The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the federal government, charging that it allows the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to use taxpayer dollars to impose its religious doctrines on victims of human trafficking.
The Department of Health and Human Services awarded the bishops’ conference $6 million in grants from 2006 to 2008 to aid victims of human trafficking, many of whom are female prostitutes, according to the ACLU.
In accordance with Catholic beliefs, the bishops’ conference requires subcontractors to pledge not to use the grant money to pay for contraceptives or abortion referrals.
“Everything we do has to be consistent with our beliefs,” said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “We do all these social services, and we do it better than anyone else.”
The opportunity for faith-based organizations to use federal monies to accomplish work which society has an interest in accomplishing (homeless shelters, domestic violence programs, adoption agencies, the organization above, etc.) is one of President Bush’s good legacies and is an area I fear President-Elect Obama will mortally wound, based on his interview w/Rick Warren in the Saddleback Candidates’ Forum. Sadly, society loses when the Church is forced out of the ministries it does better than other organizations.
Opposition to contraceptives or abortion need not be “faith based”. Very cogent secular arguments can be forwarded for these positions. They are not necessarily religious issues.
I hope that the defending lawyer will make that case.
BTW, the ACLU has framed the argument (chosen the battleground) as one about government support of religion, so if the religious angle can be turned, I think that the ACLU can be defeated. The defendants need to change the battlefield. Don’t fight on the enemies terms, always choose the ground you fight on, yourself.
Religion needs to be properly recognized as a worldview. If govenment must be neutral to a thiestic worldview then it must also be neutral to a non-thiestic worldview. Indeed you could argue that no school should teach any worldview. Except, of course that is impossible. So the argument is really over which worldview should be taught.
Why do my tax dollars support abortion through Planned Parenthood?
Why do my tax dollars support embryonic stem cell research?
Why do my tax dollars support the ACLU that denigrates my religious values?
Why won’t the ACLU sue for me (and like minded folks in class action) as a conscientious objector for the use of my tax dollars in activity that is repulsive to my moral and religious convictions?
Because……they’re a bunch of socialist, humanist, secularists!
This is not news. What would be news would be an article of the ACLU suing in support of religious groups.