Religion on Welfare

Supporters of Bush's actions have vigorously denied that its programs contradict the principles of church/state separation laid out in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has said that society "treats Christianity like a second-rate superstition," and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) insists that "radical courts have attempted to gut our religious freedom and redefine the value system on which America was built."

I find DeLay's comment hilarious when a vast majority of US citizens claim to be Christians, and especially in view of the special exemptions religious have been granted as described above.  DeLay's remarks are typical of a strategy that the Religious Right has employed in recent years...demanding special priviliges for themselves and portraying themselves as persecuted victims when the privileges are denied.

Hastert's comment carefully skirts the issue of church/state separation by using the code words, "value system."  But everybody knows what he is talking about.  They are both wrong.  Our government should treat Christianity as it treats any other religion…impartially, and with no involvement.

Allen goes on to say, "The people who really did build this nation most definitely did not define "religious freedom" as the right of churches or other religious groups to benefit from taxpayer dollars. In fact, James Madison, the thinker who probably contributed more than any other to the legal foundations of our nation and who is frequently referred to as the father of the Constitution, was unambiguous on the subject."

Madison thought that the idea of a church — any church — acquiring property and wealth to be directly contradictory to the principles of the Constitution. In his "Detached Memoranda," a collection of private reflections, Madison warned against "the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government" as well as "an evil which ought to be guarded ag[ain]st in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations…. Are the U.S. duly awake to the tendency of the precedents they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations of Religious Congregations with the faculty of acquiring & holding property real as well as personal?"

In 1811, President Madison vetoed two bills, one incorporating an Episcopal church in the District of Columbia, the other reserving government land in the Mississippi territory for a Baptist church. The published veto for the Mississippi case states his position firmly: "Because the bill in reserving a certain parcel of land of the United States for the use of said Baptist Church comprises a principle and precedent for the appropriation of funds of the United States for the use and support of religious societies, contrary to the article of the Constitution which declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting a religious establishment' [sic]."

Madison clearly thought that "the appropriation of funds of the United States" — taxpayer dollars, to put it in today's parlance — to pay "for the use and support of religious societies" goes against constitutional principles.

But Madison went further in stating his opposition to "faith-based" charities:

"Because the Bill vests in the said incorporated Church," he said, "an authority to provide for the support of the poor, and the education of poor children of the same; an authority, which being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precident [sic] for giving to religious Societies as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty."

If churches want to do charitable activities, fine, he says, but not on taxpayers' money.  The government should not, in effect, "authorize" a church to do government work.  As Allen put it:  "He did not approve, in other words, of churches and religious societies being given a 'legal agency' (including taxpayer funds) to carry into effect 'a public and civil duty.' The public weal is the responsibility of the government itself, funded through taxation. Any charitable work churches might undertake is 'pious charity,' and as such a voluntary act on the part of church members."

A common argument offered by supporters of the faith-based initiative is that many wonderful charitable programs have been provided by religious groups, and some of them accuse opponents of waging a war against religion.  On the contrary, opponents are not attacking religion. They are merely reminding us that religion and church membership, under our Constitution, are defined as voluntary, and the general population should not be compelled to underwrite any particular church. That is what freedom of religion means.  Forcing me as a taxpayer to fund a religious organization, no matter how laudable and worthwhile its activities, is just plain wrong, and in violation of our Constitution.

Suggested further reading on our founders views on religion.