Appeals court strikes down faith-based prison program
By Steve Benen Sunday Dec 02, 2007 6:49pm
It seems hard to believe in a country that honors church-state separation, but Prison Fellowship Ministries, founded by ex-Watergate felon Charles Colson, was effectively given an entire wing of Iowa’s Newton Correctional Facility a few years ago, and Colson’s group created what was basically a state-sponsored evangelism program (called InnerChange).
A federal court struck down funding for the program as a blatant violation of the First Amendment, explaining, “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.
It's the latest major setback for Bush's faith-based initiative.
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Religions are cults. Period.
Ummm, aren't we doing this same thing in a grand scale in Iraq? We are converting a group of peoples belief system (to democracy, which may be as foreign a concept as christianity when you are raised Muslim) so that they may one day be freee and sel.
If it worked so well there, why can't we do it here?f determining
Yay -- one for the good guys.
"In a unanimous decision joined by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor,"
Thanks again Frau O'Connor - afterall one of your votes enabled these bully bigots.
When will we see the last of you?
From the looks of the photo above, Chuck Colson is on the wrong side of the bars.
HA!!! Dobson and Robertson are rolling in their graves.....Wait...hold on. I've been told that one if not both are still alive. Like the evangelicals even matter anymore. They had their chances and look who they go elected. A group that is even worse than organized religion. And you'll didn't think that was possible.
All I have to say is this: Screw Bush, Cheney and their faith base initiatives. This is nothing more than a disguised way to push their stupid religion on everyone else. When is this country going to wake up and reject these assholes' way of goverment. And at the same time, demand more from the idiots in the media.
The Courts need to address this one Cancer from within
Well, Hallelujah, throw those faith-based christian boobs out on their ass. They pay no taxes, and expect to get the benefit of institutions and facilities paid for by my tax dollars?! Fu*k 'em, every one.
Con men, hustlers, thieves, hypocrites, lying bastards, those are the 'christian' 'leaders'.
'god' and 'jaysus' would stone them from the temples.
By the way, Kinky Kwanzaa to all, and to all, a good night.
But, since Christianity is the undeniable one true religion, shouldn't it be illegal to NOT be Christian?
Aren't we condemning people to eternal hell by "respecting" their false beliefs? Isn't a little temporary violation of their so-called "right" to deny the true faith outweighed by the fact that they will face eternal damnation?
Even if they were facing only temporary damnation, wouldn't it still be our duty to enforce the correct set of beliefs?
Explain why not.
About time that a Court got some guts/balls and ruled on this issue. Only disappointments are that it took way, way toooooo long and fact that none
of the previously received monies have to be returned.
bobswire @ 8:
I guess that's the best place for the evangelicals to start their crusade, the military and politicians. The Romans and French used the same methods to convert. Apparently the evangelicals don't read history books of the failures to convert. Then again, Islamic fanaticism is working pretty well in the Middle East. Here's a joke, What's the difference between Islamic fanatics an evangelicals? Evangelicals don't behead, YET!
Glory Hallelujah! Now, let's get rid of the rest of that faith-based nonesense.
Kevin Simms @ 1:
Cult thinking is not limited to religion. Period.
Just another example of the nutty shit that happens when you comingle church and state... I know the rightwing hates it, but that idea...'Separation of church and state'... It's a damned good idea for a reason... That's why the framers included it.....
All lies and misinformation to the contary, we should be maintaining and honoring that idea.............JD
Cult thinking is not limited to religion. Period.
No, but all religious thought is cult-encouraging. All.
Greg says@12
Then again, Islamic fanaticism is working pretty well in the Middle East. Here’s a joke, What’s the difference between Islamic fanatics an evangelicals? Evangelicals don’t behead, YET!
Actually Greg we must give credit where do, Islamic fanaticism is on the rise thanks in lager part of the Bush fanaticism.
How can they make this decision, which is constitutionally correct, yet allow the faith-based initiative to stand, which is a Constitutionally travesty?
bush has never believed in the redemptive power of Christianity. This is why it was so easy for him to mock Karla Faye Tucker, (pursed lips, "Please don't kill me), despite overwhelming evidence that she was sincerely remorseful for her savage crime, and was converting others in prison to Christianity.
Nope. No salvation from governor bush, Ms. Tucker. He refused to stop the execution, despite pleas from thousands and thousands of Christians. Even the Pope attempted to intervene.
In other words, any so-called "faith-based initiative" is just a way of disguising the flow of power and money to GOP cronies and supporters. This initiative should be squashed completely, in all its forms. It's a racket.
