|
|
July 27, 2001/Av 7, 5761, Vol. 53, No.42
Yellow armbands, pink triangles
FLO ECKSTEIN
Publisher
A secret deal between the Bush administration and the Salvation Army deserves more than passing attention. The administration beat a hasty retreat July 11 after the Washington Post reported on a confidential Salvation Army memo revealing that the White House had agreed to craft a regulation allowing government-funded religious groups to discriminate against homosexuals in their hiring practices, in exchange for the army's lobbying for passage of Bush's faith-based initiative that would direct increased public funds to religious charities.
The army apparently is nervous about a trend among state and local governments to add domestic partner and sexual orientation clauses to their anti-discrimination laws. (The City of Tucson recently dissolved its ties with the Boy Scouts of America, which discriminates against gay scoutmasters.) Hiring gays, a Salvation Army spokesman says, "really begins to chew away at the theological fabric of who we are."
The 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act permits religious organizations to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion but is silent on sexual orientation. Bush's faith-based initiative likewise is silent, while prohibiting funded groups from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability.
Ironically, in remarks last month to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the president argued his initiative would end the practice "of discriminating against religious institutions simply because they are religious." How would he explain discriminating against gay people simply because they are gay?
Further, the president has his facts wrong. The Salvation Army already gets $280 million annually from the federal government to feed, clothe and shelter the poor. Catholic Charities gets $2.3 billion in public funds each year to deliver health care and other human services. Locally, Jewish Family and Children's Service and the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center operate publicly funded programs.
Bush's initiative would expand the level and scope of funding, allowing direct payments to churches. "We (would be) funding the good works of the faithful, not faith itself," Bush told the mayors. Does he think funding the good works of gays, by employing them, would be funding homosexuality itself, whatever that might mean?
Private groups may discriminate, as the U.S. Supreme Court held in a June 2000 decision upholding the Boy Scouts' refusal to hire gay scoutmasters. However, to find an action legal is not to find it fair, caring or moral. We need only to recall the Nazis' state-sanctioned yellow armbands for Jews and pink triangles for homosexuals.
In its memo, the Salvation Army states its role in influencing Congress would "be a surprise to many in the media." It urges effects to "minimize the possibility of any leak." Thanks to the diligence of the Washington Post, the public now knows our highest elected official was ready to aid and abet bias against a group of citizens entitled to equal protection and equal access under our laws.
|
