Clearly unconstitutional. Good riddance.
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October 28, 2006
Proposed Religion-Based Program for Federal Inmates is Canceled
By NEELA BANERJEE
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 The Justice Department has canceled its proposal
for a religion-based prison rehabilitation program that critics and
constitutional law experts contended would have violated the separation
of church and state.
On March 31, the department announced that it was seeking proposals for
a single-faith, residential re-entry program that would be adopted
initially in as many as six federal prisons and run in each by an
organization of a particular denomination. The proposed program, among
others, was challenged in a lawsuit filed on May 4 in the Federal
District Court in Madison, Wis., by the Freedom From Religion
Foundation, a watchdog group.
By May 26, the department had suspended its request for proposals for
the program, and on Thursday it canceled the program in its entirety,
according to the Web site for the Office of Justice Programs of the
federal Bureau of Prisons, a branch of the Justice Department.
A spokeswoman for the office did not return calls seeking comment.
Religion-based rehabilitation programs in prisons have faced several
legal challenges. Civil liberties groups say federal money is being used
to proselytize inmates, many of whom do not have secular alternatives
for rehabilitation.
Proponents of such programs maintain that religion gives inmates a
strong moral foundation to help them re-enter society.
In June, a federal judge in Iowa ruled that a state-financed evangelical
Christian prison program was unconstitutional because it was pervasively
sectarian. That case is under appeal.
Robert W. Tuttle, a professor of law at George Washington University,
said the proposed single-faith program was dead in the water upon
introduction. It clearly breached the separation of church and state by
financing indoctrination in a particular faith, he said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/us/28prison.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
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