For the second time in as many years, a House panel has approved a bill that would allow some government-funded charities to discriminate in hiring on the basis of religion.
On a party-line vote Feb. 9, a subpanel of the House Education and Workforce Committee approved the “Job Training Improvement Act.” The act reauthorizes a federal program that funds local organizations helping provide unemployed people with marketable job skills.
The committee's 15 Democrats voted against the bill, while its 18 Republicans supported it.
The proposal would remove protections for employees seeking jobs from religious social-service providers funded under the program. The 1964 Civil Rights Act already allows churches and synagogues to discriminate in hiring for most positions on the basis of religious principles. However, the courts have not definitively settled the issue of whether religious groups retain that right when hiring for a position wholly or partly funded by tax dollars.
The 1982 Workforce Investment Act, which set up the program, originally prohibited organizations receiving grants under it from discriminating on the basis of religion, race, gender and other categories. The new bill would remove those protections only for religious providers, and only on the basis of religion.
Associated Baptist Press