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Group sues Iowa for prison religious plan
Mike Wilson - Associated Press
Issue date: 2/13/03 Section: Nation
DES MOINES -- A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday contends that Iowa and its top prison officials violated the Constitution by funding a religious program that gives preferential treatment to prison inmates.
The lawsuit, filed by Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, asserts that prison officials use profits from inmates' telephone accounts and proceeds from the state's tobacco settlement to fund the InnerChange Freedom Initiative at the Newton Correctional Facility.
The program, operated by Prison Fellowship Ministries, is a faith-based rehabilitation program aimed as reducing recidivism among prisoners. It also is offered in prisons in Texas, Kansas, and Minnesota.
"State moneys that were obtained from persons who do not subscribe to the religious teachings of the InnerChange program and from a fund that was created to generally benefit the public health have thus been used and allocated to pay for pervasively religious, evangelical, fundamentalist Christian instruction," according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Des Moines.
Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that although it's not a direct challenge of President Bush's faith-based initiative, the lawsuit does challenges many of the principles contained in Bush's plan.
"The InnerChange program contains everything that is wrong with the president's faith-based initiative," said Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and an attorney. "It uses government funds for pervasively religious programs, funding for religious conversion, discrimination in hiring practices -- ignoring entirely the principle of separation of church and state."
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.
The lawsuit alleges that the state told family members who paid money into inmates' telephone accounts that if they stopped funding the accounts they would no longer be able to contact their relatives inside the prison.
The lawsuit, filed by Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, asserts that prison officials use profits from inmates' telephone accounts and proceeds from the state's tobacco settlement to fund the InnerChange Freedom Initiative at the Newton Correctional Facility.
The program, operated by Prison Fellowship Ministries, is a faith-based rehabilitation program aimed as reducing recidivism among prisoners. It also is offered in prisons in Texas, Kansas, and Minnesota.
"State moneys that were obtained from persons who do not subscribe to the religious teachings of the InnerChange program and from a fund that was created to generally benefit the public health have thus been used and allocated to pay for pervasively religious, evangelical, fundamentalist Christian instruction," according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Des Moines.
Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said that although it's not a direct challenge of President Bush's faith-based initiative, the lawsuit does challenges many of the principles contained in Bush's plan.
"The InnerChange program contains everything that is wrong with the president's faith-based initiative," said Lynn, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and an attorney. "It uses government funds for pervasively religious programs, funding for religious conversion, discrimination in hiring practices -- ignoring entirely the principle of separation of church and state."
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to preserving the constitutional principle of separation of church and state.
The lawsuit alleges that the state told family members who paid money into inmates' telephone accounts that if they stopped funding the accounts they would no longer be able to contact their relatives inside the prison.
