WASHINGTON, D.C., May 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A liberal academic group is calling for the U.S. government to withdraw federal protection from religious charities, alleging discrimination, and targeting in particular the Catholic Church.

Faith based organizations (FBOs) should not be exempt from religious nondiscrimination laws, nor from providing services in violation of their religious tenets when operating as federal contractors, according to a memo released Wednesday by a group of law professors from varying institutions gathered for the Columbia University “Public Rights/Private Conscience Project.”

The Project’s stated goal is to “mobilize scholars, attorneys and advocates in order to develop and distribute new methods of framing perceived conflicts between sexual rights and religious liberty.”

It is funded by the Ford Foundation, a top Planned Parenthood donor, and the rabidly pro-homosexual ARCUS Foundation, both of which have poured millions of dollars into opposing the Catholic Church for its stance on homosexual “marriage.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is mentioned more than a dozen times in the Columbia Conscience Project memo, which goes after the Bishops’ Conference for not providing abortion and contraception while taking government funding. The memo also voices concern over transgender individuals receiving proper healthcare or housing when served by religious organizations receiving federal grants.

The group faults the USCCB as well for reportedly exerting influence because of the volume of programming it provides, and says this is made possible because the Conference receives so much money from the government.

“That is the case however, partly because such organizations continue to receive large amounts of federal funding,” the paper states. “By continually awarding large grants to FBOs, the government preserves and reinforces their disproportionate resources, and discourages the growth of other nonprofit organizations.”

“If government agencies refused to permit discrimination and other harmful exemptions within their programs,” it continues, “nonprofits willing to adhere to grant terms would have a stronger incentive to scale up their operations in order to compete for these grants.”

The Columbia document also contends that eliminating religious exemptions for hiring would not result in a substantial burden for faith-based groups.

“When FBOs choose to apply for grants that would forbid them from adopting a co-religionist hiring preference, any burden that results is self-imposed,” the memo states. “The government has not coerced such hiring preferences for privately-funded programs, nor does it require FBOs to apply for federal grants.”

The Columbia group’s complaint centers on a 2007 memo issued by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) for the George W. Bush Administration allowing Christian humanitarian organization World Vision to maintain its religious principles in hiring practice while the recipient of a federal grant, in keeping with the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), alleging the Bush Department of Justice (DOJ) “unreasonably” interpreted the RFRA.

Part of the purpose of the lawyers’16-page paper is to pressure Obama to revoke the Bush Administration memo, ProPublica reports.

It also calls for the federal government to give clear direction that FBOs cannot engage in “discrimination against” or deny material services to intended beneficiaries of federally funded programs.

“Contrary to the (Bush) Memo’s conclusions, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) does not authorize government agencies to exempt grant recipients from applicable employment discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion,” the Conscience Project group states. “What is more, we see a compelling need for the government to issue guidance making clear that the World Vision Memo does not authorize recipients of discretionary federal grant programs to assert a religion-based exemption from the provision of funded services.”

While the Conscience Project memo reflects the goal of its signatories, the Obama Administration has actively promoted programs and special rights for LGBT and “transgender” individuals, and even threatened or sued agencies that don’t go along.

The Obama administration declared in 2014, without involving Congress, that the civil rights provisions meant to prevent discrimination against women in the 1972 federal law Title IX also apply to transgender individuals.

Earlier this year amid pressure from pro-LGBT groups such as the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and some legislators, the Obama Department of Education agreed to a create a public, searchable database of Christian colleges and universities that have gotten Title IX waivers on the basis of religious freedom, in effect publishing a “hit list” of grant recipients.