Local, state and federal governments have long recognized that faith-based nonprofit organizations are an integral, distinctive and constant source of aid, compassion, and hope for addressing the needs of communities throughout America. This recognition needs to be affirmed as local and state governments will now need to work to preserve religious diversity in light of the recent Supreme Court decision.

Governments throughout the U.S regularly turn to faith-based organizations for partnership in innovating creative and timely solutions to deal with immediate or ongoing needs, from disaster relief, to education, to housing, to child welfare, to healthcare.

Just last week, Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson announced he is forming a summit to reach out to religious entities of multiple faiths to bridge the gap the state is facing with foster care and prison re-entry programs. “What we want to do is inspire greater engagement of our faith community and our religious organizations in supporting the care of our children and those that are leaving prison and re-entering society,” the Governor stated. Hutchinson went on to say at a news conference that he wanted faith-based organizations to “identify any obstacles from a governmental standpoint in partnering with us and carrying out their mission.”

The above is just one example of why governments should be listening sincerely to what faith-based organizations, as non-governmental actors supporting the common good, have to say. And why faith-based organizations should be proactively communicating, now more than ever.

The Supreme Court’s decision last month in Obergefell does not impact faith-based organizations directly until laws and regulations are changed. The decision unfortunately fails to give any guidance as to how they should be changed, either to safeguard religious freedom for faith-based entities or to ensure nondiscrimination for same-sex married couples.

As Kennedy states in the majority opinion: “The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex.” These words make clear that the majority opinion upholding same-sex marriage applies to governments specifically. Kennedy’s focus on what state actors must do in light of this decision, categorically, does not apply to non-governmental entities without further legislation and regulation.

Indeed, Kennedy addresses the freedom of religious institutions, as opposed to governmental actors, explicitly, albeit briefly, in his opinion. “The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.”

However, there are still major concerns and many unanswered questions for religious entities as state, local and federal governments develop new laws and regulations to articulate answers to the many dangling question-marks on how the rights of individual same-sex couples will intersect and collaborate with the rights of religious institutions.

• Will religious schools that uphold opposite-sex marriage in their teachings and practices risk losing their tax-exempt status?
• Will faith-based child-welfare agencies be forced to shut their doors if their doctrines limit their ability to treat same-sex marriage on the same basis as opposite-sex marriage in child placement?
• Will faith-shaped homeless shelters receiving government grants be barred from future partnership opportunities with the government because they consider religion in their hiring practices?

The answers to these questions are still, largely, unknown. Many are engaging in a back-and-forth dialogue about whether the currently fragile circumstances for faith-based freedoms are, on the one hand, tragically doomed, or, on the other hand, completely overstated. The truth of the matter is that faith-shaped institutions can participate, positively and proactively, in the shaping of their own futures.

Faith-based organizations need now, more than ever, to connect the calling from their Creator that invokes them to serve to the same calling from their Creator to uphold what their sacred texts teach regarding sexual ethics, marriage and family. As legal scholar and University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock wrote in his amicus brief to the Supreme Court:

“Believers cannot fail to act on God’s will, and it is no more reasonable for the state to demand that they do so than for the state to demand celibacy of all gays and lesbians. Both religious believers and same-sex couples feel compelled to act on those things constitutive of their identity, and they face parallel legal objections to their actions….. Religious believers …claim a right to follow their faith not just in worship services, but in the charitable activities of their religious organizations and in their daily lives.”

Faith-based organizations need to continue to animate their organizational lives with their faith, in ways that the world deems both popular (selfless acts of service) and, often, unpopular (conservative sexual standards). Religious organizations of all faiths need to boldly advance their faith-shaped freedoms and identities by engaging in public policies that promote religious diversity, by implementing internal best practices that align their faith to every application of their mission, and by consciously projecting a positive public perception in their messaging and their actions. This includes:

• Practice: Consider how your faith-based mission is being expressed in every sector of your operations.

• Public Policy: Consider how local, state and federal laws and regulations are impacting your capacity to continue to serve as an organization with distinctively faith-shaped standards and services.

• Public Perception: Consider how to articulate your faith-based organization’s unique and distinctive values proposition.

Sister Neill Marriott, in an LDS Church press conference in January, stated:

“There’s ample evidence in the life of Jesus Christ to demonstrate that He stood firm for living the laws of God, yet reached out to those who had been marginalized even though He was criticized for doing so. It’s for this reason that the Church has publicly favored laws and ordinances that protect LGBT people from discrimination in housing and employment.”

This rhetoric establishes common ground with a people group, recognizing faith calls us to do justice for vulnerable populations without sacrificing the law we believe God has placed on our hearts.

In doing these three things, faith-based organizations can truly live out what their faiths call them to do: to love our neighbor as themselves. In ensuring that organizational practices embody such care for neighbors, in engaging in public policy work that preserves their capacity to serve their neighbors, and in proactively communicating so that the public has an accurate perception of why they serve in the way they do, faith-based organizations help to preserve the legal and social freedom they need to flourish.