Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Faith-based Program

c. 2007 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next week (Feb. 28) on a technical aspect of church-state law that is being closely watched for its potential impact on how government and religious groups relate to one another. The arguments mark the first time the high court will […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next week (Feb. 28) on a technical aspect of church-state law that is being closely watched for its potential impact on how government and religious groups relate to one another.

The arguments mark the first time the high court will consider a case challenging the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives.


But the justices will only decide whether the taxpayers bringing that challenge _ staffers of the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation _ have standing to file the suit, not the merits of the faith-based program.

The government, in its court documents, argues that the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred in ruling that the plaintiffs have standing in the case, Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation. It claims that permitting this challenge “would go far towards establishing the courts, at the behest of any one of the more than 180 million taxpayers in the United States, as a standing Council of Revision for every governmental encounter with religion.”

The foundation’s lawyers, meanwhile, say the government is making “dire predictions” and is seeking an “extraordinarily broad cut-back in taxpayer standing.”

If the high court determines that the foundation staffers have standing, the merits of their suit against the initiative would be argued in lower courts. They question the use of taxpayer money to fund the White House and Cabinet-level faith-based offices and related activities.

The justices will be asked to relate this case to a 1968 court decision, Flast v. Cohen, where the court said taxpayers had the right to sue when government funds were allegedly spent in violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

“Flast is the battleground here, not Hein,” said Benjamin W. Bull, chief counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed an amicus brief on behalf of We Care America, an organization that supports the faith-based program.

Bull’s office argues that fewer charitable organizations will seek or inquire about possible funding if the case is allowed to proceed. Others,including former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and the American Center for Law and Justice, also support the government’s side of the case.


On the opposing side, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and People for the American Way Foundation argue that challenges to the faith-based initiative should be allowed to proceed.

“The Hein case epitomizes the culture clash between those of us who believe that genuine religious liberty comes only from government neutrality toward religion and others who would trample on the separation of church and state,” said Judith E. Schaeffer, associate legal director of People for the American Way Foundation.

Melissa Rogers, a visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University Divinity School, said future precedents could be set by whatever the justices decide.

“The case seems very technical in nature,” Rogers said at a National Press Club forum that featured Bull and Schaeffer, “but it could end up impacting real substantive rights that people expect and have come to enjoy over decades.”

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