Religious groups on the right divide over whether to back the controversial Religious Liberty Protection Act. Are supporters of RLPA trying to rush the measure for a fast-track vote in the House of Representatives?

Web Posted: August 5, 1998

he fight over the Religious Liberty Protection Act has intensified, and there are new developments from Capitol Hill.

• Mixed signals are coming from the House Judiciary Committee. There were reports that the Constitution Subcommittee was to have disposed of RLPA last week, sending it on to the full HJC for expected passage, then to the whole House for floor action. That didn't materialize.

  AMERICAN ATHEISTS has learned that action on the Religious Liberty Protection Act is now slated for Thursday, August 6, 1998. The Constitution Subcommittee is expected to vote on the measure, and possible pass it directly to the full House Judiciary Committee for a second vote. Then, RLPA may be "fast tracked" to the whole House for yet another vote.

• Most of the mainstream and liberal religious groups remain solidly behind the Religious Liberty Protection Act. A serious rift has appeared, though, among organizations identified with the religious right.

   The Big Three religious right groups -- Christian Coalition (Pat Robertson), Focus on the Family (James Dobson) and Gary Bauer's Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council have joined forces to urge supporters in backing RLPA. Also signing on is Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries. A fund raiser sent out last week by Colson declares that "RLPA is supported by the broadest-based Christian coalition in recent memory."

    Other RLPA boosters include the Southern Baptists, Christian Legal Society, the Roman Catholic Bishops, Association of Christian Schools International, National Association of Evangelicals and the American Center for Law and Justice.

    But other groups have broken ranks, including the giant Concerned Women for America (Beverly LaHaye), Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and smaller organizations such as Traditional Values Coalition and the Christian Action Network. (In California, the TVA group there still is listed as a member of the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion, which is backing the state RLPA/RFRA clone bill.) Spear heading this break is the Home School Legal Defense Fund.

COLSON: THE RELIGIOUS JAILHOUSE
CONNECTION TO RLPA

    Before analyzing this split in the religious right, it is useful to examine why Mr. Colson's group has taken the initiative in unifying The Big Three (Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family and Family Research Council) in a campaign to pass the Religious Liberty Protection Act. Colson, of course, cites the usual "horror stories" where churches are required to obey "rules of general applicability" such as zoning ordinances, or anti-dscrimination laws -- as in the case of a Philadelphia Christian day care operation that tried to deny jobs "to atheists and homosexuals."

    For Colson's group and the proliferating "jailhouse" ministries being operated by religious organizations, though, RLPA is carte blanche to operate behind the walls of penal institutions. Like its unconstitutional predecessor, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, RLPA would give extreme latitude to any inmates, prison gangs or other groups that wish to demand special privileges, treatment or facilities, so long as it is done under the mantle of "religious expression." As noted in yesterday's AANEWS, already white supremacist organizations like the Aryan Brotherhood now operate in states like Texas as legally incorporated churches. The potential for abuse under the RLPA statutes is extreme.

    And it's not just "souls" which are at stake. Jail and prison-based ministries have the potential of becoming lucrative church-based industries, as states rush to privatize the criminal justice system. In Texas, for instance, Colson's prison ministry already operates its own program within the Jester Unit complex. The two year experimental program costs an estimated $2.5 million, with the state picking up the tab for support services including security, housing, food and medical care. But Colson's group has made it clear that at the end of the trial period, it will be asking the taxpayers to begin funding the faith-based outreach.

RELIGIOUS RIGHT OPPOSITION

    Other groups identified with the religious right, however, see RLPA as an extension of federal intrusive powers; a number have expressed the fear that somehow the powers of the proposed legislation are rooted in the Commerce Clause. By this rationale, they argue that the Religious Liberty Protection Act essentially "federalizes" religious beliefs and practices, and works only to protect larger congregations and faith groups. Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association argues that "The RLPA embraces the unAmerican idea that religious freedom is for some, not all Americans. This discriminatory philosophy leaves home schoolers, other religious individuals, and small ministries at a distinct disadvantage. Wealthy and powerful religious institutions receive much greater protection."

   Unfortunately, Farris and others do not include Atheists or non-Christian religious groups under the mantle of their concern. They also fear that RLPA is not strong enough to "protect churches from claims by homosexuals," and other groups. That remains highly problematic, and other critics of RLPA insist that one of the dangers of the act is that it does NOT protect homosexuals, unmarried couples or other groups from discrimination by churches or other religious organizations.

    Farris and other religious right RLPA opponents also fear that being based in the Commerce Clause, the proposed legislation could end up leading to taxation of churches. He writes:

"Again, in order to be successful under the RLPA, religious groups will have to prove that their exercise of faith has a substantial impact on interstate commerce. The more that churches prove that they are centers of commerce, the more they position themselves to be subject to taxation. An increasingly secular society may be all too willing to impose taxes on institutions whose commercial activities make them seen more like 'Centers of Commerce & Faith' than houses of prayer."

    RLPA does not say that, however, regardless of the merits or pitfalls of taxing churches.

MOMENTUM STILL WITH RLPA/RFRA

    On Capitol Hill, boosters of the Religious Liberty Protection Act have scheduled another legislative markup in hopes of fine tuning their proposal to make it constitutionally worthy. Constitutional scholar Marci Hamilton, who successfully defended the city of Boerne, Texas in the historic BOERNE v. FLORES case (which struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the precursor of RLPA), said that the legislation remains essentially in tact, and of suspect constitutionality. State versions of the act continue to wind their way through legislatures. Dave Kong, California State Director for American Atheists reports that the RFRA clone there has also undergone another modification as well in hopes of satisfying some skeptical law makers.

    RLPA will probably clear the House Judiciary Committee and the full House of Representatives. Any stand against the legislation faces the best odds in the Senate.

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