The Bush administration has been handing taxpayer dollars to religious organizations through faith based initiatives. Author Helen Thomas refers specifically to a $1.5 million dollar grant to World Vision, a Christian organization aimed at helping at risk children. The grant specifies that federal money is going toward salaries and administration. The controversial issue is the hiring practices of World Vision. They discriminate against non-Christians, as that would interfere with their ability to freely practice their religious teachings. The Department of Justice finds nothing wrong with this situation. “Requiring World Vision to hire nonChristians as a condition of the grant would create such a burden, according to the DOJ memo.” The article goes on to criticize the establishment of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. When Congress refused to establish this office, Bush issued an executive order to make it happen.
While I could concentrate on whether faith-based initiatives were a violation of the Establishment clause, I’m going to focus on the preference of Christianity in the organization. The hiring practices of World Vision are obviously discriminatory. They feel that non-Christians might hurt the religious message, be offended by the Christian influence, or any number of other reasons. The issue is whether the federal government should devote tax dollars to an organization that prefers Christianity over other religions. This brought to mind Bob Jones University v. United States. In that case, Bob Jones University’s tax exempt status as a charitable organization was revoked when they engaged in racial discrimination. I think that can be applied to the present issue. World Visions is a charitable organization receiving federal dollars while engaging in religious discrimination. The Supreme Court ruled in Bob Jones that racial discrimination was in opposition to the common law. Similarly, the Constitution holds that religious discrimination should not be tolerated. Supreme Court precedent and the Religion Clauses show that providing aid to a religiously discriminatory charity is unconstitutional.
The goal of World Vision is a commendable one: “working for the well being of all people, especially children” (from worldvision.org). I have no problem with their Christian affiliations. My contention is with the state funding a religiously discriminatory charity. That is an indirect way of establishing the Christian religion; the Christian message is being furthered through the actions of World Vision, and only that religion. I don’t want my tax dollars to support a purely Christian cause. I would completely support my money going toward the betterment of all people. I encourage the aims of the organization, but disagree over their hiring practices, and certainly disagree with the federal government giving aid to any charity that engages in such discrimination. I realize I sidestepped the whole issue of faith based initiatives as constitutional or not. Since it is happening currently, however, I felt it was more important to delve into how we handle the distribution of those funds.
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The first problem as brought up by this article is that the establishment of the faith based initiative office in the White House, in and of itself seems like a violation of the Establishment Clause. Giving money to such a purely Christian organization, as World Vision that discriminates in hiring only Christians seems very problematic. I don’t know if this faith based initiative gives grants to other religion based programs such as Jewish or Muslim. That might alleviate part of the problem. What is shocking is that the article says that the President asked Congress to make it legal for religious groups to be given tax-payer money even when they discriminate, and when Congress denied this he went ahead and issued an executive order creating the changes he wanted anyways. This looks like another Supreme Court case waiting to happen.
I disagree with Sara’s statement that this is an indirect way of establishing the Christian religion. Undoubtedly the government also funds faith-based Jewish and Islamic organizations who prefer to hire Jews and Muslims. Simply by virtue of the fact that a tax-exempt organization is based in a particular religion and chooses to hire staff who share their religious views does not necessitate government endorsement of that religion above all others. The tax-exemption for faith-based initiatives is available to all faith-based organizations equally. In addition, there is no evidence that “the Christian message is being furthered by World Vision.” Their actions, as described in the article and post, seem limited to helping children, not proselytizing. One could perhaps argue that by establishing a faith-based initiative, the government is endorsing religious faith over atheism, but since the tax-exemptions are offered to any faith-based organization, it cannot be said that the government is endorsing one particular religion over another.
Help me out here.
So, if you're Christian, but do not believe in the Apostles Creed...you can not work at World Vision?
So, only Catholics can work there?
I definitely know people who do not follow the Apostles Creed that are employed by World Vision.
Hmmm....maybe being a hypocrit is part of the prerequisites.
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