Today's Christian Science Monitor reports on efforts underway by the Obama transition team to extend and modify Pres. Bush's Faith-Based and Community Initiative. It reports that the transition has set up a large advisory committee with differing perspectives on the most contentious issues to tackle the church-state issues involved in federal funding of faith-based organizations. Among the most troublesome issues is when, if ever, faith-based hiring should be permitted for federally funded programs. Obama has proposed a Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, with 12 federal offices to promote the program.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
Posts
17 comments:
Faith based hiring should never be allowed. When Focus on the Family moved into Colorado Springs you had to write a "Christian Affirmation" to get a job. This means that they could discriminate against atheists and bias the job market.
I am tired of hearing of high tech companies too where, typically, a majority of the staff are Mormon and priority is given to hiring and promoting Mormons.
This country is supposed to be about equality and merit - not religious mumbo jumbo.
Agreed.
-American Atheist
"...when, if ever, faith-based hiring should be permitted for federally funded programs."
NEVER! Not for any company, but especially not for federally-funded programs!
Crap like this just makes civil war inevitable. Again.
A faith based-organization needs to be able to hire people who share their faith and live by the standards of that religion because these people represent that organization and its beliefs to the public. This would not apply to plumbers, carpenters, and outside labor who come in, but to their STAFFS who represent them.
E.G. if you have a faith-based drug rehab facility, and the religious faith is behind the success rate of the rehabilitated, then you need staff who believes, teaches, counsels according to that faith. An atheist counselor doesn't get it --and won't be able to sincerely teach the principles and pray the prayers that convert the addict and enable his victory over addiction. The staff needs to believe what the organization practices and teaches --the reason for their success.
The federal funding can be specified to help pay for the building, the food, the beds, the utilities of the organization --which is helping addicted people with a greater success rate than the secular rehab organizations.
why should we give federal money only to secular groups which report more relapses? same with prisoner rescidivism --same with failing public schools vs. the lower cost, lower paid private religious schools.
We give tax payer money to failure more than success when we give only to secular --and then try to make the religious institutions secular as a condition for their EQUAL ACCESS to public funds. After all, religious people pay taxes too. Religious organizations with their greater success rate should get more of that federal pie without giving up the religious influence that makes them successful. We all benefit from better success rates in rehab and education.
Faith Based hiring by private religious groups like Focus on the Family is protected by the US Constitution and has always been the law in America. And it always will be.
As for requiring religious groups to hire homosexuals and other undesireables, they are free to discriminate. This benefits all of society and advances religion.
So, anon, I take it you would be equally supportive if religious groups were free not to hire homophobes and other undesireables, as well.
And whose religion are you interested in advancing? Not mine, I guess. My religion supports same-sex marriage.
Of course, the Episcopalians are free to hire gay clergy as they do and I wouldn't seek a job with them since I don't think their standards are biblical. Of course, that issue is splitting their ranks, and rightly so --between those who follow the bible and those who do not.
the Gov't has no business telling the church whom to hire.
Barb, you can't be thinking that stand through, can you?
Why shouldn't the government tell churches who they may not permissibly discriminate against? Just because they are private organizations shouldn't immunize them from the ordinary rules regarding discrimination should it? If it suddenly became popular again (as it was for many decades in this country - most widely publicized with the Mormons) to deny black people a place in the clergy upon the 'Biblical' standard that they were sons of Ham, ought the government to simply shrug its collective shoulders and say, "Well, a church is a private organization - it shouldn't be denied the opportunity to be a racist organization."
If the answer is that the government should be permitted to tell a private company that they can't discriminate against black people, why is it different for the government to tell a private company that they can't discriminate against gay people, or women, or pagans?
If the answer is that a church should be permitted, if it wanted to do so, to bar black people from being hired to work, then why should our government give extensive subsidies in the form of tax exemptions to support an openly discriminitory hate group?
I mean it's one thing for a private citizen to be a despicable racist, homophobe, or sexist - but you seem to be asking for our society to acknowledge and extend a governmental reward to, and treat as 'valuable contributors to our culture', racists, homophobes, and sexists. That's a tough pill to swallow - you might need a bit more argument to wash it down.
--MD
Once you start telling the churches they HAVE to hire gay clergy, there is no religious freedom.
I don't think the gov't WAS right to tell Mormons they couldn't be racists in their theology without what? going to jail or being fined? They told them they would lose their tax-exempt status, I bet. Right?
Of course, I don't defend the Mormons on their stand because the Bible is not racist.
The Bible does, however, disapprove of gay behavior. You will be in a big war with the churches if you insist that they hire gay clergy or lose tax exemption.
By a Biblical worldview, there are "sins" that we don't have to indulge at the first thought: adultery, pedophilia, incest, rape, bestiality, and homosexuality --all sins by a Christian/Biblical worldview. All sins which start with a first thought entertained instead of rejected. The gov't ought not interfere with the church on these matters --nor threaten loss of tax exemption.
Race is inborn --abnormal sexual appetites are cultivated by self and outside influences, opportunity, temptation. The Church has a right to live out and proclaim its bible-based beliefs on right and wrong.
Another Barb here....
Religions are NOT companies. There is a vast difference. Personally, I believe it would be better if religious organizations went without the public funding so as to remain totally free. You cannot expect the secular government to not demand changes in people's beliefs when the government doles out taxpayer money to their followers. You must be a follower of the secular religion to recieve that sickly prize.
We believers in Christ must do better to support our own organizations without such treacherous "aid".
It is absurd to say that a religious organization cant descriminate based on religion. That would be the same as saying an engineering firm cant descriminate against non-engineers or a hospital not being able to discriminate against people who have medical training. Every job position must, by definition, have prerequisites for qualification.
