Blog from the Capital

Author and professor Randall Balmer delivered a stirring speech yesterday afternoon at the annual Religious Liberty Council luncheon. I was fortunate to be one of 500+ Baptists listened to Balmer – himself an Episcopalian – tell of the “urgent” need to rescue the Baptist heritage of freedom from the seductive call of political power embodied in the religious right. He carefully wove together, in contrast, the recent history of those “calling themselves Baptists” with that of colonial Baptists who helped inspire the religion clauses of the First Amendment and who knew what it was like to be in the persecuted minority.

Balmer called pet campaigns of the religious right, like those that would post Ten Commandment monuments at courthouses, “fethishes” that “denigrate the integrity of faith.” Of “prayer in school” controversies he said they are a “canard” that should be shown for what they are, since in fact it is state-sponsored prayer, and not prayer generally, that is found objectionable in the courts. And he received rousing applause when he added, of prayer, that true Baptists believe compulsory prayer – or prayer that is “rote” – makes a “mockery of faith.”

Throughout, he urged us – for the sake of our faith - to steer clear of the invitation to allow our religious perspective to gain the “imprimatur” of the government and pleaded with Baptists to return to our historic position of “watchman” on the wall separating church from state. Only then, Balmer insisted, would the church regain its prophetic voice and move back to the fringes of society where religion does its truest work, holding the seats of power to account on behalf of the poor and the sick and the disenfranchised.

His keynote address would be well worth a read. If I can find a link to text of his remarks, I’ll pass it along.

[UPDATE: The text of the speech is now online at the Baptist Joint Committee website here.]

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Just returned from the Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty - a great event with a couple hundred Baptists gathered outside the Capitol to remember George Truett's famous speech hailing the Baptist distinctive of religious freedom. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) warned that the current political climate leaves that necessary corollary to religious liberty - the separation of church and state - in "grave danger." Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX) challenged the Baptists gathered there to live up to the responsibility of preserving religious freedom for all with action and outspoked support. [UPDATE: Bruce Prescott has posted a podcast of the speeches by Reps. Edwards and Scott here

UPDATE 2: ABP's John Pierce reports on the event here. Texas' KWTX offers this brief story.]

The highlight for me, though, was hearing excerpts from Truett's speech read by Baptist pastors and leaders. The message was clear: being a champion of church-state separation is a Baptist heritage of which we should be proud, and from which we should never waver. In the spirit of shameless promotion, if you're interested in getting more involved in protecting this distinctive Baptist commitment, check out the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (the sponsor of this blog) - a representative of 14 Baptist bodies in Washington, D.C. for more than 70 years, believing that the separation of church and state is good for both.

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As I blogged before, the BJC is hosting a historic gathering of American Baptists and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship members for a religious freedom unity rally on the Capitol steps this Friday morning. But other worthwhile things are happening with these groups - which one AP reporter has dubbed "America's Other Baptists" - Thursday and Friday. If you will be at any of the week's Baptist events in DC, I have 2 requests: 1) introduce yourself! I will surely be wandering around wearing a dorky "Hello, My Name Is..." tag like everyone else. 2) E-mail me with your thoughts and experiences - especially related to religious liberty, church-state concerns, and the intersection of religion and politics. I can't be at every event personally, and want to hear from you - what you saw and heard and thought. Big Daddy Weave has a helpful write-up of many of the goings-on.

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From Voice of America:

President Bush says the concept of religious freedom and individual rights is expanding in every region of the world except one.

"In the Middle East, we have seen instead the rise of a group of extremists who seek to use religion as a path to power and a means of domination," said President Bush. "This self-appointed vanguard presumes to speak for Muslims. They do not."
...
"Millions seek a path to the future where they can say what they think, travel where they wish, and worship as they choose," he said. "They plead in silence for their liberty. And they hope someone somewhere will answer."

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Doing all that reading about the Hein case, I missed a few important other items. Anne Farris of the Roundtable published a report Monday on the development of faith-based initiatives at the state level, where new Governors were recently elected.

The election of 2006 brought to about a dozen state capitals the arrival of new governors, most of whom kept the state offices for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives they inherited from their predecessors with few major changes.
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Even some Democrats who replaced Republican governors have retained the offices and continue to encourage the partnership between government and community organizations. . . .

However, the transitions earlier this year were not always seamless or respectful of earlier efforts, according to a small sampling of some of the dozen states with new governors.