Religious argument is a losing battle. IT all started somewhere. But who started it and did it have to be a religion or a god to start it. There has to be a starting point, but someone had to create that starting point. The only questions left to answer are, who created this starting point and is he/she a god or something else. My thoughts, with all the evil and death in the world, if it was a god who started this all it is not the one we read in anyones book. All religions teach peace tolerance and prosperity among us all and yet all are practicing the opposite. I believe there was a creator, but everyone has made up one out of fear of death and they need some comfort from that fear. So they make up heaven and hell, virgins and eternal damnation and write a book.
Then you have the money aspect. The Dobsons and Robertsons and the catholic church. They use religion for their riches. I'm driving down East 12th street the other day and a black Dodge 300 with tinted windows passes me with clergy plates. What priest needs to drive a car with this kind of horsepower? When I was young, they drove a Horizon or a Chevette. And did not molest little boys, so I thought.
Religion since the beginning of time has been used by the ones who preach it get the riches from the weak who need something to believe in.
well thank god fallwells setting in hell licking belzabobs knob!
bobswire:
Reading this, I have become inexplicably thirsty...
excellent!
such a waste the past few years have been. imagine how much fewer criminals in prison there would be if a REAL strategy to reduce inmates had been pursued.
Greg @ 20:
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." - Napoleon Bonaparte
IF they they can not have their Faithbased Agenda being humped and pumped in the Prison System, that really does effect the Neocon's ability to have a Police State with a Theocratic Leadership still dosing out the Proper amount of their Christian agenda.....( btw if you see the Faithbased orgs that are on the WH website- it is ONLY certain churches..and religion- so it is not about faith or religion - it is about funneling money into the pockets of their fundamentalist friend).
Just another 12 step program, like all the 'anonymous' groups. You will never get folks to stop this stuff as long as it is seen as acceptable to beLIEve in a magic sky fairy.
Straight Shooter Says
Nope. No salvation from governor bush, Ms. Tucker. He refused to stop the execution, despite pleas from thousands and thousands of Christians. Even the Pope attempted to intervene.
And why should her conversion to Christianity affect her sentence? Should a devout Muslim be afforded the same grace?
JasonS @ 10:
It never ceases to amaze me that a large percentage of humanity thinks that what you believe trumps how you treat others.
Being the shallow SOB I am, it just tickles me to death anytime a Christian gets bugged.
JasonS @ 27:
To serve as an example of the redemptive power of Christianity, for someone like bush who professes to be such a Christian, that's why. And to answer your question about a devout Muslim, everything is a case-by-case basis.
I didn't say I disagreed with bush's decision; I do disagree with his reason for it. I lived in Texas at the time. Karla Tucker viciously murdered two people with an icepick or similar weapon. But as the day of her execution drew near, I thought bush was just jerking everyone around and playing mind games, pulling a power trip. After all, the only person he spared from execution was Henry Lee Lucas, a serial killer and alleged Satanist. It's bush's perverted games with the power of life and death that disgust me.
I actually heard the appeal arguments in front of the 8th Circuit last January. The evangelicals sent their lawyer up there to argue, basically, "the ends justifies the means." They claimed higher rehab rates, etc, and O'Connor smacked them down, asking why that sort of thing wasn't in the fact record at trial. One of the other judges (can't remember who) said basically that it didn't matter whether or not it worked, it was unconstitutional.
Also, the real kicker is that Iowa isn't alone in running these kinds of programs. The reason Iowa was the test case is because of the insane amount of money Iowa was paying these wackjobs to evangelize in prison. IIRC, something like 30% of the rehab budget for this particular prison was going to these loonies. That's the entire rehab budget, including materials, staff, and facilities.
Faith based prisons? What, were steel bars too expensive to make, so we just started pretending that there's walls around the prisoners?
well it sure looks like they just restored the bill of rights! hoo-ray!
Chucky Colson
Uber wingnut preacher and felon.
reason wins again
The US bureau of prisons was the agency that produced a report on religion in prisons and found that only 1 in every 500 prisoners was an atheist as opposed to 1 in every 3-10 outside of prison.
Clearly, ramming religion down people's throats isn't the solution, especially when several Scandinavian countries are half atheist (Norway 70%) and have low crime rates.
There is a similar program at the Algoa Correctional Center in Jefferson City, Missouri. Might want to take a shot at them.
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I have personally had enough of this ignorance in our educational system. Please voice your outrage by sending a letter to:
Lizzette Reynolds Contact:
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Texas needs to get rid of this moron and it won't happen without your voice!
Lizzette Reynolds Contact:
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good
I don't suppose it would hurt to let religions into prisons if it gives the inmates some sort of moral/ethical framework or even some REASON for following an ethical framework in and out of jail. If a guy who would rob me doesn't coz God or the Easter Bunny or whatever doesn't want him too...or robs me but doesn't shoot me coz of the same reason... I don't CARE if those entities do or do not exist.
