When Your Faith Meets My Tax Dollars

Can you defend a religious institution’s right to make a decision you find objectionable? I certainly have. And I suspect that if you take religious freedom seriously, sooner or later you will have to do the same. Religious communities need substantial authority to choose their clergy and those entrusted with teaching their faith. That means a defending their authority in certain matters even when I disagree with its religious teachings or find the consequences of those teachings painful. Religious freedom cannot depend on whether the government, or the public, approves of a particular religious conviction.

But a case before the United States Supreme Court earlier this week raises a different question. What happens when a religious institution wants to participate in a publicly funded program, but objects on religious grounds to the conditions attached to that funding? The case comes from Colorado, which provides eligible children with fifteen hours of publicly funded preschool each week. Families can choose among participating public, private, and religious preschools. The state pays participating providers for the preschool services. Religious schools are welcome to participate. But participating schools must agree to give children an equal opportunity to enroll, regardless of certain characteristics of the child or the child’s family. Those protections include sexual orientation and gender identity.

Two Catholic preschools, together with the Archdiocese of Denver and parents, are challenging those requirements. They want to participate while retaining admissions policies based on Catholic teachings about marriage, sexuality, and gender. Those policies can exclude children of same-sex parents.

The schools argue that maintaining a religious educational community requires families who support their teachings. They believe Colorado is forcing them to choose between their religious commitments and access to a benefit available to other schools and families. Colorado responds that the schools are being asked to meet the same equal-access requirements as other participating providers. The state believes that children should not be excluded from a publicly funded preschool because their parents are gay. The schools also argue that Colorado permits other enrollment preferences and exceptions while refusing to accommodate their religious practices. Colorado disputes that those situations are comparable. Part of the legal question is whether the state is applying its requirements evenhandedly.

We should understand why both sides regard something important as being at stake.

Imagine that the best preschool you could find for your child was part of the local Catholic system. But you are Jewish. You respect Catholicism without accepting its religious doctrines. Now imagine that the school’s religious admissions requirements prevented your Jewish child from attending. If the school were privately funded, you might accept that as part of its authority to define its religious community.

But suppose that same Catholic preschool participated in a state funded program, offering a benefit for which your child qualified. Would that change your understanding of its obligations? It would certainly change mine.

Yet Catholic families can ask a serious question too: We also pay taxes. Why should choosing an education faithful to our religion prevent us from using the same benefit other families receive?

That is the difficulty. Religious freedom matters. Equal access matters. And when those two critical issues collide, as they have so often in recent years, we need to be very careful.  And as a minority community, we have a stake in this debate.

This week’s Torah reading gives us a language for that encounter.

Following Sarah’s death, Abraham approaches the Hittites to acquire a burial place. He introduces himself with these words:

Ger v’toshav anochi imachem.” -  I am a stranger and a resident among you.”

In its immediate setting, the phrase describes Abraham’s position as a resident alien. But Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik understood these words as expressing something enduring about Jewish existence.

We are strangers, bearers of a distinctive covenant. Our religious commitments sometimes set us apart from the surrounding society. We have obligations, practices, and convictions that our neighbors do not share.  Yet at the same time, we are residents. We belong to the society in which we live. We share responsibilities with people whose religious convictions differ from our own.

Both identities are real.

As Jews, we know the danger of a society that refuses to respect religious difference. We must defend the freedom and the rights that allow a synagogue to remain a synagogue, a church to remain a church, and a religious school to transmit its faith.

But we also know the importance of public institutions treating people fairly, including those whose beliefs or backgrounds place them in the minority.

The challenge is to honor both identities when honoring one becomes inconvenient to the other.

It is easy to affirm our civic responsibilities when they require nothing we would rather avoid. It is easy to defend religious freedom when everyone approves of the religious decision involved. The difficult cases reveal how seriously we take either commitment. I have tried to apply this principle within our own congregation.

I support the Johnson Amendment’s restriction on candidate endorsements by tax-exempt religious institutions. Our synagogue receives a significant public financial benefit through its tax-exempt status. I believe accepting that benefit carries legitimate responsibilities. We retain our religious voice. We challenge public policies, and encourage civic participation. But we accept a boundary around institutional candidate endorsements, even when I might feel strongly about an election.

Tax exemption and preschool payments are different legal arrangements. But the underlying question is familiar: What obligations accompany the public benefits our institutions receive?

Of course, government cannot impose any condition it wishes. A public benefit does not give officials unlimited authority over religious life. The conditions themselves must respect constitutional rights. But religious conviction should not automatically exempt an institution from every public requirement with which it conflicts.  As always, if you want the government’s money, you need to follow the government’s rules. 

My personal judgment is that equal access is a legitimate condition of Colorado’s publicly funded preschool program. I respect the Catholic schools’ concern for their religious identity. I also believe the state has a responsibility to the children and families its program is intended to serve.

Abraham’s words do not decide a modern constitutional issue. Instead, they ask us to recognize the responsibilities we bring to it.

Ger v’toshav anochi imachem. I have a covenant that makes me distinctive. I have neighbors whose lives and rights matter alongside my own.

We must protect the freedom to live by our faith. We must also accept that participating in shared public institutions brings obligations beyond the boundaries of our religious community.

Our task is to take both responsibilities seriously, especially when we would find it easier to honor only one.