White House office to fight for faith groups

FALMOUTH – The head of the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives says he’ll fight local governments that impede federal funding of religious groups.

“Sometimes you see local governments that bully faith-based organizations and basically tell them that they have to compromise their religious beliefs and tenets if they want to partner with government,” Jim Towey said.

He was in Falmouth on Thursday, meeting with leaders of Catholic Charities of Maine. The group sued the city of Portland in March 2003 over its domestic partnership ordinance, which restricts federal funding to the charity.

Catholic Charities is barred from receiving certain federal funds from the city unless it provides some benefits to same-sex or unmarried partners of employees.

“That may be their prerogative when it’s state and local money,” Towey said, “but when it’s federal money, that raises a whole different set of issues.”

Executive orders promoting so-called “equal treatment” principles will apply to 10 federal agencies including the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD, whose funds were at the center of Catholic Charities’ dispute, completed its rules June 1 and is studying “what to do when local ordinances discriminate against faith-based organizations like they do here in Portland,” Towey said.

Some advocacy groups objected to Towey’s characterization of municipal ordinances as discriminatory or bullying.

“It is not bullying to tell a group that it has to obey the same laws as everyone else,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, based in Washington, D.C.

“Mr. Towey, although he talks about a level playing field, in fact wants to require secular groups to abide by civil rights laws but not religious groups. Frankly, they all should abide by basic principles of fairness and equality that we find in the Constitution, if they get federal funds.”

Portland City Councilor James Cloutier, who was mayor when Catholic Charities sued the city, was unruffled by the new rules.

“We don’t have to be concerned about the fairness with which we treat religious and religiously sponsored organizations,” Cloutier said. “That’s because we have one rule that applies to everybody: You can’t practice discrimination.”