When I look at the faith-based takers of our tax dollars, I’m not seeing a bunch of Franciscans or Discalced Carmelites, I’m seeing social conservatives who are madly in love with laissez-faire economics—with radical individualism in the economic sphere, if not in personal life.

In theory, funding faith-based charity work with tax dollars sounds like a win: the government doesn't have to set up its own soup kitchens, the charities get to do what they already do except on a larger scale (or at least without being dependent on the vagaries of individual donors), and costs might be a lot lower since I assume those who work for these charities are not paid, whereas directly government-administered assistance organizations have to hire their workers. Regulations prohibit the faith-based charities from proselytizing or denying assistance to anyone on the grounds of religion (or, presumably, on any other legally proscribed basis).

But of course, theory and practice diverge.

Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote in an opinion piece in February 2010:

One year after Obama announced his version of the faith-based office, civil rights and civil liberties groups such as mine are still fighting Bush-era battles over tax funding to religious groups that proselytize, job discrimination on religious grounds in public programs and lack of accountability.

The job-discrimination issue, you might be surprised to learn (I was), was legislated into existence during George W. Bush's term: see the Community Services Block Grant Act of 2003, Section 679(b)(3), which references 42 U.S.C. 2000e-1. The combination makes it legal for faith-based charities to discriminate in their hiring. The ostensible reason is so organizations don't have to violate their religious convictions by, e.g., hiring gays if their faith condemns homosexuality.

The federal government sacrificed this nation's principles in order to entice reluctant religious groups to accept federal tax dollars. Was this sacrifice worth it?

You're asking the wrong person, because George W. Bush's infatuation with letting religious groups gorge at the federal trough appalled me.

The ban on proselytizing by such groups is a legal fig leaf. The idea of a conservative administration, or a timid, centrist one like Obama's, actually enforcing the ban is ludicrous. Who polices these soup kitchens and counseling centers? If reports surface of violations of the ban, who investigates them? And even if solid evidence is found of violations, who punishes the violators, and how?

When Americans United urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to discontinue Bush-era funding for four fundamentalist groups that openly discriminate and proselytize, DOJ attorneys brushed aside the request. These organizations, they assured AU, had been told not to violate the law.

Now we know how well the law is enforced.

So Bush's professed faith in faith-based charities struck me from the beginning as nothing less than a calculated attempt to subvert the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. That he succeeded, and that Obama so far has done exactly nothing to roll back this abuse of power, speaks eloquently to the power conservative religious organizations wield in this country.

You'll excuse me if this nonbeliever doesn't cheer as his tax dollars go to religious groups he despises, while they work hard with their nonfederal dollars (ostensibly nonfederal, anyway) to make him even less welcome in this supposedly tolerant land.

Faith-based charities may be doing good with federal money, but the price is just too high.