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On July 12, Rajan Sed will become the first chaplain to open the United States Senate with a Hindu prayer.

Zed is still to finalize the exact prayer he will deliver, but he is thinking something from Rig Veda, the oldest scripture of the world still in common use, dated from around 1,500 BCE; besides lines from Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord), both ancient Hindu scriptures. He plans to start and end the prayer with "OM", the mystical syllable containing the universe, which in Hinduism is used to introduce and conclude religious work. Full text of the prayer will be included in the Congressional Record.

[UPDATE: A reader emails to remind us of this important point: "of course, why we need a prayer of any religion to open a legislative session of the Senate is beyond me . . ."]

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After mulling over the Hein opinion issued by the Supreme Court yesterday, I'm left with a few lingering thoughts.

The first is that, despite the outcome in the case, a majority of the Justices explicitly did not agree with the primary distinction at the heart of Justice Alito's plurality opinion: that between the Congress spending money on religion and the Executive Branch spending money on religion. The 4 dissenting Justices, obviously, disagreed on this point. But so too did Justices Thomas and Scalia, who ridiculed the distinctions being made in Alito's plurality opinion, even though they also opposed the lawsuit. Here's a snippet I quoted yesterday from Scalia's opinion:

Because the express-allocation line has no mooring to our tripartite test for Article III standing, it invites demonstrably absurd results. For example, the plurality would deny standing to a taxpayer challenging the President’s disbursement to a religious organization of a discrete appropriation that Congress had not explicitly allocated to that purpose, even if everyone knew that Congress and the President had informally negotiated that the entire sum would be spent in that precise manner.
...
Indeed, taking the plurality at its word, Congress could insulate the President from all Flast-based suits
by codifying the truism that no appropriation can be spent by the Executive Branch in a manner that violates the Establishment Clause. the injury there was not fairly traceable to the unconstitutional conduct.

Third and lastly, the accountability of checks and balances in our system did indeed take a big hit with this decision. I keep returning to Justice Kennedy's concurrence - the paragraph I quoted in my coverage yesterday - in which he appeals, I guess, to the better nature of elected officials in urging them to follow the Constitution in matters of promoting religion, since there is nothing in a case like this one that citizens can do to challenge them.

[E]ven where parties have no standing to sue, members of the Legislative and Executive Branches are not excused from making constitutional determinations in the regular course of their duties. Government officials must make a conscious decision to obey the Constitution whether or not their acts can be challenged in a court of law and then must conform their actions to these principled determinations.

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Associated Baptist Press reports on today's Supreme Court ruling in Hein.

One Baptist religious-liberty expert, who helped write a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation in the case, said Alito and the plurality seemed most concerned with the mechanical aspects of the Flast decision. Meanwhile, the minority seemed most concerned with protecting "freedom of conscience."

"That the executive branch is the alleged violator does not lessen the injury to the plaintiff," said Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. "While taxpayer suits may be more limited under Hein, the constitutional duty to protect religious liberty and prevent government from promoting or interfering with religion applies to the executive branch, as well as to the legislative branch."

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From the Baptist Joint Committee statement:

BJC Executive Director J. Brent Walker expressed disappointment in the decision, but said there was some good news in it, as well.

“Justice Alito’s plurality opinion expressly declines to overrule Flast,” Walker said. “When combined with the dissenters, seven justices embraced Flast, with only Justices Scalia and Thomas voting to overrule it.

“It will be more difficult to challenge discretionary executive branch spending under the Establishment Clause. Nothing has changed when it comes to challenging the exercise of Congress’s taxing and spending powers to promote religion,” Walker said.

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This morning the Supreme Court released its decision in the Hein case. According to SCOTUSBlog, the Court did not overrule Flast (the precedent for granting taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases), but did deny standing to the Freedom from Religion Foundation in this case, disallowing their suit against the White House over faith-based funding conferences. Justice Alito wrote the 5-4 decision.

This decision does *not* end Establishment Clause lawsuits, far from it. It does not even end taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases. Here, the Court ruled that in the facts of this case, because the challenged government action was not the result of specific legislative funding, taxpayer standing should not be granted. The principle though is left intact, and beyond that, there are many other ways to establish standing in most Establishment Clause challenges. The problem here is: now that the Court has created this Establishment Clause safe-haven within the Executive Branch, will government agencies seek to take greater advantage of that allowance? Or will they heed Justice Kennedy's admonition that the Executive Branch is required to follow the Constitution even when there is no means to be sued over not doing so? (see Kennedy's quotes in the extended entry below)

[UPDATE: The Baptist Joint Committee has issued a statement.]

