IN THEIR JULY 4 Washington Post op-ed columns E.J. Dionne and Michael Gerson both praised Senator Barack Obama's rhetorical embrace of President Bush's faith-based initiative. Despite this seemingly bipartisan consensus, supporters of President Bush's faith-based initiative should think twice before uncorking the champagne.
Gerson reminds us that as a young staffer to Senator Dan Coats in 1994, he was in on the ground floor of the entire idea. Coats was among the few Republicans who "were convinced that an exclusively anti-government approach [to the problems of addiction, disadvantaged youth, and homelessness] would be both morally and politically self-destructive." Gerson later pitched the idea to Bush who made it a centerpiece of his 2000 presidential campaign.
Those of us who shared Gerson's enthusiasm for the faith-based initiatives found ourselves in a two-sided debate arguing against assorted strict-separationist organizations such as the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the ACLU and the like on one side and with libertarians on the other.
We thought we were staking out a moderate and reasonable position that took a cue from Tocqueville's understanding of civil society, from Roman Catholic teachings about "subsidiarity" and "mediating structures" as well as teachings about "sphere sovereignty" from that strain of Protestant social thought identified with Abraham Kuyper. Against the libertarians we made the case for the responsibility of the government for the poor in particular and for social justice more generally. Against the strict separationists we made the case for equal treatment--arguing that religious nonprofits should be neither privileged nor discriminated against simply because they were religious. Religious nonprofits seeking to aid the poor should not be forced to secularize as a condition of public support. And that included the right of religious nonprofits to make employment decisions based on their deepest moral and religious convictions.
We thought this was a slam dunk because treating religious organizations equally by allowing them to hire employees who support their mission has long been the settled American consensus on civil rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended in 1972, four Charitable Choice laws signed by President Clinton and Supreme Court case law all support the right of faith-based organizations to hire employees based on their religious commitment. ( See the Center for Public Justice's Guide to Charitable Choice.)
The hiring issue became a problem only when the cultural warriors of the Left saw Bush's faith-based initiative as a threat to their political strength and sought to deny Bush a political victory. Even John DiIulio, Bush's first head of the Faith-Based initiative gets this wrong. As Joseph Knippenberg shows in a review of DiIulio's Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America's Faith-Based Future, he mistakenly states that the Charitable Choice legislation signed by President Clinton and the Civil Right Act does not contain such a robust hiring protection.
Regardless, it is still hard to see the objection to maintaining these protections. It is a matter of simple justice. If a nonprofit center provided counseling to drug addicts based on some secular (say, Freudian) theory of counseling, they should not be required to hire, as a condition of government funding, Christian counselors (or anti-Freudian secularists for that matter) who take a different approach. And vice versa. Gay-friendly counseling centers should not be required, as a condition of funding, to hire fundamentalists or Roman Catholics who have profound moral objections to homosexual activity. And vice versa.
Again we all thought this was an entirely reasonable position; one that was fully in accord with equal treatment and equal access understandings of the First Amendment's establishment clause and was fully in keeping with an expansive notion of the free exercise of religion.
According to E.J. Dionne, however, this makes us narrow-minded "culture warriors": "Culture warriors who would prefer a fight rather than a consensus on how to do well by those who do good may be eager to battle on this narrow issue." Just what you would expect from Dionne, who tends to talk a good game on this but always ends up siding with the strict separationists. Nary a word of concern that the faith-based initiative might itself turn into an engine that will contribute to the secularization of faith-based nonprofits.
Obama with full approval and support from Dionne and company seeks to eliminate these protections for faith-based non-profits. That's why Gerson's failure to tackle the problem head-on while he lavishes praise on Obama is so disappointing. Gerson approvingly quotes DiIulio, who praised Obama's faith based plan as "a balanced, centrist, faith-friendly plan" that avoids both "orthodox sectarianism and orthodox secularism." There's some triangulation for you. Those of us who insist on equal access and equal treatment and believe that faith-based nonprofits should not be forced into hiring those with whom they have profound religious and moral disagreements reflect an "orthodox sectarianism." Our views are "unbalanced." One might think that the accusation of "orthodox sectarianism" would be limited to those who believed that only their own particular sect should receive public funds. But not according to DiIulio and, evidently, Gerson. Those who believe in equal treatment are the "sectarians." Go figure.
Between DiIulio and Dionne, (and perhaps Gerson) then, a guy like me stands accused of being a narrow-minded sectarian culture warrior. I've been called worse. But I wonder if the same can be said of John McCain?
McCain quickly responded to Obama's faith-based proposal on July 2, 2008, fully supporting the freedom of faith-based organizations to staff on a religious basis even when they receive federal funds:
"John McCain supports faith based initiatives, and recognizes their important role in our communities. He has co-sponsored legislation to foster improved partnerships with community organizations, including faith-based organizations, to assist with substance abuse and violence prevention. He also believes that it is important for faith-based groups to be able to hire people who share their faith, and he disagrees with Senator Obama that hiring at faith-based groups should be subject to government oversight."
When you think of a narrow-minded, "orthodox sectarian," "unbalanced" culture warriors, John McCain isn't exactly the name that leaps to mind. But that seems to be the implication. Not from the strict separationist or libertarian opposition to the faith-based initiative, mind you. But from its defenders! With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Keith Pavlischek is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.