Religious staffing, reforming the tax code

Is the Salvation Army engaging in a "most reprehensible form of discrimination" by employing only those who agree with its mission? The ACLU has joined one member of Congress in saying yes, but a federal district judge in the United States has ruled otherwise. Writing for the Center for Public Justice's Capital Commentary series, Stanley Carlson-Thies analyzes the controversy in Religious Staffing-2, Opponents-0. (Check out the pious-looking box on "Freedom, Belief and Religious Liberty" on the ACLU's front page!)

In the most recent Capital Commentary, Center president James W. Skillen looks at A Good Tax-Reform Proposal for the US. A presidential advisory panel is urging that the mortgage-interest deduction on federal income tax be limited to $312,000 and be eliminated entirely for second homes and home equity loans. Skillen agrees. Of course, this issue means little to Canadians, who receive no such tax break at all. However, it may be that both countries' governments need a more radical reconfiguration of public policy to recognize that homeownership is not merely about purchasing a consumer good but about having a stake in one's local community.