The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, at their Spring Plenary Assembly last week in Baltimore, declared this week “Religious Freedom Week.” Beginning June 22, the feast of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, the USCCB invites Catholics to pray, reflect and act to promote religious freedom.
How’s that working out in your state?
If you’re in Michigan, it’s not working well; Michigan ranks last among the states in protections for faith-based, federally tax-exempt nonprofit organizations.
And on the other end of the spectrum, Alabama provided the best environment in which a faith-based organization can thrive.
The Napa Legal Institute, an organization established to ensure that Catholic non-profits are treated fairly, has released a first-ever national study which illustrates the wide variance from one state to another in protecting non-profits from discrimination.
The report, titled the Faith and Freedom Index, examines how each state in the country and the District of Columbia protects the constitutional freedoms of faith-based groups. The Overall Score is divided into two categories: Religious Freedom, and Regulatory Freedom.
Within those two categories, the data are divided into fourteen factors.
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Under the Religious Freedom category, the study evaluates six criteria: State Constitutional Protection of Free Exercise, State Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Religious Freedom for Nonprofits with Public Programming, Religious Freedom for Faith-Based Employers, Protections for Religious Exercise During a State of Emergency, and State Blaine Amendments.
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The Regulatory Freedom category ranks states according to the following eight factors: Nonprofit Religious Corporation Law, Standards of Conduct for Directors of Religious Organizations, Charitable Registration Law, Audit Requirements Pursuant to Charitable Registration, Corporate Income Tax, Sales and Use Tax – Sales, Sales and Use Tax – Purchases, and Property Tax.
According to the Faith and Freedom Index, Michigan ranks last among the fifty states and the District of Columbia, with a 39% positive rating for regulatory freedom and only 22% for religious freedom. Nevada ranked nearly as poorly overall, with 54% for regulatory freedom and an alarming 18% for religious freedom.
The news is more positive emanating from southern states such as Alabama and Texas, where religious liberty is protected and government policies encourage nonprofits to thrive. Alabama, the state most friendly to nonprofit organizations, earned an overall score in the survey of 75%, and 86% favorable in the “religious liberty” category. Texas is a close second, with an overall score of 72% and 70% positive for their support of religious freedom.
The Faith and Freedom Index reports that top-ranked Alabama’s score takes into consideration its official policies, such as constitutional protections for free exercise of religion, a state constitutional amendment requiring government burdens on religious exercise to satisfy strict scrutiny, and an automatic income tax exemption for organizations with federal 501(c)(3) status. But, on the other hand, the state has some policies which are burdensome to faith-based organizations, such as a state Blaine Amendment which prevents the use of public funds to support parochial schools, and an imposition of sales tax on religious organizations’ sales and purchases.
Mary Margaret Beecher, vice president and executive director of the Napa Legal Institute, spoke recently with Catholic World Report about the study, and how it can help to highlight the need for support of faith-based nonprofits.
This study, Beecher explained, is the first attempt to understand how government policies can affect nonprofit organizations. While earlier studies had analyzed support for young families, retirees, and other special interest groups, no one had yet studied how government policies impacted faith-based nonprofits. Their report will, Beecher believed, be important to policymakers and legislators who may, as a result, be more sensitive to how their actions can impact the nonprofit sector.
Beecher outlined how the Napa Legal Institute conducted its research. “The Faith and Freedom Index,” she explained, “…is based on the laws themselves. We did research to determine how each of these applicable laws – over 700 laws in all – sets the landscape for nonprofits.”
“When you look at the states with the highest scores,” she notes, “you can see a cohesive picture: In these states, policymakers have been intentional and specific in their support for faith-based nonprofits. In the middle-ranked states, perhaps they didn’t have all the information they needed to make faith-based nonprofits a legislative priority.”
And in the lowest-ranked states, Beecher reported, the governments may have intentionally overlooked the needs of nonprofits.
The Napa Legal Institute plans to release this survey on an annual basis, hopefully revealing some improvements in how states meet the needs of faith-based nonprofits.
Next on the agenda, Beecher reported, is to spread the results – educating people as to what opportunities are available in the landscape. “We’re in an era of problems and division,” she said, “and faith-based nonprofit organizations offer solutions. They offer the truth, they offer humanitarian education. So we need to look at how we are valuing that work, and determine whether our state laws are competing with these nonprofits, or burdening their work.”
The Faith and Freedom Index offers a detailed analysis by state, itemizing areas in which the states have protected the religious freedom of faith groups, and areas in which states have been unfriendly toward the nonprofits which serve their residents. The full report can be found here.
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I thought the First Amendment of the US Constituition provided the separation of church and state.
James Madison “It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law, was right & necessary”that the only question to be decided was which was the true religion”.
Freedom of religion has become a financial issue, not moral. To make things worse, there is a patchwork of states making their rules as it pertains to freedom of religion.
The Catholic Church offers “no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs”. (Walter M. Abbott, S.J., Editor, The Documents of Vatican II (New York: The America Press, 1966), pp. 678-79.)
I am confused about religious evangelism. When I was a young Altar server and lector I was warned that I could not bring my band at my friend’s protestant church annual fair. It would be a sin. Do we Catholics not believe that our faith is the only way to heaven? Or am I missing something.
morgan, my catechism says that the Catholic Faith is the sure way to Heaven. But not the only way.