House Democrats recently voted to discriminate against faith-based groups that participate in Head Start by disallowing the ability of care providers to hire and fire staffers based on religious grounds.
According to former White House staffer, Stanley Carlson-Thies, now with the Center for Public Justice,
“Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is not “discrimination” when a
faith-based organization ensures that its employees respect its religious
identity. To become inclusive, Head Start must accept religious organizations for whom a faith perspective is a legitimate job qualification—just as many secular groups check applicants’ political or environmental views.”
Would Congress pass a law that would prohibit extreme liberals like George Miller from hiring like-minded staffers? Should we force Planned Parenthood to hire Right-to-Life zealots? It’s past dangerous (and constitutional) when elected officials start deciding which viewpoints are acceptable in the public square based on partisan politics.
Time to reread banned books like the Bill of Rights and the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. Congress’s action borders on establishment of secularism as official State religion and should be challenged immediately in court.
If the public purpose of Head Start is education, and recipients have the right to choose some other provider, Congress should not foist such a plainly bigoted view point on a program that has a hard enough time justifying its mission and outcomes to Congress and the American public.