Officials in Iowa have agreed to let employees participating in a government program to donate to charities choose Christian organizations, overturning a state ban that was the target of a lawsuit by the Alliance Defense Fund.
It’s at least the fourth state in which the dispute has arisen, according to officials.
The newest situation has been resolved with an agreement from the Iowa Department of Administration to let state workers contribute to faith-based charities under the state’s Iowa One Gift program, the ADF said.
“Religious charities providing critical social services should not be discriminated against simply because they practice their religious beliefs and hire persons who share them,” said M. Casey Mattox, litigation counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom of the Christian Law Society, which also worked on the case.
“While it is disappointing that legal action was even necessary to address this clear constitutional violation, we applaud the state for eventually getting it right and amending its rules to respect religious freedom,” Mattox said.
Officials said the state agreed to correct rules that previously excluded faith-based organizations from getting voluntary donations through a payroll deduction system.
Attorneys with the ADF and the CLS had filed suit in March alleging the rules excluding religious charities violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The rules of the Iowa One Gift program excluded any charitable organization that “engages in any way in sectarian activities,” advocates “religious viewpoints” or “discriminates” on the basis of religion in employment.
The department has now eliminated the exclusion of “sectarian” and “religious” charities and amended its nondiscrimination rule to only require employment practices to comply with Iowa employment law, which includes an exemption for the faith-based hiring policies of religious employers, officials said.
As a result of the changes, ADF and CLS attorneys will voluntarily dismiss their lawsuit, Association of Faith-Based Organizations v. Anderson, from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.
The same issue also has arisen in Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin, officials said.
In Wisconsin, a federal district court ruled in 2006 in favor of the Association of Faith-Based Organizations which sued for being denied permission to participate in Wisconsin’s State Employees Combined Campaign.
The order prohibited the program from denying religious organizations permission to participate.
Also in 2006, attorneys for the ADF and CLS successful worked with Michigan officials to allow religious charitable groups to participate in the Michigan State Employees Combined Campaign.
The next year the dispute came up in Florida, where state officials ultimately agreed to amend state rules for their Florida State Employees’ Charitable Campaign.
Under the Florida agreement, the state adopted rules to ensure religious charities no longer would be excluded because of their religious viewpoints.
The AFBO is an association of non-profit religious charities seeking to protect the constitutional freedom of religious organizations to staff and select members on a religious basis. AFBO is comprised of social service providers, educational institutions, membership associations, and advocacy outreach organizations, including the Christian Legal Society and other non-profit organizations.
