State-supported religion

IN "JUDGING ALITO" (Jan. 10), my friend Melissa Rogers argues persuasively against government sponsoring prayers or symbolic displays that favor a religious view and thus, she points out, violate the principle of state neutrality toward religion. But that same principle undercuts her subsequent argument against allowing government aid for education or social services to go equally to religious providers.

When government supports K-12 schooling or mental-health therapy provided from a secular viewpoint, but denies aid for the same valuable service from a religious viewpoint, it is strange indeed to call the posture "neutral." Rather, the government's selective subsidies can create powerful pressure on individuals to forego religious services in favor of (discounted) secular ones. This itself is a threat to the vitality of religious life that can be just as dangerous as--and must be considered alongside--the threats that Rogers sees in any extra regulations that might accompany aid.

Moreover, such denials of aid to a religious entity--for example, excluding it from tuition vouchers--typically sweep much further than "worship and evangelism." Aid is withheld from the entity's educational or social service program itself, simply because worship or evangelism also takes place in the program. The result is discrimination and pressure, not against the distinctive category of "religion," but against the efforts of people to bring their religious values to bear on the publicly relevant matters of education and service to the needy.

Thomas C. Berg

University of St. Thomas School of

Law,

Minneapolis, Minn.

Melissa Rogers replies:

The constitutional principle that bars governmental endorsements of faith is quite consistent with the principle prohibiting the use of direct governmental aid for religious activities. While the state may support or subsidize many other messages or activities, it may not advance or fund faith. The First Amendment recognizes that religion is special, and thus the government must observe special limits in its relationship with religion.

Tom Berg says this gives government-funded secular programs a competitive edge over privately funded religious ones. But it is important to recall that religious programs have a different kind of edge over secular programs. Religious autonomy is specially protected under the Constitution, and religious activities are sometimes specially exempted from laws that substantially and unnecessarily burden those activities.

Lifting the ban on the use of direct government aid for religious activities not only would subject taxpayers to governmental coercion on matters of faith, it also would endanger these special protections for religion. If government money subsidizes religious activities, the government will regulate those activities. Further, allowing the state to direct funds to programs that include religious activities would trigger acrimonious political battles over which kinds of religious instruction, worship and evangelism are better candidates for state funding.

The ban on direct government aid for religion wisely prohibits certain interactions between church and state, but it leaves substantial room for groups to "bring their religious values to bear on the publicly relevant matters of education and service to the needy." For example, church and state may engage in many forms of nonfinancial collaboration and conversation, and religious programs may expand their work with charitable gifts spurred by certain tax incentives. Moreover, under current federal constitutional law, religious groups that receive government grants may offer both government-funded secular services and privately funded religious services, so long as these religious activities are clearly separate from the government-funded program and purely voluntary for beneficiaries.

The U.S. Supreme Court should uphold the ban on the use of direct aid for religious activities. Both religious freedom and religion are better off when religious activities are sustained by voluntary contributions rather than subsidized by the state.

COPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Century Foundation
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