AP is reporting the announcement this way:

The Supreme Court on Monday said ordinary taxpayers don't have the legal standing to challenge a White House initiative helping religious charities get a share of federal money.
...
Taxpayers in the case "set out a parade of horribles that they claim could occur" unless the court stopped the Bush administration initiative, wrote Justice Samuel Alito. "Of course, none of these things has happened."

How Appealing has the opinion here (pdf).

Excerpts from the opinion are in the extended entry below.

From the Hein decision, written by Justice Alito:

The link between congressional action and constitutional violation that supported taxpayer standing in Flast is missing here. Respondents do not challenge any specific congressional action or appropriation; nor do they ask the Court to invalidate any congressional enactment or legislatively created program as unconstitutional.--p.9

It cannot be that every legal challenge to a discretionary Executive Branch action implicates the Constitutionality of the underlying congressional appropriation. When a criminal defendant charges that a federal agent carried out an unreasonable search or seizure, we do not view that claim as an as-applied challenge to the constitutionality of the statute appropriating funds for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Respondents have not established why the discretionary Executive Branch expenditures here, which are similarly funded by no-strings, lump-sum appropriations, should be viewed any differently. --p.10

Because almost all Executive Branch activity is ultimately funded by some congressional appropriation, extending the Flast exception to purely executive expenditures would effectively subject every federal action-be it a conference, proclamation or speech-to Establishment Clause challenge by any taxpayer in federal court. To see the wide swathe of activity that respondents’ proposed rule would cover, one need look no further than the amended complaint in this action, which focuses largely on speeches and presentations made by Executive Branch officials. --p. 11

Respondents set out a parade of horribles that they claim could occur if Flast is not extended to discretionary Executive Branch expenditures. For example, they say, a federal agency could use its discretionary funds to build a house of worship or to hire clergy of one denomination and send them out to spread their faith. Or an agency could use its funds to make bulk purchases of Stars of David, crucifixes, or depictions of the star and crescent for use in its offices or for distribution to the employees or the general public. Of course, none of these things has happened, even though Flast has not previously been expanded in the way that respondents urge. In the unlikely event that any of these executive actions did take place, Congress could quickly step in. And respondents make no effort to show that these improbable abuses could not be challenged in federal court by plaintiffs who would possess standing based on grounds other than taxpayer standing. --pp.12-13

Over the years, Flast has been defended by some and criticized by others. But the present case does not require us to reconsider that precedent. The Court of Appeals did not apply Flast; it extended Flast. It is a
necessary concomitant of the doctrine of stare decisis that a precedent is not always expanded to the limit of its logic. That was the approach that then-Justice Rehnquist took in his opinion for the Court in Valley Forge, and it is the approach we take here. We do not extend Flast, but we also do not overrule it. We leave Flast as we found it. --p.13

To find standing in the circumstances of this case would make the narrow exception boundless. The public events and public speeches respondents seek to call in question are part of the open discussion essential to democratic self-government. The Executive Branch should be free, as a general matter, to discover new ideas, to understand pressing public demands, and to find creative responses to address governmental concerns. The exchange of ideas between and among the State and Federal Governments and their manifold, diverse constituencies sustains a free society. Permitting any and all taxpayers to challenge the content of these prototypical executive operations and dialogues would lead to judicial intervention so far exceeding traditional boundaries on the Judiciary that there would arise a real danger of judicial oversight of executive duties.--p.15

It must be remembered that, even where parties have no standing to sue, members of the Legislative and Executive Branches are not excused from making constitutional determinations in the regular course of
their duties. Government officials must make a conscious decision to obey the Constitution whether or
not their acts can be challenged in a court of law and then must conform their actions to these principled
determinations. --pp.15-16

If this Court is to decide cases by rule of law rather than show of hands, we must surrender to logic and choose sides: Either Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), should be applied to (at a minimum) all challenges to the governmental expenditure of general tax revenues in a manner alleged to violate a constitutional provision specifically limiting the taxing and spending power, or Flast should be repudiated. For me, the choice is easy. Flast is wholly irreconcilable with the Article III restrictions
on federal-court jurisdiction that this Court has repeatedly confirmed are embodied in the doctrine of
standing. --p. 16

