By Deborah Gyapong

OTTAWA -- The Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops (OCCB) has intervened in a religious freedom case that involves the rights of faith-based organizations to hire like-minded employees and still serve the wider public.

The OCCB has joined the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) and other groups in Christian Horizon's appeal of last year's Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (OHRT) decision that ordered the charity to pay a former employee $23,000, have its employees undergo anti-discrimination training and abolish its lifestyle and morality code requirement.

Christian Horizons is an evangelical Christian charity that serves developmentally disabled adults of all faiths. The one-person tribunal ruled the charity could insist its employees abide by its faith and morality code only if it restricted itself to serving a clientele from the evangelical Christian community.

"This Christian Horizons case is extremely important because it has the capacity to really restrict religions to the sidelines," said Iain Benson, a constitutional lawyer who is advising the bishops. "It would represent an extraordinary truncation of the public dimension of religious belief and conduct.

"If you think about Canada's self-understanding as multicultural, diverse and inclusive, to turn religions in on themselves works against a richer conception of multiculturalism. It makes no sense whatsoever in a society that benefits as much from religious projects as ours does to attempt to drive religions in on themselves."

Benson, who is executive director of the Centre for Cultural Renewal, an Ottawa-based think tank examining the importance of religions to culture, also noted: "We could ask the question whether restricting a religion like Islam to itself is a good idea."

The Catholic Church teaches that charity is an obligation under canon law, said Benson, and the role of the Church is to "assist the betterment not just of Catholics, but of everybody, all human persons. Not every religion has that vision at all. Some of the religions do not have projects that reach beyond themselves. It seems to be an earmark of Christian projects that they are out in the world well beyond the confines of their own adherents.

"We don't want the state telling us who we can and can't employ in the furtherance of our religious mission," he added. "We don't want the state truncating our religious purpose, which is to serve the needy, who are not just members of our own faith."

The complainant Connie Heintz had signed Christian Horizon's morality code when she was hired. Five years later, she experienced a crisis of faith, and entered into a lesbian relationship, contrary to the code. Christian Horizons let her go.

Benson said it is unusual to have interventions so early in the process before the courts. In addiction to the EFC, the Canadian Council of Christian Charities has also been granted status to intervene, as has EGALE, a gay rights organization.

Benson said the OCCB is not taking a position on the morality code because the Catholic Church "tends not to employ conduct provisions."

Non-Catholics often work for Catholic organizations, but they usually a

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Though Christian Horizons is not appealing the decision concerning its morality code, the EFC will defend the right of religious organizations to maintain the integrity of belief and practice. "Faith includes not just belief but also practice," said EFC legal counsel Don Hutchinson.

"Removing the element of shared faith may completely undo the capacity to accomplish shared goals," he said.

Hutchinson said the adjudicator in the Heintz vs. Christian Horizons case ruled that an organization cannot have two primary purposes: "He determined the primary purpose was to provide service to the developmentally disabled, therefore Christian Horizons was not entitled to the exemption found in Sec. 24 (1) (a) of the Ontario Human Rights Code."

That exemption allows enumerated groups to restrict hiring to people of like disposition.

"Christian Horizons has two primary purposes: creating an environment for evangelical Christians to come together to provide a ministry to the developmentally disabled," said Hutchinson. "The second primary purpose was in fact the service to the developmentally disabled."

Hutchinson likened the decision to a situation where Mother Theresa was told she could continue to work with nuns if she only provided care to Catholics.

What if Christian organizations that supplied international relief had to ask people to share their faith before giving aid, he asked, or inner city programs had to conduct an interview before a homeless person could be served.

"If you're not a Christian you'll have to sleep out on the sidewalk tonight, no matter how cold it is," said Hutchinson. "It is ridiculous in the simplest application."

He added: "There will be a significant gap in the social fabric of our country if people who come together for ministry based on a common faith are told that they can no longer associate based on faith but they can engage in social work. Part of the motivation for those engaging in this type of ministry is the ability to associate with a mutually supportive faith community in order to fulfill the desires that God placed in their heart."

Hutchinson pointed out that those motivated by faith to provide service will often provide an equal or greater quality service at a lower expense because their motivation is ministry.

He said representatives from Ontario's social services ministry said Christian Horizons served individuals that other group homes would not accept.

"Those who were found too difficult to work with were warmly received at Christian Horizons without complaint," he said, comparing the organization to the much smaller communities that are part of L'Arche.

Christian Horizons is Ontario's largest organization serving developmentally disabled people in the province. It has a staff of 2,300.

-- Courtesy of Canadian Catholic News. Please do not reprint without permission.

January 22/2009