Pennsylvania: Shelter will sacrifice fed funding rather than be forced to hire Muslim employees

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Pennsylvania: Shelter will sacrifice fed funding rather than be for...

Posted on November 1, 2015 by creeping

via COURAGE! Pennsylvania Christian homeless shelter will sacrifice ten...

A Christian homeless shelter in Pennsylvania could lose more than half its funding because it doesn’t want Muslim employees and has refused to sign a government contract barring hiring discrimination. Founder Bill Halle says Jesus is the center of the foundation’s work. He says, “You cannot have a Muslim within our organization.”

Trib Live  The Grace Youth and Family Foundation in Butler, PA (below) tells The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review  it only wants employees who believe in Jesus Christ and being forced to hire people of other faiths is unacceptable.

Butler County’s only homeless shelter, which opens for the winter season Sunday, could lose more than half of its funding because of a spat over a government contract.

The faith-based Grace Youth and Family Foundation’s Winter Relief Center was in line for about $35,000 from the Butler County Department of Human Services, provided it sign a contract promising not to discriminate based on race, color, religious creed, ancestry, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, or non-job related handicap or disability.

Bill Halle, head of the foundation, says he cannot sign a contract in which the county stipulates hiring criteria he says interferes with the group’s religious beliefs.

“We have a statement of faith that Jesus Christ is the center of everything we do. We want the opportunity to talk about it. You cannot have a Muslim within our organization. Our faith is central to what we do,” Halle said. “We will not hire people or employ services that are in opposition to our faith, which is a legally allowable exception to discrimination laws for faith-based organizations,” he said.

“We will not hire people or employ services that are in opposition to our faith, which is a legally allowable exception to discrimination laws for faith-based organizations,” he said.

The foundation runs 24 programs — including counseling, drug and alcohol education, and a prison ministry. The homeless shelter is the only one that has received government funding.

Joyce Ainsworth, Butler County’s director of human services, says the shelter continues to grow, one reason she asked the foundation for the first time to sign a contract this year.

“I thought they needed to be more accountable as it got larger,” she said.

The exception Halle seeks is too much, she said.

“He asked for too many changes in the contract. They really wanted to change a lot,” she said.

The county says similar contracts are given to all of the 100 or so nonprofit organizations it helps fund, including Glade Run Lutheran Services, the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities. “They all sign this same contact. This is the contract we have with every other faith-based organization,” Ainsworth said.

Halle, speaking of the other groups, said, “They are not faith-based in the way that we are.”

Yet groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have sought an exemption from covering contraception in insurance plans for Catholic Charities and other faith-based institutions that receive tax money.

The foundation’s shelter on Center Street in Butler opened five years ago and has always received some county funding. The $35,000 slated for it this year is a block grant — a combination of state and federal money as well as donations from churches, foundations and private donations.

Last year, the shelter served 1,654 guests — the youngest was 4, and the oldest was 69. It is open from 8:30 to 8 a.m. and serves dinner and breakfast.

The county has alternatives to the shelter to help its homeless population, Ainsworth said, refusing to elaborate.

“We have some Plan Bs,” she said.

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