Faith-based hiring

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Federally funded religious discrimination in hiring - an idea whose time has come!

 

I can't be sure here, because memory sometimes fails.... but....

Wasn't there a time in this country in the ancient times of BB (Before Bush) where there was this strange concept of "separation of church and state"?

Naw....... who would ever have thought of such a silly concept! It must have just been some dream I had....

 

At least as applied in a manner that would forbid the proposed federal action mentioned in the original post, yes, it was a bad dream of yours and this entire country's, because the notions that we now have about separation of church and state are absurd and have nothing to do with the Constitution.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

Yes, of course, Congress allowing federal funds to go to organizations for strictly non-religious purposes that just also happen to prefer hiring people of a certain religion = congress establishing an official government religion! Of course, it's just so obvious!

"Separation of church and state" appears in the defunct Soviet Constitution, not the U.S. Constitution.

It also appears in a single letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a small Baptist church ensuring them that the government would not enforce a certain orthodoxy on them, and a number of federal court decisions that have absurdly warped the meaning of the First Amendment--hence, our modern, very distorted perception that leads to the oft-cited "separation" shibboleth.

 

Actually, I am grateful to the thread starter for making this clear.

I heard the story on the radio this morning and I thought it said that federal money would go to faith based organizations who would then be permitted to discriminate in providing services. I now understand that the organizations will be allowed to discriminate in hiring their own people. Not the same thing.

I don't know that I agree with my fellow democrats, here. If, say, Benedictine Our Lady of Permanent Peace Through Strength Monastery decides to run a program to train underprivileged inner city youth to be plutonium warhead machinists, doesn't it make sense that the Benedictines should be able to require their underground trigger test facility manager to be a Catholic? That is a different thing, going to the core of the monastery's institutional identity, than saying only Catholic youth are eligible for the training.

 

Well, I've no objection to them demanding that the facility manager be a catholic if the money paying for the post comes from the church/congregation. However, if you take money from the government, you're taking money from the whole of the taxpaying nation, and you should play by rules that don't discriminate against any taxpayer if they approach you for employment on a taxpayer-funded programme.

Angela

 

I think that I'm going to disagree with my friend Nosborne on this one.

Benedictine religious principles are obviously relevant, and critically so, in Benedictine monasteries. So preferentially hiring Benedictines for positions that affect monastery life is certainly defensible.

But are Benedictine religious principles part of what's being taught when inner city youth are taught to be plutonium warhead machinists?

If the answer is 'no', then its hard to see how allowing non-Benedictines to work on the teaching project would threaten Benedictine identity, when there is no Benedictine content in the work that they would be doing. The non-Benedictines wouldn't be Benedictine monks, they would just be employees of the order.

But if the answer is 'yes', if Benedictine religious content is included in what's being taught along with the principles of plutonium warhead machining, then federal funds taken from all of the taxpayers without regard to the taxpayers' religious faith are being redirected to promote a particular group's religious beliefs and doctrines.

That might easily be a violation of the establishment clause.

 

This is why the historic position of my church is to refuse any money from non-church sources, whether government funding or fundraising from the public in the more mundane forms of raffles, suppers, etc. No confusion of purpose, content, or beholden-ness (sic).

 

You're probably right, but I don't think you're fundamentally disagreeing with Nosborne's point.

 

Um...I guess I should leave satire to those with quicker wits and pens than mine.

 

Given the current job market for plutonium warhead machininists, we probably need to be teaching our kids devotion to the Dear Leader.

 

I couldn't have said it better. The whole concept of separation of church and state was only to prevent the government from establishing a national religion...you know, something like "The Islamic Republic of ......" The minds at the ACLU and other liberal organizations have twisted this over the years to try to give it a whole new meaning....sad.

 

Kindly take a moment and consider exactly what we mean when we say that the government "establishes" something.

We mean the use of government power which, in our society, usually means the expendature of government money.

Paying for the upkeep of a religious organization IS "establishing" it.

A constitutional prohibition cannot be evaded by carefully naming something as something else, folks.

 

Oh, yes, and this is exactly what the English mean when THEY talk about the "established" Church; they mean that tax money supports it.

 

Carefully think about the ways in which the drafters meant it--you know they didn't mean the establishment clause to go where you're taking it. Look at what passed the establishment test at the time, it would astonish modernists: official state churches in 9/13 original states (granted, Bill of Rights hadn't yet been applied to the States yet), proclamations by presidents and the like that Christianity was the religion of America, open proclamations of religion in public schools and fora, et. al.

Similarly, our modernist conception of the establishment clause would stun the founders and strike them as absurd.

A document should mean what it was meant to mean, if you want to change it, there's always Article 5.

But I fear I'm wasting my breath--or fingers here.

 

No, you aren't wasting your fingers. It's another example of the changing meaning of the constitution.

But surely you must admit that financial assistance of a religious organization with taxpayer money IS establishment, was in 1789, and is NOW.

 

Er, no it doesn't. The CofE is supported by its own (currently not very sufficient) funding.

It is "established" because it was and is established by statute.

Angela

 

I have to respectfully disagree with you, Nos. There is a HUGE difference between establishment and financial assistance. What the framers of the constitution clearly and wisely prohibited was the establishment of a national religion. Why is the U.S. today not the Islamic Republic of America or the Athiest Socialist Coalition of America? The answer should be obvious to all learned persons. I don't have any hard evidence to back it up but I'd just about bet cash that Christian organizations are not the only religious groups that the U.S. government has ever assisted financially. Does that mean that the U.S. government is establishing these religious organizations? Hardly.

 

Hi Angela,

Does the British Government fund CofE primary and secondary schools?

 

agilham:

WHAT!!?!! What ever happened to the TITHE?

Are you saying that there WON'T always be an England?

BTW your post gives some pretty solid support to my adversaries, here. Oh, well, can't be right all the time, I guess.

 

Actually, the words "separation of church and state" appear nowhere in the Constitution. The First Amendment does say that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. The interpretation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment has two basic schools: the wall of separation doctrine and the no preference doctrine. The wal of separation theorists would say that no government money should be given to faith-based initiatives, period. The no preference theorists, on the other hand, would say that it is okay to provide government monies to, say, a Baptist faith-based initiative, provided that, when others come calling, Aborigine traditional religionists, African traditional religionists, agnostics, Assemblies of God, atheists, Aztec traditional religionists, Buddhists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Hindus, Hussites, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Mormons, Moslems, Native American religionists, Nazarenes, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Seventh Day Adventists, Zwinglians, and anyone else I might have forgotten, can get their slice of the government-issued faith-based initiative money pie.
Should a faith-based initiative that gets to suck up at the government trough get to discriminate based on faith in hiring? If the position requires teaching Baptist theology, then by all means hire a Baptist with a theology degree. If the position requires teaching nuclear engineering, hire someone with a nuclear engineering degree, whether they are Baptist or otherwise.
Anyone for debate on the relative merits of the wall of separation doctrine and the no preference doctrine.