Should Churces be Eligible for Bailout Funds?

The COVID-19 crisis has been especially hard on small businesses.  To help them, the U.S. government's Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) allows a small business to borrow money to pay its employees' wages, and the loans will be forgiven if the business maintains its regular payroll.  The funds essentially provide the small business with funds to pay the wages.

The PPP allows religious institutions to apply for funds, and this Wall Street Journal article here argues that it should.  [Note that you can create a free Wall Street Journal account as a UCI student, though you may need to use the UCI VPN if you are off campus.]

We might consider two aspects to the debate about whether religious institutions should have been included in the PPP.

The first centers on the concern about employment and payroll more generally.  In this regard, churches have staff just like businesses do, and the recession can potentially affect a church in the same way it can a business, e.g., it causes revenues to drop thereby decreasing the funds are available to cover expenses.  Laying off a person who works at a church is in this sense no different than laying off someone who works at a small business, and if the government wants to prevent layoffs then churches, as well as many other types of organizations, deserve to be included among the organizations that can be helped.  Notice that non-profit organizations are also eligible for PPP funds.

The second centers on religion as a type of service different from the services that small businesses offer.  Religion is singled out in the U.S. Constitution as deserving special protections, but the Constitution and judicial rulings have also created a separation between church and state.  Some people have argued that including churches in the PPP violates that separation because government funds would then be used to pay clergy salaries.

What do you think?  Should churches be eligible for PPP funds?