Religion & Law

This from the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance:

A recently introduced bill to reauthorize federal drug treatment programs includes language to ban from participation faith-based providers that take account of religion in hiring  This is an attack on the SAMHSA Charitable Choice language that President Clinton signed into law in 2000.  The bill would also undermine the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), also signed into law by President Clinton, in 1993.  RFRA is Congress's own measure to ensure that the government respects religion when it acts. 



The bill is HR 5466, co-sponsored by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Rep. Gene Green (D-TX).  The bill would reauthorize federal substance abuse treatment funding that is administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).  



The bill proposes to add to the Public Health Service Act, Title V, the requirement that every grantee and contractor must agree to "refrain from considering religion or any profession of faith when making any employment decision" about anyone who will be involved in providing the federally funded services.  And this ban on religious hiring "applies notwithstanding any other provision of Federal law, including any exemption otherwise applicable" to a religious organization. . . .

I think I need a CTRL-ALT-"hiring for mission by religious institutions is not discrimination of the kind that should be troubling, even when those institutions contract with government to provide social-welfare services" macro.