Catholics Going Galt?

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to discontinue social service programs in DC in response  to a proposed law that would not exempt religious organizations working with the city from discrimination laws involving hiring gays and lesbians.

In other words, the Catholics are (sort of) going Galt:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

…Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”

The problem here is that the Archdiocese has partnered with the city for a number of years on social programs, and they are having to play by the government’s rules. So when Gibbs says that you must be secular to provide social services, she’s leaving out a major part of the story. If you want to provide social services with public money, then you may have to sacrifice certain things.

It’s sort of like Wall Street CEO having to take government-mandated pay cuts after receiving taxpayer funding. When you leave the private life and slip a toe into the public sphere, you give up certain things. As one supporter of the new law says in the article, “The issue here is they are using public funds, and to allow people to discriminate with public money is unacceptable.”

Of course, the legislation that DC is proposing won’t affect religious organizations that provide services on their own, and it shouldn’t. Civil society should be allowed to continue on in a spirit of free association. But it just goes to show you that if you want to keep your independence, don’t partner with the state.