May 14, 2001

Hiring policies could spoil charitable choice
___By Mark O'Keefe
___Religion News Service
___DALLAS (RNS)--When faith-based groups look for employees, says Bishop T.D. Jakes, they reserve the right to hire only like-minded believers. That means gays, lesbians and non-Christians won't get jobs at Jakes' 26,000-member Dallas megachurch, which lists 10 openings on its website.
___"We hire people who reflect our views and concerns," said Jakes, stressing that his ministry helps anyone in need. "What makes us a faith-based entity is our morals and values."
___Jakes, described by President Bush as a "social entrepreneur," analyzes his legal right correctly--as long as his church doesn't use government funds. But once taxpayer money boosts a religious ministry, this hiring practice becomes dicey, challenging one of the main objectives of Bush's faith-based funding agenda.
___The issue of employment discrimination is a potential stumbling block in Bush's effort to expand federal funding of faith-based groups for a wide variety of poverty-fighting, drug rehabilitation, housing and after-school programs.
___As legislation begins its journey through Congress, several lawmakers, including Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., say that guaranteeing civil rights in religious employment is key to their support.
___More than 850 religious figures, calling themselves the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination, have sent Bush and members of Congress a letter urging them to abandon "charitable choice" legislation. Gay and lesbian advocacy organizations say they will highlight the issue, while church-state separation groups contend they've found an argument to derail the president's plans.
___"This legislation is intended to permit some fundamentalist organization to put a sign on its door saying, 'No Jews need apply,'" said Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
___Bush supporters call that misleading at best, but they're concerned that critics have discovered a wedge issue to divide their coalition.
___A survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that three-fourths of Americans favor government funding of faith-based organizations. But only 18 percent say government-funded religious groups should be allowed to hire only people of the same faith.
___"These critics can't win in the courts," said Joe Loconte, a faith-based policy expert with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "They can't win legislatively. So they now want to stigmatize."
___The Supreme Court has permitted faith groups to hire only those people--from ministers to janitors--who agree with their convictions. But critics and some supporters of the Bush plan say the picture is less clear when religious groups receive government dollars.
___"Publicly funded employment discrimination is wrong," said Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va. "We need to invest in our inner cities, but it is insulting to suggest that we cannot get those investments unless we turn the clock back on our civil rights."
___The 1964 Civil Rights Act provides an exemption allowing religious groups to discriminate in employment in accordance with their belief systems. A religious exemption also was included in 1996 when Congress, while reforming welfare, gave faith-based groups expanded opportunity to partner with government.
___Don Eberly, deputy director of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, defends the exclusive hiring policies of some religious groups.
___"It's very unlikely anyone would ever question Planned Parenthood's right not to hire a pro-life Baptist," said Eberly. "We see this as an equal treatment issue."
___New Jersey Secretary of State DeForest Soaries Jr., a Republican and a Baptist minister, sees the issue differently. He said his state has spent $50 million in four years to help faith-based organizations serve the needy, but that such groups can't discriminate in their hiring, even religiously.
___"I believe if that part of the federal law is challenged, it will be overturned by the Supreme Court," Soaries said. "I'm for charitable choice. I'm for faith-based organizations. But I'm not for discrimination.
___"I think religious organizations will have to make a choice. If you receive public money, you have to play by the rules of the government, and the rules require non-discrimination in hiring. Taxpayer money shouldn't be used by people who practice discrimination in any way, and I'm speaking as a representative of both the church and the state."
___Such talk worries some non-profit organizations, which watched the Boy Scouts win a Supreme Court decision affirming their right to exclude gays only to face public relations and funding battles with those who consider that bigoted.
___"Every organization is watching this carefully," said Major George Hood, a national spokesman for the Salvation Army, based in Alexandria, Va.
___Hood said 15 percent of the Salvation Army's revenue comes from government sources, and the organization "doesn't discriminate in any way," except when it comes to "ministerial roles." People in those positions "have to embrace the doctrinal positions of the Army."
___The reason, Hood said, "is we're looking for people who embrace our ministry, which is what makes us unique." The Salvation Army "would have a problem" with any government effort to strictly forbid religious discrimination in non-profit hiring.

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