We Want Your Money But Not Your Catholocism

This one is stolen from Legal Insurrection:

The hysteria, pushed by HuffPo Blogger Alison Kilkenny, over the "threat" by the Catholic Archdiocese charities to terminate services to the poor in D.C., is a typical case of over-simplification and an excuse for Catholic-bashing.

The Catholic charities want to be .... Catholic. Or so they say. I don't know enough about Catholicism to say that the public positions of theArchdiocese are necessary to being Catholic, but the Archdiocese feels it is so. Normally, we let people interpret and apply their own religion.

That is not popular at HuffPo. But there is this little, itty bitty thing called the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Damn, that thing can be a pain when there is a social agenda at stake:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech ....

D.C. is on the verge of passing an ordinance which requires that entities doing business in the city follow laws related to gay rights and gay marriage which the Archdiocese asserts are contrary to Catholicism. Since the Archdiocese enters into contracts with the city to provide services, and receives some payment for the services (although not enough to cover the full cost of the services), the Archdiocese would have to abide by the ordinance.

So the Catholic charities, faced with choice of doing business in the city providing services for the poor or changing its religion, asked for clear cut exceptions to the law, similar to what has been done in states such as New Hampshire, to protect its freedom of religion:

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians. Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

"If the city requires this, we can't do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."

Contrary to reports, the Catholic charities are not threatening to withhold all services to the poor, only those which would be subject to the ordinance.

The D.C. council doesn't want to change the ordinance. Fine. That is a fair and appropriate public policy dispute. Politicians can be politicians, and can set state policies. The problem for the city is that the Archiocese adds value to the contracts, meaning they provide services above and beyond what they get from the city.

But don't then complain that the Catholic charities take their services elsewhere, and don't hold the poor hostage to your politics. Fund those services from government money if you don't like the way Catholic charities do their Catholicism.

The legal issues involved are far from simple, although you wouldn't know it from reading the left-wing blogs which are howling with delight over thiscontroversy:

Linda C. McClain, a law professor at Boston University who is studying the same-sex marriage debate nationwide, said the outcome of the standoff between the District and the Church could have far-reaching implications for other states.

"This case really pits the commitment to religious freedom against the importance of anti-discrimination," McClain said. "The courts have been pretty clear that you can't force a religious organization to express a message it doesn't agree with. . . . But it's a tougher case to say you won't be able to provide services to the poor because of this."

What is simple, is that even people unpopular in left-wing circles get the protection of the First Amendment, and get to provide services to the poor as they please consistent with their own view of their religion. Even Catholics.