Because the express-allocation line has no mooring to our tripartite test for Article III standing, it invites
demonstrably absurd results. For example, the plurality would deny standing to a taxpayer challenging the President’s disbursement to a religious organization of a discrete appropriation that Congress had not explicitly allocated to that purpose, even if everyone knew that Congress and the President had informally negotiated that the entire sum would be spent in that precise manner.
...
Indeed, taking the plurality at its word, Congress could insulate the President from all Flast-based suits
by codifying the truism that no appropriation can be spent by the Executive Branch in a manner that violates the Establishment Clause. the injury there was not fairly traceable to the unconstitutional conduct.--pp. 20-21

[L]aying just claim to be honoring stare decisis requires more than beating Flast to a pulp and then sending it out to the lower courts weakened, denigrated, more incomprehensible than ever, and yet
somehow technically alive. Even before the addition of the new meaningless distinction devised by
today’s plurality, taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases has been a game of chance. In the proceedings below, well-respected federal judges declined to hear this case en banc, not because they
thought the issue unimportant or the panel decision correct, but simply because they found our cases so
lawless that there was no point in, quite literally, second-guessing the panel.--p.23

Here, the controlling, plurality opinion declares that Flast does not apply, but a search of that opinion for a suggestion that these taxpayers have any less stake in the outcome than the taxpayers in Flast will come up empty: the plurality makes no such finding, nor could it. Instead, the controlling opinion closes the door on these taxpayers because the Executive Branch, and not the Legislative Branch, caused their injury. I see no basis for this distinction in either logic or precedent, and respectfully dissent. --pp.24-25

[T]he injury from Government expenditures on religion is not accurately classified with the “Psychic Injury” that results whenever a congressional appropriation or executive expenditure raises hackles of disagreement with the policy supported... --p. 25

Here, there is no dispute that taxpayer money in identifiable amounts is funding conferences, and these are alleged to have the purpose of promoting religion. The taxpayers therefore seek not to “extend” Flast, but merely to apply it. When executive agencies spend identifiable sums of tax money for religious purposes, no less than when Congress authorizes the same thing, taxpayers suffer injury. --p.25

Flast speaks for this Court’s recognition (shared by a majority of the Court today) that when the Government spends money for religious purposes a taxpayer’s injury is serious and concrete enough to
be “judicially cognizable." The judgment of sufficient injury takes account of the Madisonian relationship of tax money and conscience, but it equally reflects the Founders’ pragmatic “conviction that individual religious liberty could be achieved best under a government which was stripped of all power to tax, to support, or otherwise to assist any or all religions,” and the realization continuing to the modern day that favoritism for religion “ ‘sends the ... message to ... nonadherents “that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community,” ’ " --pp.26-27

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Yet more James Dunn from Big Daddy Weave's series on soul freedom. Because I can't usher in the weekend with the pagans at the top of the page now can I? Here's a snippet from Weave's newest post of the series. Read the whole thing.

"We are not free without responsibility. Freedom and responsibility are like two sides of a coin, inseparable. No matter how thin it is slice, the coin of responsible freedom still has two sides. God made us able to respond, response able, responsible, and if responsible, free."
...
"This Baptist belief in religious liberty is not just 'doctrine,' or First Amendment or a political elective. It is, rather, THE baptist basic: soul freedom. Each individual comes immediately to God. All vital religion is voluntary. Even God will not trample the freedom to say 'yes' or 'no' to God."

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A group of pagans demanding equal religious freedom rights including a pagan chaplain in the military will demonstrate in Washington, D.C. on July 4.

Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State will also address the crowd. "Until Pagans have the same rights as Presbyterians and Pentecostals, religious liberty is not safe in America. The Framers of our Constitution mandated no preference for any one religion over another or for all religion over secularist beliefs."
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Currently there are no Pagan chaplains in the U.S. Armed Forces, although other minority religions with similar, or fewer, numbers of devotees in the military have one or more chaplains. Rev. Michael Akins of
the Military Pagan Network, a retired Army Chaplain Assistant, will talk about the need for a Pagan chaplain in the U.S. Armed Forces. He says: "Certainly those who protect the freedoms of all of us deserve freedom of religion for themselves."

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Guest-posting at Albert Reyes' blog during a weeklong discussion surrounding immigration reform, Baptist Joint Committee director Brent Walker reclaims an all-too-often forgotten type of religious expression that deserves protection: the act of ministry.

