It didn’t exactly capture a lot of attention, but last year, a federal court issued a very important ruling when it comes to the separation of church and state.
Prison Fellowship Ministries, founded by ex-Watergate felon Charles Colson, was effectively given an entire wing of Iowa’s Newton Correctional Facility, at which Colson’s group created what was basically a state-sponsored evangelism program (called InnerChange). In striking down funding for the program as a blatant violation of the First Amendment, the judge explained, “For all practical purposes, the state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one of its penal institutions…. There are no adequate safeguards present, nor could there be, to ensure that state funds are not being directly spent to indoctrinate Iowa inmates.”
The case (filed by my former employer, Americans United for Separation of Church and State) went to the 8th Circuit on appeal, and today the appeals court agreed that the faith-based program is unconstitutional.
Americans United presented evidence that inmates who took part in InnerChange were given better treatment and perks that were not available to others, including better housing and expedited access to classes required for parole…. At trial, inmates testified that they were pressured to convert to evangelical Christianity, and that the beliefs of Roman Catholics and other faiths were ridiculed. The court record showed that non-Christians were frequently referred to as “unsaved,” “lost,” “pagan” and “sinful” by InnerChange staff. The program required staffers to abide by an evangelical statement of faith.
In a unanimous decision joined by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the appeals court upheld a lower court ruling issued on June 2, 2006, except that it reversed a portion of the lower court ruling that required InnerChange to return funds it received prior to June 2006. InnerChange will still need to return funds it received after the June 2006 ruling.
First, congratulations to my friends at Americans United. Second, let’s take a moment to consider just how big a victory this is.
Added AU Senior Litigation Counsel Alex J. Luchenitser, “This ruling is a major setback for the White House’s ‘Faith-Based Initiative.’ It reaffirms that the government must ensure that public funds are not used for religious instruction, and that the government must not aid programs that discriminate based on religion.”
Quite right. Faith-based advocates have been very fond of Colson’s program in Iowa, and sought to expand it to other states. Now, that’s apparently off the table. For that matter, the entire prison-conversion program is predicated on the basic pitch underlying Bush’s faith-based policy — religious groups will get public funds to perform social services, without any pesky safeguards to protect religious liberty, the rights of beneficiaries, the integrity of the ministry, etc.
The decision states: “In the present case, plaintiffs demonstrated . . . that the InnerChange program resulted in inmate enrollment in a program dominated by Bible study, Christian classes, religious revivals, and church services.” The opinion concluded that the state’s “direct aid to InnerChange violated the Establishment clauses of the United States and Iowa Constitutions.”
And if this is unconstitutional, much of the White House faith-based initiative is unconstitutional, too.