Bill irks religious leaders

DENVER - Some services for the needy from Catholic Charities and other religious organizations could end if the General Assembly passes a bill that would forbid hiring based on religious preference, organization leaders warn.

HB1080 applies to religious groups that receive federal or state money to run parts of their organizations. Catholic Charities, for example, gets grants for its soup kitchen.

The measure would prohibit discriminatory employment in those areas that benefit from government funding. The prohibition would extend not just to applicants’ religion but to other protected traits, such as age, gender and sexual orientation.

The bill is a follow-up to a controversial 2007 law that bans hiring, firing, promotion and demotion based on sexual orientation and religion. It included an exemption for religious organizations, but House Majority Leader Alice Madden, who sponsored that law as well as the new bill, said she was questioned about why groups that get government funding should not play by the same rules as everyone else.

Madden, D-Boulder, pulled the bill from the House calendar temporarily while she works on its language. She wants to find a way to exempt employees who may work for, say, a federally funded part of a religious organization but also work in other areas.

“This is about the types of jobs a religious group is using taxpayer money for,” Madden said. “We’re not trying to cause a great deal of problems, but when someone is funded by the government, we think they should follow the law.”

But religious leaders argue that the bill would cause problems.

Archbishop Charles Chaput of the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver wrote a column calling the bill “offensive, implicitly bigoted and designed to bully religious groups out of the public square.”

Though Catholic Charities hires many people who are not Catholic to work in soup kitchens and other areas, the church’s ability to bring in someone who shares the faith and mission of the organization is essential to the program’s existence, he said.

“Catholic Charities has no interest at all in generic dogoodism; on the contrary, it’s an arm of Catholic social ministry,” Chaput wrote of one of the largest charitable organizations in the state. “When it can no longer have the freedom it needs to be ‘Catholic,’ it will end its services. This is not idle talk. I am very serious.”

Bishop Michael Sheridan of the Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs noted that the local arm of Catholic Charities receives far less of its budget from grants — 3 percent to 5 percent, he estimated — but said that he would forgo all government money rather than play by new rules. That would not shut down major missions like the Marian House soup kitchen but would have an impact on how the church could reach out, he said.

“We’ve got people that we’re feeding and families that we’re helping that are going to be left high and dry without our services,” Sheridan said. “It’s my hope that if people could come to see how bad this law is, it’s going to come to die.”

A legislator who worked with Madden on the bill said it’s on hold for the moment because Gov. Bill Ritter, a Catholic, said he would not sign it.

Tom Minnery, a Focus on the Family vice president and board member for the Alliance Defense Fund for preservation of the freedom of religion, questioned whether such a bill is legal. He claimed that despite its nondiscriminatory title, it discriminates specifically against churches. Large groups from the Salvation Army to the Denver Rescue Mission could be affected, and a lawsuit could be prepared if the measure is passed, he said.

Madden, who was alerted to concerns by the Anti-Defamation League, insists she will move forward with the bill as soon as she comes up with the proper language. She did not give a time frame.

“We just want to get to the point where it’s clear that when you’re using tax dollars you can’t discriminate against people, but you do so in a way that preserves liberties,” she said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: (303) 837-0613 or ed.sealover@gazette.com