What could be a more essential act of religious exercise than helping the poor and disenfranchised? If the free exercise of religion means anything, surely it protects our ministry and mission work to the least fortunate.

When the government places a barrier to that kind of religious ministry, it imposes no less a burden than interfering with religious attire or ceremony or even building space, all of which the law seeks to protect. Any rationale for restrictions on humanitarian aid should be tested by a very high bar. But, many lawmakers persist in trying to restrict whom we may help, and how, when or where we may help them.
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[T]hose persons and problems the state deems nettlesome and abhorrent, the religious soul considers children of God and a responsibility. Fortunately, our Constitution and federal law protect religious exercise against government interference. If the state is going to restrict religious ministry, it must demonstrate a compelling reason for doing so and do it in a narrowly tailored way. We should be wary of government trying to promote the types of religious ministry it approves, through faith-based funding for instance, while with the other hand attempting to restrict religious ministries it does not like.

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Today's NYTimes tells of a new lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, this against the state of North Dakota for sending troubled juveniles to the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch.

The complaint says that “children are disciplined for refusing to participate in the spiritual aspects” of their therapy and that objectionable behavior is deemed a “corruption in the eyes of Jesus Christ.”
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The ranch is affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the country’s two main Lutheran denominations. Its president, Gene D. Kaseman, declined to comment. Lisa Bjergaard, director of the Division of Juvenile Services, said that she had not seen the complaint but that the ranch did not coerce children into practicing Christianity.

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Next weekend! I'll be there! True Baptists and others who love religious freedom will be there! Reps. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Chet Edwards (D-TX) will be there! How about you??

On a Sunday afternoon in May 1920, a 53-year-old Baptist preacher from Dallas, Texas, climbed the east steps of the U.S. Capitol to address a throng of some 10,000 onlookers in town for the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. His purpose — to rally support for religious liberty and its constitutional corollary, the separation of church and state.

The crowd heard a masterful call for true religious liberty, not the veiled contempt expressed in the “mere toleration” of others’ religious views. “Toleration is a concession, while liberty is a right,” the speaker said.

That sermon delivered by George W. Truett has continued to have a profound impact on Baptists and others for decades, including Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who received the text of the sermon from a friend more than a decade ago. The sermon “haunted” and “inspired” Edwards and caused him to change his political priorities. Edwards is now one of the fiercest champions of religious liberty on Capitol Hill.

Edwards will be on hand, as well as Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-Va., and a host of other religious and educational leaders representing an array of Baptists, as the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty hosts a Baptist Unity Rally for Religious Liberty at 8 a.m. on Friday, June 29. The event will be held at Fountain Plaza of Upper Senate Park, adjacent to the U.S. Capitol and the Russell Senate Office Building.

Leaders from across the country will celebrate Truett’s contribution to religious freedom and the Baptist distinctive of religious liberty for all by reading excerpts of Truett’s sermon.

The rally is in conjunction with overlapping meetings of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and American Baptist Churches USA, June 28-July2 at the Washington Convention Center.

For text of the sermon, titled “Baptists and Religious Liberty,” visit the Baptist Joint Committee Web site at http://www.bjconline.org/resources/pubs/pub_truett_address.htm .

Come on out - and make sure you introduce yourself.

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The APs Christopher Sullivan reviews a new book by Peter Irons: "God on Trial: Dispatches From America's Religious Battlefields."

One of the best elements of Irons' book, "God on Trial: Dispatches From America's Religious Battlefields," is a series of extended first-person statements... allowing real people involved in these disputes to explain themselves.

An atheist in one of these soliloquies, traces his nonbelief in part to a slap he received from a clergyman after asking an unwelcome question as a boy; and, in another personal narrative, a defender of a Christian religious display, who turns out to be Jewish, recalls his Holocaust-survivor parents' words about the danger of suppressing religious symbols.

To readers used to simplistic debates over church-state controversies, Irons' book offers welcome nuance, respect and context.

"God on Trial" is a highly readable exploration of several church-state separation disputes that combines thoughtful analysis of the law with journalistic storytelling about the personalities and personal stakes on both sides.

