Assume that the Ku Klux Klan opens a homeless shelter.  The shelter is open to all races.  Hiring is also open to all races, but prospective employees must affirm their belief in the racial superiority of whites. After two years of operation, there have been no complaints from shelter residents, who are not aware that the shelter is operated by the Klan.  (The Klan operates the shelter under another name to avoid controversy.)  Outside experts confirm that the shelter is serving the public well. 

For those who believe (as I do) that a religious organization should be able to hire employees who share the beliefs underlying the organization’s mission without jeopardizing the organization’s public funding, here’s the question: should the Klan, with its racist-only hiring requirements, be eligible for public funding?

I’ve taken this to mean that Rob is employing a “law prof” analogy rather than classifying the Klan as a religious organization. With that in mind, on the narrow question of way this analogy is posed, I would not have a problem with the Klan using the funds in the way Rob has delineated, with the restrictions and caveats Rob has in place. The Klan is simply acting as a “flow-through” for the funds. Why should the personal beliefs of either the organization or the individuals involved get in the way?

With that said, the question of fungibility seems as applicable here as in any situation where government funding goes to a group which cannot use such funding towards religious expansionism. Let me propose three questions which could be asked in such situations to provide a vague framework of analysis:

1. Did the group’s effort involving the funds (homeless shelter, food bank, etc.) exist prior to the government fund availability? If it did:
2. Has the group expanded their outreach in some measurable way using the government funds?; or
3. Has the group instead directed funds that normally supported the outreach into some other, impermissible, source, essentially replacing their own funding with the government’s while using their own funding towards other ends?

In Rob’s Klan hypothetical, suppose the Klan had no program in place, but used government funds to start the program. I think that would clearly be a legitimate used of government funds. If it was already in place, and served 500 people, and the Klan expanded using government funding to serve 5,000, then the use of public funds would be legitimate. If the Klan simply replaced their own fund-raising efforts with the government funds, then there might be some question of legitimacy, especially if fund-raising for other, less permissible, efforts replaced it. If the Klan replaced their own fundraising with the government funds and redirected the funding to publishing literature promoting white supremacy, then they are clearly in illegitimate territory.

Sheen: I cannot make a choice for a women, particularly a black or brown or poor pregnant woman. I would not make a judgment in the case. As a father and a grandfather, I have had experience with children who don’t always come when they are planned, and I have experienced the great joy of God’s presence in my children, so I’m inclined to be against abortion of any life. But I am equally against the death penalty or war– anywhere people are sacrificed for some end justifying a means. I don’t think abortion is a good idea. I personally am opposed to abortion, but I will not judge anybody else’s right in that regard because I am not a woman and I could never face the actual reality of it.

Unfortunate.

-j.

-j.

Over the summer, The Advocate investigated the financial dealings of Planned Parenthood and made some shocking discoveries about the clinic-owning “nonprofit.” We obtained the information by having an actor call clinics across the country and pose as a donor. The actor who called, The Advocate’s advisor, communicated to them a very racist agenda—the one that Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s founder, had envisioned. He then asked to donate money specifically for the abortions of African-American babies in order to “lower the number of blacks in America.”

Despite his bigoted requests, no Planned Parenthood employee (or director of development, in one case) declined the tainted money. Some even asked to speak with other employees to get permission. In the first day of calling seven clinics, not a single Planned Parenthood representative expressed outrage or concern at the racism behind donations specifically “to reduce the number of blacks.” In fact, some even went as far as agreeing with the antiblack agenda.

Wow.

-j.

Almost every word of the book’s title raises interesting questions. Is “liberty” the same thing as religious “free exercise”? Does the “free exercise” of religion mean “religious equality”? Are “conscience” and “religion” interchangeable terms? And is her account of “America’s tradition” consistent with the legal history and lived experience of our country? These are all questions very much worth debating, and on all of them Ms. Nussbaum has strong opinions that she advances with an air of great self-confidence, and at length. One wonders if the book really needs to be all of 400 pages. But then, she is covering a truly enormous territory.

-j.

However, I would suggest that there is another problem for Catholics when considering whether they may in good conscious vote for Obama or Clinton. This involves preemption doctrine, and is derived from the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which states in relevant part that the “Constitution and the laws of the United States…shall be the supreme law of the land…anything in the constitutions or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”

In the words of Pennsylvania v. Nelson, the question that arises when looking at Federal laws and potentially conflicting state laws is whether “they evince a congressional plan which makes it reasonable to determine that no room has been left for the States to supplement it” or in a classic phrase, the question is whether Congress has “occupied the field.”

Both Obama and Clinton have promised to make national health-care plans a cornerstone of their administration. It is not unlikely, and is indeed reasonable to assume, that contraception and abortion would both be funded in whatever health-care plan they put forward, given the support both have given to pro-choice ideologies. It is worthwhile to remember that even if Roeis overturned, that act does not make abortion illegal, but simply returns the decision to it’s pre-Roe status - that is, to the individual states to decide upon. However, if a national health care plan were to specifically provide for payment for abortion and contraception, could any individual state regulate and prevent doctors from providing either when Federal law specifically allowed for it?

-j.

For those endeavoring to protect traditional marriage, David Blankenhorn’s The Future of Marriage is an invaluable resource. The founder and president of the Institute for American Values, Blankenhorn is a forceful critic of the divorce culture. He analyzed the disastrous effects of fathers’ departure from the home in Fatherless America (1995). Now, he addresses same-sex marriage, thoroughly weighing the arguments on both sides. A self-identified Democrat and liberal who has frequently debated same-sex marriage advocates, Blankenhorn expresses concern—even anguish—at opposing their demands. He does so because he believes that to grant them would destroy marriage as a public institution dedicated to the production and rearing of children by their two biological parents.

-j.

An excerpt from the review:

During a recent Thursday-morning get-together over scrambled eggs and toast, the conversation at Kuppy’s focused on the U.S. presidential election. As usual, Mr. Woessner’s colleagues were taking shots at him. Why did he originally favor Rudy Giuliani? one of his colleagues wanted to know. “I really want to make sure I have a president who is going to bomb more countries,” Mr. Woessner quipped.