[I lifted this from dotCommonweal.]
Rick and Tom, I obviously don’t agree with you on the
inappropriateness of a non-discrimination clause in hiring for
faith-based /community partnerships of the sort contemplated here.
Preliminary Matters
First, the question of what counts as unacceptable “discrimination”
is key, as several commentators have already pointed out. If what is at
stake is articulating the message of the religious group, describing
the intersection of the faith and the soup kitchen, that’s one thing
–it’s relevant to the job. If it’s actually working in the soup
kitchen, that’s something else. Am willing to give religious
organizations carte blanche in determining when and where faith is
relevant–no, not if they receive public funds.
Second, I think it needs to be emphasized that however they are
interpreted, the non-discrimination requirements only apply to this
program=—not to all aspects of a church’s life.. Ideally, the program
could be incorporated separately as a 501(c)(3); I suppose it need not
be if the accountants can keep the financial lines sufficiently
distinct.
Third, I think it’s important to keep in mind that the purpose of
this particular program is not primarily to make religious groups
flourish, but to partner with them in enacting limited purpose programs
demonstrated to make the community as a whole flourish –it’s a secular
purpose, with secular understood not as “anti-religious” but as not
encompassing other-worldly goals, means, or objectives.
Fourth, to the extent that it’s relevant, I think the analogy to
Planned Parenthood and environmental groups points against employment
discrimination, rather than justifying it. Planned Parenthood cares
that you support abortion rights; it doesn’t care about the underlying
philosophy or worldview that leads you to support abortion rights.
Anti-animal cruelty groups care that you don’t support cruelty to
animals; they don’t care whether you think animals matter because they
think, or because they feel, or because they are made in the image and
likeness of God. Environmental groups care that you care about the
environment, they don’t generally care whether it’s because you think
the world will go to hell in a handbasket if we don’t care about it, or
whether it’s because you think the environment is the world spirit. And
so a publicly sponsored Soup Kitchen centrally ought to care that its
workers believed the hungry should be fed, and not worry so much about
whether it is because of God’s command, the requirements of natural
law, or the demands of religious brotherhood.
Broader Context
It’s interesting to me that the debate is focused only on religious
discrimination in hiring–that’s where people like Rick and Tom see the
insult to religious groups. In fact, however, if you actually commit
yourself to the perspective of particular religions, discrimination in
services, as well as proselytizing, will likely be justified as well,
and possibly be seen as more justified than discrimination on the basis
of hiring.
Many religious groups believe that they have an obligation to give
preference to the members of their faith in performing works of
charity. Friends of mine who are scholars in Islam say, for example,
that the Muslim brotherhood takes priority in extending help to the
needy. One has a religiously based obligation to help one’s brothers
and sisters in the faith before one helps others. Moreover, there is a
strong strand in Thomistic thought about the appropriate priority in
alms-giving; it was used and can easily still be used, to justify
giving to other Catholics who are needy before giving to non-Catholics.
Moreover, it’s extremely consonant with the Christian tradition to
hold that the only way that one can improve one’s life is to be struck
by the grace of God. Proselytizing, in this view, is a way of preparing
the way for God’s grace, without which no one can hope to turn one’s
life around. In Thomistic thought, prayer is the highest form of
secondary causality. From a Catholic theological world view, a
monastery dedicated to praying for peace and justice may very well be
the most effective way to achieve peace and justice.
In contrast, the religious affiliation of those who cooperate in the
corporal works of mercy may be relatively unimportant to the mission.
One does not need to be a believer to distribute food, clothing, and
blankets to the needy. Rich religious believers –of all
stripes-regularly had their slaves and servants perform the actual
physical labor. In theological terms, one could see the ability to
perform the services involved in the corporal works of mercy are likely
“graces freely given,” not the graces that make us pleasing to God,
following St. Paul and St. Thomas.
Am I saying, then, that religious groups ought to be able evangelize
or to discriminate on the basis of services? Absolutely not. I am
saying however, that distinguishing between hiring to perform services,
on the one hand, and proselyting and distributing services, on the
other, may not make a whole lot of sense from many theological
perspectives. So merely keeping the focus on justifying discrimination
in hiring does not, in my view, constitute taking the religious
perspective seriously on its own terms.
As I said however, these are secular programs–they are designed to
advance well-being on this earth, not in the next realm. /e are
conscripting people’s money ==the money of taxpayers of all faiths and
none — in order to fund these programs and partnerships. What can they
legitimately expect? I think they –we–have an interest in insuring our
funds are used both effectively (in a measurable way) and consonantly
with our values. Here, the no proselytizing and no discrimination in
provision of services rules become important. But in my view, so does
the no discrimination in hiring rule as well, for two reasons. First,
it has an impact on the efficient delivery of benefits. Why should a
taxpayer want to support a less qualified job counselor than a more
qualified job counselor, merely on the basis of religious belief?
Clearly, hostility to the beliefs of one’s clients would be a
legitimate factor in hiring. But does sharing those beliefs, in and of
itself, count as a qualification? Maybe it does. But I want to hear the
argument–. If it does, then religion is a BFOQ. Second, the job itself
is a substantial benefit–it confers participation and status in the
community. In many programs, much of the taxpayer generated money may
be dedicated to hiring personnel. So distributing jobs has to be done
in a way that’s consonant with the broader secular (again, not
anti-religious) thrust of the program.
Needless to say, and to say again, we need to define impermissible
discrimination carefully, to take into account cases where religious
belief is relevant as a bona fide job qualification. But I do not think
a blanket exception to the rule of anti-discrimination is either
required or a good idea here.
