Say Anything Blog

And suddenly their lawsuit against the State of North Dakota over funding given to the Dakota Boys Ranch doesn’t look as though it’s on such firm ground.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that ordinary taxpayers cannot challenge a White House initiative that helps religious charities get a share of federal money.

The 5-4 decision blocks a lawsuit by a group of atheists and agnostics against eight Bush administration officials including the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

The taxpayers’ group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc., objected to government conferences in which administration officials encourage religious charities to apply for federal grants.

Taxpayers in the case “set out a parade of horribles that they claim could occur” unless the court stopped the Bush administration initiative, wrote Justice Samuel Alito. “Of course, none of these things has happened.”

The justices’ decision revolved around a 1968 Supreme Court ruling that enabled taxpayers to challenge government programs that promote religion.

The 1968 decision involved the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which financed teaching and instructional materials in religious schools in low-income areas.

“This case falls outside” the narrow exception allowing such cases to proceed, Alito wrote. 

Justice David Souter led the dissenters:

In dissent, Justice David Souter said that the court should have allowed the taxpayer challenge to proceed.

The majority “closes the door on these taxpayers because the executive branch, and not the legislative branch, caused their injury,” wrote Souter. “I see no basis for this distinction.”

What Souter refers to is the wording of the 1st amendment which specifically addresses Congress and not the President:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…

A fairly narrow loophole indeed, and it’s not surprising that the liberal Souter would want to go with some interpretation of the constitution that fits his politics rather than what the document actually says, though as in all other areas Congress does hold the purse strings for this funding being sent to religious organizations.  Thus Congress could end this funding of faith-based initiatives any time they want.

But regardless, the White House’s approach to this funding seems eminently fair and constitutional to me:

With the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, President Bush says he wants to level the playing field. Religious charities and secular charities should compete for government money on an equal footing.

As long as preference is being give to faith-based programs of secular ones, and as long as the programs of one religion aren’t being favored over another’s, there shouldn’t be a problem with this.  I’d also even go so far as to say that just as the Constitution prohibits the government from showing favoritism to religious causes, it can’t discriminate against them either.  The 1st amendment states that Congress can make no law respecting the establishment of religion.  “Respecting” being the key word.  The government can’t establish, say, Mormonism as it’s official religion.  But neither, by my reading, can it establish secularism as the state’s official belief system.

The founders intended for citizens to be able to practice the religion of their choosing, but they never intended for religion to be excluded from government either.  Which is what these fringist atheist/agnostic groups want.  If the founders had wanted to exclude religion from our government, then why were sessions of the Constitutional Convention opened with prayer?  Why has Congress always received an invocation from a religious leader before commencing business?