Last week, 130 national organizations, including Americans United, sent a letter to President Obama asking him review and reconsider the OLC Memo and the "troubling policy [which] allows faith-based organizations to take government funds to perform social services for the public and ignore laws that prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of religion" contained therein.
Many news media sites picked up the letter, including the Los Angeles Times and its Editorial Review Board.
From Los Angeles Times:
"If faith-based agencies that receive federal funds must keep explicit religious appeals out of their social services, they also should be required not to discriminate in the hiring of those who engage in that work. Religious groups can fairly insist that their spiritual leaders and boards of directors must subscribe to the faith, but if a church-affiliated soup kitchen can't proselytize, it makes no sense for it to be allowed to use government funds to hire only cooks who are believers.
Some major faith-based groups that receive federal funds have no problem with opening their hiring to all. Catholic Relief Services says it considers job applicants on merit and without regard to religious beliefs. Every religious group receiving federal funds should have to make the same commitment."
We absolutely agree. Taxpayer-funded religious discrimination in hiring is something that no American should stand for.