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I posted last week about PBS' controversial documentary "Wall of Separation", criticized by Americans United head Barry Lynn as "religious-right propaganda" about church-state separation. Via Melissa Rogers, I see that PBS ombudsman Michael Getler has reviewed the film amid complaints that its agenda is inconsistent with PBS' mission. In addition to noting that the show "has only been shown on a few stations and did not attract many viewers," here are some snippets on the content:

My own view is that the film, while including some differing views, does indeed leave one with a sense of advocacy and pursuit of a point of view — which challenges not only Thomas Jefferson’s view of a “wall of separation” but a string of Supreme Court decisions...
...
The interviews in the film, in terms of time on screen and numbers, seemed to me to tilt clearly in favor of those who see a danger in the “wall of separation” metaphor used by Jefferson...
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But the star of this film who carries the message that I, as a viewer, got, and assume the producers clearly want carried, is the unseen narrator who, time and again, conveys the theme of this film — that God is the necessary foundation of society’s law and government.

“The United States is a society based on the rule of law. And our Founding Fathers believed that if they did not base their laws on a higher authority, then whoever was in power would determine what the law said. They called this ‘tyranny’,” the narrator says, adding that, “Their higher authority was the Law of God — the Ten Commandments.”

Despite what seemed to me as this heavy-handed hammering away by the narrator in what is supposed to be — and is, to a fair degree — a discussion of an issue that has vexed the nation since the beginning, the film does provide a useful, and powerful, reminder of how God, Christianity, the Creator, the Bible, the Ten Commandments and the appeal to the higher authority figured so prominently in the language of this country’s founding and in the words of its leaders.
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My sense is that people can take from this film whatever they wish. It can be a useful reminder of the context of our founding documents. . . . Or it can be viewed as sophisticated propaganda...

[UPDATE: Barry Lynn responds to the Getler in a Talk2Action post here.]

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On June 26, the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives will host a roundtable discussion that "will highlight promising models of innovation from within state and local governments nationwide. Special focus will be placed on replicable partnerships between Federally-funded programs and community and faith-based nonprofits that strengthen services to the needy." According to the press release, 33 states currently employ faith-based "offices or liaisons."

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Via Howard Friedman at Religion Clause, I like the quote from Fargo, ND Councilman Mike WIlliams, in discussing the Council's removal of a Ten Commandments monument from City Hall to private property.

I pray every day when I come into this place, but I don’t come down to City Hall to get my faith in God by a monument.”

“Religion is too important for politics, and that’s why we need to make a change here...”

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On Thursday, religious leaders met with members of Congress to discuss bills being offered in both the House and Senate that would remove restrictions on religious travel to Cuba.

The bills continue to collect co-sponsors and the delegation received words of encouragement from long-time supporters like Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who restated his "commitment" to an end to the travel restrictions and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) who thanked them for the work of the church on the Cuba issue and said, "Of all the efforts to bring change, this work by the church is one of the most important."

In a series of meetings with lawmakers and legislative aides the delegation voiced special concern that any new legislation be broad enough to allow unlimited religious travel. The hoped for legislation is high on the churches' agenda because mainline Christian denominations and their ecumenical agencies say their religious work with Cuban partner churches and agencies has been seriously crippled over the past two years.
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The denial of licenses for unlimited travel to Cuba, which was allowed under previous interpretation of the regulations, is an unwarranted incursion by the government into religious affairs, members of the delegation emphasized.

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The South Florida Sun-Sentinel's report on Broward County's Ben Gamla school, a charter school operating out of a local Jewish center, serves as a helpful window into the controversies that are discussed in the Education Week piece I linked yesterday. From the Sun-Sentinel:

The Ben Gamla Charter School will open this fall at the Hallandale Jewish Center. The principal is a rabbi. The Hebrew/English curriculum will be based, in part, on Jewish tradition.
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Critics say the school, especially when marketed to Jewish and Israeli communities, signifies one thing: a free religious school. But Ben Gamla supporters say it will be something else, what the School Board approved: a conversational Hebrew language program.

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The Supreme Court - on the penultimate Monday of the session - did not issue a decision in the Hein case involving taxpayer standing in challenging some faith-based funding. It did announce that it will have "one or more opinions" available Thursday.

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That's the message of a new piece in Education Week by Lawrence Weinberg and Bruce Cooper. With the advent of the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Minnesota, they argue, the "timing is right" for religious groups to open charter schools across the country.

Religious groups could take the following steps to create charter schools that would meet legal requirements and also accommodate their beliefs:

• Create a separate, secular foundation to manage the financing of the school building and to help raise money for the instructional program.

• Write a charter school application under state law specifying that the new school will be culturally sensitive to the religious group being served, but will not endorse the tenets of the faith.

