Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty - BJC, 57 groups ask attorney general to withdraw memo that damages religious liberty

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BJC, 57 groups ask attorney general to withdraw memo that damages religious liberty

Written by Jeff Huett

September 17, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Baptist Joint Committee and 57 other religious, education and civil liberties groups have sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting that he withdraw a 2007 memo that damages religious liberty.

The memo, from June 29, 2007, “threatens core civil rights and religious freedom protections” because it interprets the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to allow discrimination on the basis of religion for positions funded with federal money.

The groups, including some that are members of the BJC-led Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion, claim that “the guidance in the [memo] is not justified under applicable legal standards and threatens to tilt policy toward an unwarranted end that would damage civil rights and religious liberty.”

RFRA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton to restore robust protection for free exercise rights after the U.S. Supreme Court sharply curtailed them in a 1990 case, Employment Div. v. Smith.

“Having helped to spearhead the RFRA effort, I know of no one in 1993 who thought the new law would ever be applied this way,” said J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee.

The BJC maintains that using taxpayer funds to discriminate on the basis of religion is a direct violation of the separation of church and state. This was a concern of many church-state watchers after former Pres. George W. Bush announced his faith-based plan in 2001. The Obama administration has said the religious hiring issue will be dealt with by the attorney general and the White House Counsel on a case-by-case basis.

Organizations signing the letter include: National Ministries, American Baptist Churches USA; The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO; Anti-Defamation League; NAACP; The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries and the United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society.

Click here to download a copy of the letter in full.

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The Baptist Joint Committee is a 73-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based religious liberty organization that works to defend and extend God-given religious liberty for all, bringing a uniquely Baptist witness to the principle that religion must be freely exercised, neither advanced nor inhibited by government.