The case the US Supreme Court has agreed to hear—USAID v. Alliance for Open Society–concerns whether an organization the US government partners with to fight HIV/AIDS overseas must have a policy of opposition to prostitution. And the organization challenging the federal government’s policy is part of the Open Society network of organizations funded by George Soros. Those are two reasons why many religious organizations and leaders may find it difficult to see the dangers posed to faith-based services by the federal government’s stance. (Some organizations, it should be noted, are worried that a victory by the federal government may have negative consequences in the future and yet believe that in this particular instance its policy is defensible.)

It is a complicated case, but it can perhaps be summarized like this. In this particular program to fight HIV-AIDS, Congress wanted to stress responsible sexual activity as a major solution. So it required grantees to have a public stance against prostitution not only in the actual HIV-AIDS programs they operated with federal funds but as a public commitment of the organizations themselves. However, another strategy to fight HIV-AIDS is to persuade prostitutes to engage in “responsible sex” (insisting on a condom, getting regularly tested for HIV-AIDS, etc.)–but how can an organization successfully work with prostitutes if it is required to shout the government’s message that prostitution is a great evil? So the Alliance for Open Society, International, sued the federal government for imposing a gag order on the entire organization and not just on the specific HIV-AIDs program that was federally funded.

There’s something to the government’s logic, and yet this is a deeply troubling federal government policy. It is troubling on free speech and religious freedom grounds, as a matter of principle. And it should be particularly troubling to faith-based organizations whose views about cultural and policy matters diverge from the current popular consensus. Consider:

* It is not difficult to imagine a government program to combat bullying that refuses to partner with a religiously conservative youth-serving organization on the grounds that the organization’s stance against sexual expression outside of a biblical marriage must make it homophobic and thus unable to serve all victims of bullying.

* It is not hard to imagine government officials claiming that, because of its pro-life stance, they cannot license a Catholic hospital to open in a community, even though there is a hospital right around the block that does perform abortions and other services of the Catholic hospital are recommended by the government; after all, that religious hospital is contradicting the government’s message that abortion is not only legal but perfectly acceptable.

* It is not hard to imagine a government program that funds nonprofits to provide mentoring and counseling to troubled families to refuse to partner with a religiously conservative nonprofit on the grounds that the nonprofit, unlike the government, believes that an appeal to God is part of lasting solutions to such troubles–even though the nonprofit agrees not to give that message in the funded program.

The lawyers defending the Alliance for Open Society International are looking for faith-based organizations that are committed to equal rights for all and who can see the dangers looming if the government can get away with imposing required speech on an entire organization just because the organization runs a particular program using federal dollars. Who will speak up?