Court says prison program violates First Amendment
http://www.abpnews.com/1074.article
Associated Baptist Press - Jacksonville,FL,USA
Court says prison program violates First Amendment
By Robert Marus
Published June 6, 2006
DES MOINES, Iowa (ABP) -- In what could be a major setback for government's
ability to fund religious charities, a federal judge has ruled against an
Iowa program designed to rehabilitate prisoners through Christianity.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt of Des Moines ruled June 2 that the
InnerChange Freedom Initiative as it has been run at Iowa's Newton
Correctional Facility violates the First Amendment's ban on government
establishment of religion.
"For all practical purposes, the state has literally established an
Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one its penal
institutions, giving the leaders of that congregation, i.e., InnerChange
employees, authority to control the spiritual, emotional, and physical
lives of hundreds of Iowa inmates," Pratt wrote.
Much of Pratt's 140-page decision dealt with recounting the details of
Iowa's InnerChange program. He found that participants were coerced with
living-arrangement advantages unavailable to those who did not participate
in the program, that the program and the prison had no sufficient way to
monitor whether government funds given to it were spent on secular or
sectarian purposes, and that the program was focused on Bible study and
conversion.
"While such spiritual and emotional 'rewiring' may be possible in the life
of an individual and lower the risk of committing other crimes, it cannot
be permissible to force taxpayers to fund such an enterprise under the
Establishment Clause," he wrote.
Pratt also said the amount "of religious indoctrination supported by state
funds and other state support in this case in comparison" to other
church-state cases "is extraordinary."
In a move unusual in such cases, Pratt ordered InnerChange to reimburse the
government for more than $1.5 million paid to the organization since it
began operating at the Newton facility. It also ordered the organization to
halt all activities at the Newton facility. Pratt eventually suspended
enforcement of his orders pending an appeal.
InnerChange is run by Prison Fellowship, the Virginia-based charity founded
by popular Christian author and former Watergate figure Charles Colson. The
organization released a statement attacking the ruling and promising to
appeal it to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"For over 10 years, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative has produced
dramatic results in changing the lives of hardened criminals and stopping
the revolving door of crime," the statement said. "This decision, if
allowed to stand, will enshrine religious discrimination. It has attacked
the right of people of faith to operate on a level playing field in the
public arena and to provide services to those who volunteered to receive
them?. The courts took God out of America?s schools, now they are on the
path to take God out of America?s prisons."
But the Washington-based organization that brought the lawsuit against
InnerChange on behalf of Iowa prisoners and taxpayers hailed Pratt's
decision as a victory for church-state separation and a massive blow to
President Bush's efforts to increase government funding for social services
through religious organizations.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State released a statement
saying, "There is no way to interpret this decision as anything but a body
blow to so-called faith-based initiatives.? It also said that taxes "cannot
underwrite conversion efforts."
An expert with a non-partisan Washington group tracking government funding
of religious charities said the win was a "massive victory" for Americans
United. Chip Lupu, a church-state law expert at George Washington
University Law School and a legal scholar at the Roundtable on Religion and
Social Welfare Policy said the judge "has essentially accepted the AU
picture of what has been going on in the Newton Correctional Facility."
The case is Americans United v. Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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