It has been an interesting time around the Washington, D.C., area these last few weeks.

The District of Columbia City Council passed a law restricting the ability of Catholic Charities to continue its same level of social services to the city’s poor and homeless.

The Baltimore City Council passed a bill subjecting crisis pregnancy centers to a $150-a-day fine for not posting signs stating what services they do not offer.

Suburban Montgomery County Council is considering legislation to impose a $750-a-day fine (it is, after all, one of the richest areas in the United States) on pro-life pregnancy centers for not stating they do not provide medical advice or establish a doctor-patient relationship.

So far there’s no indication that Home Depot stores will be required to post signs that they do not perform brain surgery or that Pizza Hut franchises will be mandated to advise patrons they do not offer home loans.

Mandating that organizations must say what they do not do is ludicrous (if not unconstitutional).

The situation within the District of Columbia casts a far darker shadow over the freedom of religion.

The district council made it clear for some time that it would pass the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 to legalize same-sex marriage. Religious organizations would be required to recognize and promote same-sex marriage in employment, adoption and foster care polices, Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said in an Op-Ed published in The Washington Post.

“The new requirements by the city for religious organizations to recognize same-sex marriages in their policies could restrict our ability to provide the same level of services as we do now,” Archbishop Wuerl wrote.

“Since Catholic Charities cannot comply with city mandates to recognize and promote same-sex marriages, the city would withhold contracts and licenses,” the archbishop said.

Catholic Charities is the largest nongovernmental provider of social services in Washington.

Misstatements about the archdiocese’s position intentional and otherwise began with headlines such as “D.C. Archdiocese Threatens to Axe Social Service Programs Over Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ Law.”

“The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to stop providing social services, including management of city homeless shelters, unless lawmakers change a proposal to legalize same-sex marriages,” began another article.

If services are reduced, it is because of the city’s requirements. The archdiocese is perfectly willing to continue all services at the existing level, but it cannot do so when it is required to abandon its basic principles.

A pattern seems to be developing. Pro-life pregnancy centers are threatened by needless and harassing fines with no other apparent purpose than to disrupt their life-saving work. City council members would rather deny the needy vital social services than to work for a compromise that could balance religious principles and anti-discrimination legislation.

Meanwhile, the American Humanist Association held a news conference to introduce plans to place 270 ads on Washington-area trains and buses with the tag line “No God? No Problem” under a photo of four wholesome young people bedecked in Santa hats.

“We’re not trying to put down people’s religious faith,” said Roy Speckhardt, the association’s executive director. “We just don’t see the evidence.”

The evidence is there, seen in the 68,000 people served annually by Washington’s Catholic Charities and in the thousands counseled and assisted by crisis pregnancy centers.

That evidence of faith is just not appreciated by the atheists, the secularists and the humanists.

[This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.]