June 15, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
In a legal decision that may hinder the use of federal dollars to support religious charities, a federal judge in Iowa said that a Christian nonprofit group’s efforts to rehabilitate prisoners violates the Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt said the charity program — run by the InnerChange Freedom Initiative in a prison near Des Moines — was unconstitutional because of its explicit reliance on Christian teachings and because it was paid for by the state Department of Corrections.
Mr. Pratt said that while inmates voluntarily join the program, and religious conversion is not a necessary part of it, there is “no room to doubt that the state of Iowa is excessively entangled with religion through the InnerChange program.”
He added, “For all practical purposes, the state has literally established an Evangelical Christian congregation within the walls of one its penal institutions.”
The judge said prisoners who joined the program also unfairly were granted special privileges, such as additional access to telephones, and that the Department of Corrections did not offer a secular alternative to the program.
$1.5-Million Grant
The judge ordered the Iowa corrections department to end the program within two months and for InnerChange, which is a subsidiary of Prison Fellowship, in Lansdowne, Va., to give back the $1.5-million in government funds it received for the prison effort.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington advocacy group that sued the government over the InnerChange program, said the judge’s ruling would hobble President Bush’s plan to funnel government money to religious social services.
“There is no way to interpret this decision as anything but a body blow to so-called faith-based initiatives,” Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said in a statement.
However, Prison Fellowship has pledged to appeal the court ruling.
“This decision, if allowed to stand, will enshrine religious discrimination,” Mark Earley, president of the group, said in a statement. “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.”
Judge Pratt’s decision in the case, known as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, et al. vs. Prison Fellowship Ministries, et al., is available at http://www.iasd.uscourts.gov /iasd/opinions.nsf/main/page. Search under court opinions filed on June 2.