• State a mission that has specific educational and pedagogical objectives totally unrelated to the religious and cultural purposes, but parallel to the faith.

• Design a curriculum that meets both the religious/cultural mission and the educational purposes.

• Focus recruitment on the particular religious group, while being open to admitting members of other faiths.

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An Arizona judge upheld the state's 2 new school voucher programs. Challengers claimed it violated the state constitution's provisions against funding religious education.

The challengers included the Arizona Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, and AEA spokesman John Wright said they would appeal Hicks' ruling.
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The voucher programs do promote religion when parents use vouchers to send their children to religious schools, he said. "We've got a very compelling case that these are not (neutral on religion)."

Hicks' ruling should encourage opponents of "school choice" measures to back off, said Tim Keller, a lawyer for supporters.

"It's really time for opponents of school choice to drop these frivolous battles," said Keller, an official of the Institute for Justice.

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Tennessee lawmakers left themselves about $20 million in spending money when drawing up this year's budget. Initially, each member would get an equal amount to spread around the state for pet projects. But cries of "pork" and concerns about buying political support convinced them to back off this plan...so they pooled the money together and instructed the Secretary of State to give out the money to charities. But according to the Tennessean, the Attorney General issued an opinion that these unrestricted funds could not go to churches or religious groups. You can read the opinion here.

Posted by Don Byrd at 03:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The NYTimes has an important report today about the changing face of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division - from a focus on race discrimination to a greater emphasis on religious discrimination.

In recent years, the Bush administration has recast the federal government’s role in civil rights by aggressively pursuing religion-oriented cases while significantly diminishing its involvement in the traditional area of race.
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The shift at the Justice Department has significantly altered the government’s civil rights mission, said Brian K. Landsberg, a law professor at the University of the Pacific and a former Justice Department lawyer under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Several career lawyers said that some political appointees favored the religious-oriented employees, intervening to steer $1,000 to $4,000 annual merit bonuses to them.

[L]aw professors said placement officers and faculty at their schools found that graduates seeking work at the Justice Department had a better chance by cleansing their résumés of liberal affiliations while emphasizing ties to the Federalist Society, a Washington conservative group, or membership in a religious fellowship.

Posted by Don Byrd at 09:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A Muslim woman in Philadelphia lost her bid for the right to wear - with her police uniform - a headscarf in accordance with her religious beliefs. Many states are wrestling with legislation regarding religious expression in the workplace (recent posts here, here and here) but even with added legal protections, it remains to be seen how high the interests of unity and neutrality for an organization like the Police Department will rate in the equation. In this case, the Judge determined that those needs outweighed the right to wear religious garb on the job.

Instead, [Judge] Bartle said, the policy “reflects the fact that the police force is a paramilitary organization in which personal preferences must be subordinated to the overall policing mission which requires the utmost cooperation among all officers.”
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Wearing religious symbols or clothing, Bartle said, “would undermine these purposes and has the potential for interfering with effective law enforcement and even for causing harm to officers in a diverse community such as Philadelphia.”

Posted by Don Byrd at 01:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow, a group of religious leaders will meet with members of the US House and Senate to discuss the current Cuban travel ban and urge for an easing of restrictions on religious travel. A statement released by a broad religious coalition - including the Alliance of Baptists and American Baptist Churches - argues that doing work and building community around the world is essential to religious expression.

The statement protested current U.S. policy, saying, "National and regional denominational bodies and religious organizations are now eligible only for very restricted licenses." For the past two years a new Treasury Department policy interpretation has limited these kinds of religious organizations to one trip per quarter and the number of travelers in any delegation is restricted.

Citing a long, shared history of relationship, interaction with and support of Cuban church partners, the American faith leaders say the recent re-interpretations of U.S. travel regulations and the resulting limitations "are unfair and inappropriate, restrain religious freedom and reflect undue governmental interference in the exercise of religion."

Posted by Don Byrd at 01:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Anticipating this month's joint American Baptist/Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meeting in Washington, D.C., and the New Baptist Covenant gathering early next year, Big Daddy Weave has a series of recent inspiring posts calling on the Baptist heritage of soul freedom. The most recent quotes one of my heroes, James Dunn (as if you didn't know, James...). I'll excerpt a tiny bit here, but do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing. While you're at it, don't stop reading until you've followed all of Weave's links.

