OPINION:
For generations, the National Prayer Breakfast has offered an opportunity for U.S. presidents, members of Congress and national leaders to set aside their partisan differences, engage in prayer and spiritual reflection and recognize that faith calls us to serve with compassion and conviction.
That call has practical meaning in public life for individuals and institutions, particularly in health and human services, where decisions affect people at their most vulnerable.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administers a variety of programs to meet the agency’s mission to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans. That mission necessarily includes supporting the professionals and institutions that provide that care, including those whose service results from their deeply held religious beliefs or moral convictions.
For decades, Congress has recognized the contributions of faith-filled providers by protecting their right to serve in line with their beliefs. It has enacted conscience protection statutes that prohibit religious discrimination in certain HHS programs, now enforced by the HHS Office for Civil Rights.
In addition to specific laws that prohibit religious discrimination against beneficiaries, certain federal laws and regulations recognize that religious organizations should be able to serve their communities on equal footing with secular organizations without government interference.
This equal treatment allows communities to draw on the full range of qualified providers, including faith-based providers who have played a critical role in delivering health care, social services and assistance to families and individuals in crisis.
Together, these authorities reflect bipartisan judgment that individuals and entities should not be punished, excluded or forced out of health or human services because of their sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions. They also reflect a practical truth: When faith-based organizations and faith-filled professionals are sidelined, communities lose access to dedicated, hardworking and trusted providers. Also, faith communities lose trust in the government’s ability to honor the law.
The Trump administration is clear about its bottom line. Conscience rights and religious liberties are civil rights, and they will be protected in practice, not merely “tolerated” in theory.
Enforcing these protections is not about favoring one belief over another or religion over secularism, but enforcing the law as written and ensuring that federal programs remain open to the broadest range of qualified providers. When faith-based hospitals, clinics, charities and service organizations can participate without fear of discrimination, American patients and families benefit. Access to quality care expands, communities retain experienced providers, and our health and human services programs become more resilient.
This is common sense for the common good.
Within the first week of the Trump administration, HHS announced that strengthening laws protecting the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious exercise would be a priority. Since then, the Office for Civil Rights has launched multiple investigations under these laws, issued three Dear Colleague letters (two nationwide and one state-specific), announced a violation of federal conscience protection statutes and informed the public that eight documents no longer represent the views of HHS or the administration or are otherwise no longer applicable.
The aim of the Office for Civil Rights is simple: to preserve space for conviction by enforcing the law.
At its core, this work reflects a bipartisan understanding that service should be welcomed in our public programs, not constrained by policies that treat religious or moral convictions as a liability.
The National Prayer Breakfast reminds us that, from the nation’s founding, faith has inspired Americans to serve others, especially in healing and caring professions. Protecting conscience and religious liberty allows people of many beliefs to contribute to the common good while remaining faithful to who they are and what they believe.
At HHS, we will continue to vigorously enforce federal civil rights laws, including those protecting conscience and religious liberty, across our health and human services programs so that those who are called to serve may do so with confidence, compassion and a clear conscience.
• Paula M. Stannard is the director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Visit hhs.gov/ocr.
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