White House won't go to bat for religious organizations against local laws
If Bush is trying to rally support for his faith-based initiative, maybe this isn't the best way to do it. In a short statement released yesterday, press secretary Ari Fletcher said, "The White House will not pursue the [Office of Management and Budget] regulation proposed by the Salvation Army and reported today." That regulation, as Weblog noted yesterday, would have protected churches and faith-based organizations that receive federal funds from having to hire workers who disagree with their religious teachings. The specific controversy in this case has been whether the Salvation Army—a church that already receives $330 million annually from the federal government—would be forced to hire homosexuals. Federal regulations going back to the 1964 Civil Rights Act allow religious organizations to hire only employees who share their religious commitments, but the issue gets a lot trickier when municipal governments start mandating that charities adhere to local anti-discrimination laws. As Salvation Army spokesman David Fuscus explains to the Chicago Tribune, "What's happening now is that when you get communities insisting that because [a group] is using federal dollars to fund homeless shelters or what have you, that they cannot hire ministers in the way they want to hire ministers, what happens is the church walks away from those contracts and the people who are hurt are the people who are on the street."
But yesterday's front-page article in The Washington Post set off fireworks in the capital. "It just puts a cloud over the president's intention to expand a faith- based initiative and unfortunately might terminally wound it in Congress," said Democratic Sen. Joseph. Lieberman, who has been supportive of the initiative so far. Other Democratic lawmakers were more vitriolilc, promising an investigation, in The Washington Post's words, "into whether the White House had agreed to allow the Salvation Army and other charities to discriminate against gays, in exchange for the Salvation Army's support for the Bush faith-based initiative." (Loaded enough for you?)
Still, despite the White House's statement that it won't pursue such protections for religious organizations through the OMB, Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials say there will be other ways of making sure religious organizations can stay true to their religious, moral, and social missions. The administration, Cheney told reporters, still wants to make sure that charitable choice does "not require fundamental changes in underlying principles and organization doctrines, if you will, of the organizations that participate."
Weblog's best guess here is that the charitable choice legislation will carefully avoid this issue and leave it up to the courts. And that's really what the Salvation Army was trying to avoid in the first place.
More on the Faith-based initiative:
Mr. Bush's 'faith based' agenda | As currently drafted, the "faith based" initiative still raises concerns about possible violations of the separation between church and state. (Editorial, The New York Times)
More risk than reward? | This is no ordinary piece of legislation. It raises serious questions about church-state relations in this country. (David Broder, The Washington Post)
Earlier: A Presidential Hopeful's Progress | The spiritual journey of George W. Bush starts in hardscrabble west Texas. Will the White House be his next stop? (Christianity Today, Sept. 5, 2000)
Oil fuels fighting in Sudan | The conflict has long been seen as a battle between the Muslim government in the north and rebels in the largely Christian and Animist south. But now that oil production in southern Sudan is cranking out over 200,000 barrels a day — bringing in $500 million — it's also about money. (Fox News)
Risking Christianity in China | A Covina pastor lives with the threat of arrest on visits to clandestinely train church leaders under communism. (Los Angeles Times)
Church of England 'is abandoning the poor' | Nearly half of its 43 dioceses will for the first time receive no support from the Church Commissioners because of its financial difficulties. (The Times, London)
Church cannot afford rural work | Church of England may ask the government to pay it for its rural social work, or convert hundreds of rural churches into clubs, concert venues and post offices. (BBC)
'New breed' preachers defy traditions | Dissatisfaction with how the Christian church trains its clergy and organizes its flock to bring the lost to Jesus brews at gatherings across the country (The Washington Times)
How much is that bishop in the window? | They're grand, they're dazzlingly dressed and they're high maintenance. But does anyone actually need them? (The Independent, London)
Don't take your clergy for granted | Congregations must face fact that leaders can leave at any time (Tom Schaefer, Akron Beacon Journal)
Church life:
Episcopal turf war | Conservative rebels have drawn archbishops from Africa and Asia into a suddenly less civil discourse (Time)
Fear of ideas: The decline and fall of Anglicanism | Such is the way establishments work. Deny the problems, keep a low profile, keep established routines running smoothly, and hope for better times. (Don Cupitt, The Guardian, London)
Atlanta's new Episcopal bishop debuts | Lutherans major participants in installation of Neil Alexander, himself an ordained Lutheran minister (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
A look at Pentecostalism from a former insider | "Contrary to stereotype, the typical convert paralleled the demographic and biographical profile of the typical American," says Duke historian Grant Wacker (The New York Times)
Life on Amish terms | Mennonite sect members willing to work with outside workd, but only on their own terms. (Stephanie Salter, San Francisco Chronicle)
Vatican: Virgin Mary sightings true | "Credible reports" of visions in Kibeho, Rwanda, over several months starting on Nov. 29, 1981. (Newsday/Houston Chronicle)
Marriage amendment planned | Broad-based coalition of religious groups want Constitution to define marriage as union between one man and one woman (UPI)
In the Beginning details Bible's imprint on English | Chronicling three centuries of cultural, religious, and political history that led to history's most famous Bible translation, Alister McGrath shows how the King James version is a literary landmark. (The Boston Globe)
Calling Dr. God | Can a prayer a day help keep the doctor away? (Richard Morin, The Washington Post)
IRRCed by creationism | A review panel questions science guidelines (Editorial, Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
Other stories of interest:
Wal-Mart and church disagree | The retailer has filed suit in 12 counties over fund-raising efforts. An Inland judge will decide. (The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, California)
Cheering religious diversity | Diana Eck believes all faiths deserve a place in America's public square. Her program documents pluralism's interactions and conflicts. (Los Angeles Times)
Church divided on priests' link with Securitate | Romania's Orthodox Church is divided over whether communist-era files on its priests should be opened to detail how some clerics collaborated with the feared secret police. (Associated Press)
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
We’ve got little information on Jesus’ appearance and personality. But that’s the way God designed it.españolFrançais
The Grammy-winning artist was found dead at her home in Nashville at age 47.