Soul freedom is the fire that burns in the innards of every true Baptist. From Thomas Helwys' insistence that "the king is not the Lord of the conscience" to this day, the identifying mark of the breed called Baptist is that dogged determination to be free.
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[T]he ethical, moral, and social implications of that transforming idea demand that same freedom for every other human being. If we do love our neighbors as ourselves, if we do unto others as we want them to do to us, if indeed, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, we want religious liberty for everyone.

Posted by Don Byrd at 06:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Governor Eliot Spitzer proposed a "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" on Monday:

Under the proposed act, all statutes, regulations or other government actions that “substantially burden” religious exercise must be justified by a compelling government interest.

The standard set by his proposed bill was applied nationwide until 1990, noted Spitzer in a press release. At that time the Supreme Court issued a decision indicating that a lower standard should apply.

Posted by Don Byrd at 02:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Stars and Stripes reports on the difficulties faced by minority faiths in the military, specifically Wiccans and Pagans.

Posted by Don Byrd at 10:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

As a follow-up to my post about workplace religious freedom legislation from Oregon, the New Jersey Assembly sent a collection of 5 religious freedom bills to the State Senate yesterday, including one guaranteeing employee rights.

The bill would not guarantee that every employee who wants time off for religious reasons would get it. Employers could deny such a request if it would impose an "undue hardship" on the business.

Employees would have to make up any time lost for religious observances or it could be charged to them as leave taken without pay.

But an employer that failed to make a good-faith effort to accommodate a worker's sincere desire to observe a religious holiday could be sued or administratively prosecuted under the state Law Against Discrimination.

Posted by Don Byrd at 02:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Another Monday has passed without a Supreme Court ruling in the taxpayer standing case, Hein v. FFRF. While we wait, might as well engage in idle speculation, right? After reviewing the authorship of decisions thus far from the February hearings, SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein predicted - a few weeks ago - that Justice Breyer is the likely majority writer. Last week, however, in a switch that would not bode well for the principle of taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases, he suggested that Chief Justice Roberts is the probable author.

And in an update at the Christian Legal Society blog (where I am guessing they would love nothing more than to see the taxpayer standing doctrine rejected), Casey Mattox deduces the likely direction of a Roberts decision in this case.

Posted by Don Byrd at 05:36 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

At AU's The Wall, Barry Lynn looks into advertisements for the new PBS documentary entitled "The Wall of Separation", set to show this month (check your local listings...). Judging by the promotional materials - and the background of the producers - he says it looks to be quite the revisionist history.

The “diversity of viewpoints” argument doesn’t wash either. This project smacks of covert Religious Right propaganda, not a forthright contribution to the national dialogue.

None of us at Americans United has seen “The Wall of Separation;” PBS declined to share a copy with us. So we can’t say for sure that it’s all bad. But many signs indicate that it may be an intentionally warped and inaccurate view of the role of religion in our nation’s founding.

Posted by Don Byrd at 12:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Oregon State House passed a religious freedom law last week ensuring that workers will be allowed religious holidays and clothing required by their religions unless such observance offers an "undue hardship" on the business.

“People of faith in the workplace too often confront impossible conflicts between their employment obligations and their religious obligations,” said State Representative David Edwards (D-Hillsboro). “This bill goes a long way toward eliminating those conflicts.”

Democrats say the bill is needed because federal law falls short in two important areas: taking time of for religious observance, holy days or religious practice and wearing religious apparel in the workplace.

The bill preserves the right, for example, of a Muslim woman to wear a headdress and modest clothing, for a Jewish man to wear his yarmukle or for a devout Catholic woman to take Christmas Day off of work.

Current Labor Bureau statistics demonstrate a decline in age discrimination and flat discrimination complaints based on race or gender. Workplace religious discrimination—in sharp contrast--has risen by 82 percent in recent years.

“All religious people, whether Christians, Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists or Orthodox Jews, ought to be concerned when employees with sincerely held and practiced religious beliefs must risk their job to practice their faith,” said State Representative Terry Beyer (D-Springfield).

Posted by Don Byrd at 10:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A Reuters piece today entitled "In U.S., Faith is Never Far From Politics" contains an essential idea about religious liberty and the separation of church and state. Those of us that value that separation from a religious perspective should be speaking this truth whenever we can.

"The strict separation of church and state in the U.S. actually fosters a broader role for religion in public life," said Matthew Wilson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"It means religious institutions have long felt very free to publicly criticize the government and public norms," he said, pointing to the historic role of church