Good argument, CA.
To the other Barb: churches are not getting money from the gov't as is. They CAN now apply for help with their charitable ministries to the needy, the prisoners, the drug addicted from the department of faith based initiatives. The church daycares and pre-schools in the inner city have also received money to serve the underprivileged.
Some homeless missions have received gov't aid. Critics then try to interfere and say the mission can't require chapel of its residents and so on. But that's part of how the mission helps them --to teach them Biblical life principles. Any gov't aid should have no strings attached --they let secularist organizations have our money with less effectiveness and much bureaucracy; let the religious organizations also have some of our tax payer money for doing the better job and don't tell them how to do that job.
Churches are given exemption from taxes on the church property --and we don't have to pay income tax on the money we give away to the church and other non-profit charities. This tax deduction for donations gives people extra incentive to be charitable --which is good for all.
Church supporters/goers ARE also tax payers --and it is doubly taxing economically for them to support their churches as well. They DESERVE tax deductions for keeping these churches going --which churches do so much good in their communities, for their families, for the needy and the elderly, the fatherless, the ill, the bereaved, all children and widows, etc.
Without the tax deductions, there will be so much less charity money because Uncle Sam will get it to absorb into his bloated, wasteful, pork barrel bureaucracy instead.
The idea that CA's argument is a good one is nonsensical. Nobody is arguing that jobs oughtn't to have prerequisite skills and abilities. An engineering firm may validly hire only engineers for a position because they are the only ones who possess the required skills for the job of 'engineer'.
A church hiring a receptionist to work the front office, keep records in order, manage building maintenance claims, and keep insurance paperwork in order, on the other hand, has no need for ONLY an individual who believes in their chosen deity to take phone messages, file paperwork, and call an electrician - and when they turn away a young man who is otherwise qualified simply because they don't like his God, they are engaged in the same type of bigoted, prejudiced, and unjustifiable hate-mongering and discrimination which has been deemed to be so grossy inappropriate in the civilized world as to be against the law in every employment venue other than this one.
A charity which houses the poor in the name of a God does not require, as a matter of required skill sets, a human resources generalist who can affirm a statement of Faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ. A human resources generalist with 15 years experience who cannot affirm the statement of faith because she is Jewish can still keep track of the payroll system - and may be in a better position to do so than a human resources generalist with 6 months experience who CAN affirm the statement of faith. When the charity rejects the applicant who cannot swear to the statement because she is Jewish, they engage in an act for which they would be civilly liable in a court of law anywhere else.
It's nonsense at its core to suggest that just because an organization is religious that it should be permitted to discriminate on the basis of these characteristics. Discrimination based on required skill set is not identical to discrimination based on religious affiliation.
--MD
Other Barb again:
What I am saying is that the secularists are in charge of the government purse strings now and there is no way they will aid even the most worthy of causes if they cannot at the same time demand that we renounce in some fashion our belief in God and His Holy Laws.
Do not count on the government for aid in these evil times. We must stand without the state's help because already laws are being passed to marginalize christians because of their beliefs. Avoid the carrot that they dangle before us, because it is spiritually more lethal than any stick.
Fiat Voluntas Tua
--MD
There is a difference between discimination and preferential treatment. There is nothing wrong with a corporation giving preferential treatment to applicants who fit into the corporate culture over those who dont. i.e. if the corporation is a christian one then it is fair for them to prefer christian employees over non-christians. If this is not so then the US Postal Service should be sued because it gives preference to veterans over non-veterans. i.e. the application of veterans is put ahead of the applications of all non-veterans regardless of any other qualification.
MD,
I understand your points and they are, as always, well argued. And as you point out, there are multiple uses of the word discriminate. To discriminate between two engineers, one of whom has the skills to properly build a needed dam, and one who does not have the skills, is quite proper. To discriminate on non-job related factors (race, religion) is quite improper.
But I can't help feel that there is a difference between a church hiring a receptionist from their own congregation, and church insisting upon the same right to discriminate in hiring for providing a subcontracted gov't service. I can't give you a good constitutional reason for that difference, but somehow it just feels different to me.
I am sure that you and I would agree on the unacceptability of discrimination in the hiring and provision of tax supported services. I see no case that would justify to me such discrimination in the use of my tax dollars. But on the church's own dime I can't imagine how we would or could advisedly proceed. Perhaps it is just my reticence to allow excessive entanglement between gov't and religion. Perhaps preventing religious groups from using the gov't as a sectarian tool requires that the gov't not use churches as tools of democratic society? My reasoning here may be faulty, and I would be interested to hear your response.
I understand that a religious organization refusing to hire Christians, Jews, or black people is doing something that any other organization could be sued or prosecuted for. But I guess I still hesitate to go there.
Jim51
A church receptionist needs to be a Christian. She is handling way more than just answering phones and typing letters -- she is representing that church to so many people --and people who have complaints --people who need counseling and the pastor is not there. A good church receptionist does a fair amount of trouble-shooting actually; she needs to understand and share the faith of the parishioners, be able to pray with them and so on, manifest Christian compassion and sensitivity. And yes, the church should have the prerogative of hiring from within their congregation--all their jobs, for that matter.
Human Resources? Someone who isn't from the church? or a Christian? Preposterous. You don't understand churches to think this idea will fly if the HR person has something to do with hiring, firing, and so on.
I have known churches to use treasurers, however, who were not from their church--when they didn't have anyone with the skills or the want to.
But separation of church and state means the state does not dictate hiring policy and beliefs, or other policies.
I wouldn't expect a synagogue to hire a Christian --or any church to hire an atheist.
churches should not be racist, but you can't insist that they hire certain people to achieve a racial balance or prove non-discrimination --because there are other qualifications to consider.
Post a Comment