Part of this is a prudential judgment about where the dangers to the
common good are. The recent history of the faith based programs under
President Bush does not make religious believers as a class come out
looking as if they are the best judges of when and how religious belief
ought to be relevant. Another is the scandal–and I think that word is
not too strong –of evangelicals and conservative Catholics too(?) — in
the Justice Department considering faith as a job qualification when it
was clearly illegal to do so. Monica Gooding’s story is relevant, here
I think.
So too, Rick, is the saga of Esther Slater MacDonald, an alumna of
Notre Dame Law School, who mixed religion and conservative politics at
the Justice Department. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/who_is_esther_slater_mcdonald.php
This recent history of religiously committed actors in the Bush
administration suggests that there is in fact, a very good reason to be
as worried about religious overreaching as secular overreaching in the
public square. We need to choose a judicious middle path.
So I think it is reasonable, particularly in light of these clear
abuses, for Americans to demand more accountability from religious
groups participating in faith based partnerships. I am, because of
them, far more comfortable going back to the pre-Bush regulations than
I would have been had they not occurred.
Sightings 6/30/08
More Pew Findings
-- Martin E. Marty
In this business and with pleasure one cannot not comment on the Pew Forum on Religion and Public
Life surveys. They are the most ambitious and expansive polls and draw the most public attention.
Chancy as all opinion polls are, these Pew products provide at least some broad-brush understandings
of the subject. In the nature of things, press releases lift out and slightly exaggerate evidences of trends
in the face of so much continuity in American religion. For example, last winter we were told that there is much "switching" from one church community to another, which is true—but when historians checked in we also learned that there has long, perhaps always, been much of such.
This time the "key finding" is that Americans are very religious, but they are seldom dogmatic and often
quite tolerant, improvising adaptations in their own belief systems right under the noses of church
authorities. Let me point to one finding that does represent change from the way things were fifty years
ago, when Protestant-Catholic gaps and conflicts still made news and were worrisome to many. (Then
along came President John and Pope John and the Council and ecumenism and grass-roots changes.)
My thesis or hypothesis is reconfirmed: Catholic growth (thanks to mainly Mexican immigration) and
decline in clergy numbers aside, Catholicism and Mainline Protestantism are pretty much in the same
boat sociologically—and increasingly, theologically.
The Pew people graph sixteen responses by the two communities to opinion questions. At most four
percentage points separate Catholic numbers from Mainline Protestants on all but four issues. The only
wide separation is on legal abortion, with only thirty-two percent of the M.P.s thinking it should almost
always be illegal and, I am tempted to repeat, "only" forty-five percent of Catholics thinking the same.
Minorities in both think that "homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by society" but—
hold on!—here thirty-four percent of mainline Protestants say so, and only thirty percent of Catholics. A
waning issue?
We learn that far below one hundred percent agree with long-cherished and nurtured church teachings
when we find that eighty-five percent of Mainliners and seventy-nine percent of Catholics agree that
"many religions can lead to eternal life" and eighty-two percent of M.P.s and seventy-seven percent of
Catholics agree that "there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of my religion." The news
releases say that this proves that multi-religious America is "non-dogmatic" or, in terms of critics, that the adherents are wishy-washy and that they water down their faiths. (Evangelical figures suggest more
firmness—fifty-seven and fifty-three percent—on these two indicators. Aren't they low? Leaders are
impressed or depressed by this sagging among evangelical members.)
Yes, the half-empty glass approach finds evidence of superficiality in figures like these. Yet, in the halffull view, so many citizens do care about their teachings' way of leading to eternal life that they must be doing some improvising. They don't stop believing, but they do stop persecuting or degrading or
snubbing. In the depth of the beliefs of most of the religions the main and final theme is "shalom" or
"reconciliation" or "peace" or other positives. The problems have come in when their adherents have
obscured such messages by turning exclusive and absolutist, taking on the presumed business of the
loving and judging God to whom they witness, by putting their main energies into ruling others out. They
are sending dogmatists, exegetes, rule-book- and score-book-keepers back to the books to come up with
reinterpretations that encourage faithfulness but discourage sending "others" to hell.
For those interested in the legal issues about religious organizational freedom (or "freedom of the church," or "church autonomy," etc.), I have a short piece in Engage, a Federalist Society-published journal. It focuses on a recent one of Judge Posner's opinions, which are typically fun to read (and read about!).
An interesting story, in America magazine:
When I would come across Catholic Web sites or books that asserted “Life begins at conception,” I would scoff, as was my habit, yet I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with my defense. I realized that my criteria for determining when human life begins were distressingly vague. I was putting the burden of proof on the fetuses to demonstrate to me that they were human, and I was a tough judge. I found myself looking the other way when I heard about things like the 3-D ultrasounds that showed fetuses touching their faces, smiling and opening their eyes at ages at which I still considered abortion acceptable. As modern technology revealed more and more evidence that fetuses were humans too, I would simply move the bar for what I considered human.
At some point I started to feel I was more determined to remain pro-choice than to analyze honestly who was and was not human.
This post of mine, at Prawfsblawg -- and the comments -- connects pretty well with the America story, by the way.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Time reports its new poll showing McCain at 45 percent among Catholics, Obama at 44. However, according to the fuller survey account, McCain leads 42 to 31 in terms of "firm support," while Obama leads 49 to 11 in terms of "leaning support." So it appears that Obama is catching up but has more work to do, and the situation is fluid because there are lots of undecideds. Non-surprises in the poll: McCain is closer to Catholic voters' views on "so-called values issues, such as abortion and gay marriage," while Obama is seen as "best [a]ble to handle the economy." A surprise: McCain is seen as "most comfortable talking about his religious beliefs." There's an accompanying story featuring Doug Kmiec.
The full survey (again, here) includes some interesting results concerning Catholics' views on various issues. It also reports that 86 percent "give Pope Benedict XVI a favorable job rating."
on July 7th, 2008 at 9:46 am