But the church shouldn't get money for evangelizing.
Are there more faith-based organizations ministering in prisons now that there is $ involved?
Pat Robertsons group got 14 million in taxpayer money. Lord knows what he did with it.
As to the faith based prison program. All religious organizations end up being discriminatory. You have to go along, or you dont get anything. It is inherently undemocratic.
There has always been access to the religious in prisons, for the people who seek it. Any faith you can name, a prisoner will have access to by request.
But to push Christianity as a rehabilitation program is unethical.
JasonS @ 10:
I suspect that if, by accident of birth, you were born to a Jewish family that you would believe that Christianity was the hogwash that it is. Religion is like ice cream: There are many different flavors that taste good and satisfy your desires but that are harmful to you when taken in excess.
Kevin Simms @ 1:
ZZZZZZ. Incorrect.
The word 'cult' has a specific meaning. Some religions are indeed cults. They have a charismatic leader, an apocalyptic worldview, and they work to cut their followers off from persons and family outside the cult.
There are Buddhist cults, but most of Buddhism, while a religion, is not a cult. There are Christian cults, plenty of them, but then there are also a great number of Christians who do not engage in cultlike activity.
curtilingus @ 2 "We are converting a group of peoples belief system (to democracy, which may be as foreign a concept as christianity when you are raised Muslim)..."
What? Btw, Iraq was a democracy before we installed Hussein, and even then it functioned in some form as a democracy at the local level. Iran is a democracy. Indonesia is a democracy, more or less. India is a democracy. Plenty of Muslims participate in democracy.
What Bush has been installing is death, and demockery -- and airbases. Has ZERO to do with bringing anything other than profit.
JasonS @ 16 "No, but all religious thought is cult-encouraging. All."
Bullshit. Let's take the religious thought of Martin Luther King Jr. as an example. Was that a cult? It was not. SCLC had a charismatic leader (several in fact), but no 'apocalyptic vision,' and it did not work to cut people off from their families or to disempower people in favor of the group. ON THE CONTRARY.
MLK Jr. empowered discriminated-against people worldwide, regardless of their actual faith or lack thereof.
The other obvious example is Gandhi, a Hindu. Is Hinduism a cult? Most of it is not (narrow Christian opinions notwithstanding). Did Gandhi have an apocalyptic vision? No, he did not. Did he bind people to him -- specifically not. Did he take their money or separate them from their families? Absolutely not.
There are a great many other examples.
The Devil and his Angels have prepared a place for America's christians. On that day, Jesus will deny knowing the evil doers known as the religious right. Dobson will join Falwell in eternal torment and the Angels of Heaven will rejoice. As it is written, so shall it be.
Or not.
Some of you want us Christians to follow what Joshua BenJoseph said....
He did say to go visit people in prison, and that doing so would be like serving him. He also said "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar and unto God that which is God's." Trying to evangelize in prison: good. Using Caesar's money to do so and having the state fuckin' sponsor you: bad.
Chopvac @ 36:
I have noticed that there are more evangelical churches in poorer neighborhoods. It seems there is an inverse relationship between evangelism and the welfare of the community.
This is not necessarily a causal relationship, it may be that poverty and evangelism spring from the same source.
It also occurs to me that having Chuck Colson preach to you in prison constitutes cruel and unusual punishment if not outright torture.
God will get you for that, Walter.
JasonS @ 16:
Not any more so than other areas of thought which rely on belief rather than deterministic proof.
By the way, since nobody has all the answers, everyone has faith in something.
Don't get too excited, folks. I fully expect there will be appeals, all the way to Bush's Supreme Court, who will find this kind of thing perfectly legal.
Is faith in Reason an oxymoron?
By the way, since nobody has all the answers, everyone has faith in something.
(51 peaceful easy feeling)
Isn't that just an Argumentum ad Ignoratio?
You know this won't be the end of it. Appeal to the Supremes is forthcoming (using tax $, of course). Want to bet how they'll convolute the Constitution on this one?
Faith-based prison programs are just,a way for Ted Haggard to spooned.
beerm @ 49:
Poverty is linked to poor education; it is only rarely that things such as personal misfortune cause it. The more educated people are, the less they tend to believe in and depend on religion...excepting, of course, when religion is used as a dodge or a tool for fraud and graft (eg. Pat Robertson).
While some depend on their religion to alleviate their misery instead of doing something themselves to improve their lot (eg. nonsense about "the meek shall inherit the Earth"), others use their fervent christianity (or other religions) to goad people into reprehensible behaviour and beliefs (eg. the KKK, muslim suicide bombers, etc.).
Get religion out of government and government out of religion...each corrupts the other.
Charles Colson isn't trustable.
And no one is interested in this topic.
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