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Charitable Choice/Faith-Based InitiativesReactions to the case:
"Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation"
Sponsored link.

Information on the case itself is located in
a separate essay

Reactions to the ruling:Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the FFRF wrote:
"Fasten your seat belts, kids. The stacked Supreme Court is careening to
the right, and taking our Constitution along for a very bumpy ride. The
Court on Monday ruled the president may do what Congress cannot--use federal
tax dollars to promote religion without chance of taxpayer challenge or
court review. ..."
"The Supreme Court has barred the courtroom door. Why deny us the chance
to make our case? Clearly, the majority in Hein v. FFRF seeks not to
uphold the Constitution but to muzzle criticism, and to insulate the
Executive Branch from public accountability or judicial scrutiny. ..."
"The White House may now use taxpayer money to promote religion without
complaint by citizens and without scrutiny by the courts. Talk about an
imperial presidency!" 1
Greg Jones, writing for the Foundation for Moral
Law, said:
"Justice Alito trotted out a meaningless distinction in Hein in
order to avoid having to admit that the Court was simply wrong in Flast
to grant taxpayer standing for Establishment Clause challenges in the first
place. While admitting error is difficult, it is not nearly so hard as
trying to justify and maintain fabricated irrationalities in the law. In
all likelihood now the Court—and what’s worse, the country—will have to live
with this error for many more years to come. As Justice Scalia concluded,
'Minimalism is an admirable judicial trait, but not when it comes at the
cost of meaningless and disingenuous distinctions that hold the sure promise
of engendering further meaningless and disingenuous distinctions in the
future. The rule of law is ill served by forcing lawyers and judges to make
arguments that deaden the soul of law, which is logic and reason.' That soul
died just a little bit more today." 2
In its opinion section, a New York Times editorial stated:
"The controlling opinion by Justice Samuel Alito offers a cockeyed
reading of precedent and flimsy distinctions between executive branch
initiatives and Congressionally authorized spending to deny private citizens
standing to sue. That permits the White House to escape accountability when
it improperly spends tax money for religious purposes." 3
An editorial in the Los Angeles Times stated:
"For nearly 40 years, the court has recognized that Americans may file
lawsuits to block the government from improperly spending taxpayer money on
behalf of religion. ... That sensible position, first articulated by Chief
Justice Earl Warren in 1968, lets all taxpayers help enforce the
establishment clause, which prohibits the government from aiding the
establishment of religion."
"On Monday, however, two generations' worth of common sense went by the
wayside as the court, in a mere plurality opinion, allowed taxpayers to
challenge such spending if it is done by Congress but barred them from
seeking redress if it is the president who authorizes the money. The court's
reasoning was satisfying to no one and resulted in a strange fragmentation
of the justices, with the chief leading two other colleagues in the main
opinion, joined in concurrence by the bench's two most conservative members.
The largest group of justices speaking with one voice actually was in
dissent..."
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a fundamentalist
Christian legal advocacy group, wrote:
"Hein marks a significant victory for the President’s
faith-based initiatives. The decision rejected an attempt to expand
Flast beyond direct Congressional appropriations into the realm of
executive branch discretionary spending. Hein will seriously
impact future separationist attempts to challenge government policies under
the Establishment Clause that have not actually injured them. This will
make it more difficult for those who seek to remove America’s religious
heritage from the public arena to bring Establishment Clause lawsuits in the
future." 4


"Fz" posting to One More Political Blog wrote:
"... I can sue if Congress says 'Mr. President, spend this money on
religious purposes,' but apparently I cannot sue if Congress says 'Mr.
President, spend this money as you wish,' and he subsequently spends that
money on religious purposes."
"This is simply absurd. If Congress violates the Constitution, we can call
them on it, but if the President violates the Constitution, we can't?
Please, someone show me some sanity! Oh, hey, it's Justice Souter:
'I see no basis for this distinction in either logic or precedent, and
respectfully dissent. We held in Flast,
and repeated just last Term, that the injury alleged in Establishment
Clause challenges to federal spending is the very extraction and
spending of tax money in aid of religion'." 5,6 [Punctuation altered
for clarity]
Liberty Counsel, another fundamentalist Christian legal advocacy
group, wrote:
"FFRF argued that taxpayers who objected to federal funding of the
faith-based programs should be allowed to sue to block such funding. Today's
ruling rejecting this claim creates a precedent that the mere status of
being a taxpayer does not provide grounds to object to the federal
government's spending based on an alleged violation of the Establishment
Clause. Had the Court ruled the other way and allowed broad taxpayer
standing to challenge the disbursement of federal funds, the floodgates of
litigation would be open for any taxpayer to sue the federal government by
claiming any number of federal disbursements caused them to be offended."
[Editor's note: In reality, only litigation on the basis of violation of the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment would have been able to go forward,
if the Court had decided in favor of the FFRF.] Liberty Counsel continued:
"Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty
University School of Law, commented: 'The Freedom From Religion Foundation
would like nothing more than to wield a wrecking ball across the land to
demolish religious expression. The ruling by the Supreme Court is a
significant setback to this organization's wrecking ball agenda'." 7

References used:
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Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, "Imperial Presidency Can Now Promote
Religion. The Supreme Court has barred the courtroom door," FFRF, 2007-JUN-28,
at: http://ffrf.org/
-
Greg Jones, "One cheer for Hein," Foundation for Moral Law weblog, 2007-JUN-25,
at: http://www.morallaw.org/
-
"Three Bad Rulings," New York Times, 2007-JUN-26, at:
http://www.nytimes.com/
-
"Summary of Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc.," ACLJ, at:
http://www.aclj.org/
-
"Souter, J., dissenting..." Supreme Court collection, at:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/
-
"Fz," "Concerning Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation," One More Political
Blog, 2007-JUN-26, at:
http://ompblog.blogspot.com
-
"Supreme Court Rules That Separationist Group Cannot Challenge Faith-Based
Programs," Liberty Counsel, 2007-UN-25, at:
http://lc.org/

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Copyright © 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2007-JUL-11
Latest update: 2007-JUL-11
Author: B.A. Robinson
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