Government Aid in Madison's Time and Now

Guest-blogging over at TPM Cafe, friend Jeremy Gunn, new director of the ACLU's Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, makes a familiar appeal to James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments to argue against equal funding today for individuals or families who wish to receive schooling or social services from a religious organization.

Madison warned us of the dangers that come when religions vie among each other for political power and for financial support from governments.  In doing so, Madison believed, they lose sight of their religious values and their principal mission.

Unfortunately, more than at any other time in American history, some government officials and some religious groups are now seeking to reach into each others' pockets for support.

The good old American approach--articulated perfectly by Madison two hundred years ago--is in danger of being tarnished.  Why would we want to abandon an approach that has worked so well in favor of something that has shown itself to have so many problems?  We need to show the same wisdom as Madison and avoid the temptations of trading money and influence.  The Madisonian approach is good for religion and good for government.

Many co-MOJers and readers may have previously heard these arguments, as well as the counterarguments defending aid programs.  But I'd like to put the counterarguments on record here on the blog, given the continuing importance of the issue.  (For lengthier versions of these pro-aid counterarguments, see here and here.)

All of the modern aid opponents' appeals to Madison founder on the fact that the aid he was opposing would have funded solely (preferentially) the religious activities of clergy, at a time when government did not fund comparable or competing nonreligious activities.  Today, though, the issue is whether, when government already funds education or social services provided in a secular setting, government or private (e.g. public schools, which must be secular), the government may or must give equal (not preferential) funding to religious counterparts providing the same services.  In today's context, all of the analogies drawn to Madison's campaign against aid are wrong or are open to serious question.

On the dangers of "vying among each other for support and power":  There may be divisions among different groups over the allocation of aid, although these divisions are much reduced if the aid is channeled through the decisions of numerous individuals and families, as with vouchers.  But in any event, the divisions over what private schools get aid are easily matched or surpassed by the divisions that occur when people fight over the content of education in the sole government-preferred provider, the public schools.  These include fights over, for example, prayers at school events, 10 Commandments in the classroom, sex education classes, intelligent design vs. evolution, and the host of bitter fights that we hear about with wearying regularity.  Give people equal treatment in funding and thus a real choice of where to go to school, and these controversies will be greatly reduced.

On "the temptations of trading money and influence," the danger of "losing sight of religious values and mission":  It is true that an organization can be compromised in its mission by taking government money, often with attached regulations.  But the organization's mission can also be compromised when the organization has to compete with secular alternatives, public and private, that are favored in government funding.  As a result of the extra competition on that unequal playing field, the religious school may have to close -- which surely compromises its mission -- or it may change its program in ways dictated not by its mission but by what will attract more students away from the government-favored public schools.  Let the school decide which is a greater threat, being denied equal aid or receiving it, and therefore decide whether to take the aid funding with any attached strings.

Tom