. . . And in New York
It's not just Washington State and at the Supreme Court where those with deep religious convictions are under attack. Here in New York, the New York Civil Liberties Union is taking on one of the most effective charities in the country, the Salvation Army, in an effort to deprive the charity of some government funding for the work it does helping the poor. In a federal lawsuit filed in Manhattan this week, the NYCLU represents Salvation Army employees who accuse the group of "religious discrimination."
But the ones doing the real discrimination here are the lawyers of the NYCLU, who want to prevent Christian groups like the Salvation Army from getting a chance to compete for government grants and contracts that secular groups can get. It's not that the Salvation Army discriminates when it comes to helping the poor. What the lawsuit complains of is that the group collects information from its employees about their religion.
"Whenever the government picks a religion to promote, it jeopardizes all religious freedom," the Associated Press quotes the NYCLU's executive director, Donna Lieberman, as saying.
But New York is a city and America is a nation where charities of many religious backgrounds and no religious background all get money from the government. It's a giant logical leap to say that some funding of one group — in an environment in which many groups of many faiths and of no faiths are receiving funding — constitutes some sort of unconstitutional establishment of religion.
And New York is a city and America is a nation where, alas, the needs of the poor are substantial enough that it is nothing short of cruel to demand that the government turn away effective poverty-fighting organizations that want to help, just because they happen to be organized along the principles of a particular faith. The right yardstick by which to measure these organizations is their effectiveness and efficiency in fighting poverty and delivering services, not their adherence to the personnel policies that may be followed in the offices of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
