Written by Don Byrd
If you haven’t checked out the latest issue of Report From the Capital, the print publication of the Baptist Joint Committee, it is worth your time. BJC director Brent Walker discussed the U.S. visit of Pope Francis, particularly with regard to the religious liberty conversation he generated. General Counsel K. Hollyn Hollman looked back on the Kim Davis county clerk saga in Rowan County, Kentucky. Plus you can read Zoe Almeda’s winning entry in the BJC’s Religious Liberty Essay Scholarship Contest.
I want to also highlight Hollman’s column on the proposed faith-based regulations offered by the White House back in August of this year. The BJC submitted comments on the regulations, which would tighten some religious liberty protections governing the partnerships between the federal government and faith-based entities. As Hollman notes, one of the most important improvements in the regulations is:
the requirement that beneficiaries receive written notice of their rights before receiving services. The written notice would identify five basic beneficiary protections: no discrimination because of personal religious belief, no requirement to participate in explicitly religious activities, a requirement that expressly religious activities be separated in time or location from those which are federally funded, optional referral to an alternative provider, and contact information to whom beneficiaries may report organizations violating these regulations. This is a significant improvement for protecting individual rights while permitting the government to contract with the greatest number of potential providers.
Read the whole thing. Also, see my previous post about these new regulations.
View the entire issue of Report From the Capital as a pdf file here.
