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March 2007 Amendment’S Establishment Portive of Church-State Separa- Clause

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March 2007 Amendment’S Establishment Portive of Church-State Separa- Clause Baptist Joint Committee Capital Campaign Update Supporting Bodies Alliance of Baptists Rev. Keith and Sharon Felton: American Baptist Churches USA Baptist General Association of Virginia We support the BJC financially because ... Baptist General Conference Baptist General Convention of Texas Baptist State Convention of North The Baptist Joint Committee to shore up the wall and secure freedom Carolina is our advocate in Washington, for all people. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship D.C. and throughout the coun- Supporting the BJC through financial National Baptist Convention of try for religious liberty and gifts, participation and prayer, fights for America separation of church and state. faith and church. Giving keeps govern- National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc. In light of the current political and reli- ment out of our pulpits and our pews. National Missionary Baptist gious climate and the attempts to tear We give so that the BJC can do all that Convention down the wall of separation, a Center for needs to be done to make certain our North American Baptist Conference Religious Liberty on Capitol Hill is long children and yours grow up in an world Progressive National Baptist “overdue. The opportunities for educa- where freedom of religion Convention Inc. Religious Liberty Council tion, for training, and for expanding the is valued for all people and Seventh Day Baptist General reach of the BJC multiply exponentially faith flourishes without the Conference with such a facility. Our freedom is frag- intrusion of government. ile, sometimes seeming to teeter on the Keith, pastor of First Baptist Church, Hamilton, brink, but the BJC stands firm and Texas and Sharon Felton, are long-time BJC REPORTfrom the Capital strong. It is the voice, our voice fighting supporters. J. Brent Walker ” Executive Director Randall Balmer to address Religious Liberty Council Jeff Huett luncheon at CBF General Assembly Editor Randall Balmer, is professor of American Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University, a visiting professor at Yale Divinity School and Phallan Davis the author of Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical’s Lament (Basic Associate Editor Books). Report from the Capital (ISSN-0346- E-mail Phallan Davis at [email protected] or call her at 202-544-4226 if 0661) is published 10 times each year by you’d like to register for the luncheon. Also, please check the BJC Web site the Baptist Joint Committee. For sub- in the coming weeks to register online. scription information, please contact the Baptist Joint Committee. June 29 — Grand Hyatt, Washington, D.C. — 12:15 to 1:45 p.m. Non-profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Riverdale, MD Permit No. 5061 200 Maryland Ave., N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002-5797 Return Service Requested Phone: 202.544.4226 Fax: 202.544.2094 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.BJConline.org REPORTfrom theCapital Supreme Court hears case related to administration’s Faith-based Initiative WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court because the connection between individual heard oral arguments Feb. 28 in a case that, on taxpayer contributions and expenditures is the surface, is about technical issues — but too remote. Individuals who sue the govern- could end up having signifi- ment must prove specific injury cant ramifications for the from the governmental act. way courts handle some In 1968, the Court made an church-state cases. exception to the rule. In Flast v. An inquisitive and at Cohen, justices said the excep- Newsletter of the times combative court lis- tion was reasonable because of Baptist Joint Committee tened to both sides in Hein v. the special history of the Freedom From Religion Establishment Clause, which Foundation (No. 06-157). The bars government support for Vol.62 No. 3 case concerns the legal doc- religion. The Hein case turns on trine of standing, or the abil- the scope of that exception. ity to file lawsuits under the BJC General Counsel K. The Baptist Joint Hollyn Hollman addresses Constitution, in cases deal- Committee filed an amicus brief the media on the steps of the ing with the First Supreme Court. with other organizations sup- March 2007 Amendment’s Establishment portive of church-state separa- Clause. tion. BJC General Counsel K. Hollyn Hollman The case marks the first time the justices said the government’s position threatens to have dealt with President Bush’s Faith-based insulate government spending in support of Initiative — his attempt to expand the gov- religion. ernment’s ability to fund social services “This case is important to America’s tradi- through churches and religious charities. tion of religious liberty because it addresses The Wisconsin-based foundation sued the rules that allow lawsuits to protect our first INSIDE: White House Office of Faith-Based and freedom,” Hollman said. Community Initiatives, headed by director Jay Hollman continued,“As soon as govern- Reflections . .3 Hein. The suit claimed the office and its ment starts to meddle in religion, for or actions violate the Constitution’s ban on gov- against, or take sides in matters of religion, John Leland . .4 ernment establishment of religion. favoring one over another, someone’s reli- A federal district court dismissed the suit, gious liberty is denied and everyone’s is saying the plaintiffs did not have proper threatened.” Hollman Report . .6 standing as taxpayers. But the 7th U.S. Circuit The taxpayer-standing exemption created Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, saying by the precedent is important, Justice Stephen News . .7 the foundation and three of its members, as Breyer said, because “Flast stands for the taxpayers, had the right to challenge White proposition that, when the government House allocations used to fund conferences spends money in violation of the that promoted the faith-based initiative. Establishment Clause, a taxpayer — after all, The court said the foundation had taxpayer the money comes from the taxpayer — can standing to challenge the practice because bring a lawsuit. And the reason that they do government money was being used to pro- that is because the Establishment Clause is an mote religion, even though Congress did not important joint part of the religion clauses, specifically appropriate the money to any reli- and there’d be no other way to bring such a gious groups. challenge.” The Supreme Court has long held that tax- The case likely will be decided before the payers do not generally have standing to sue Supreme Court ends its 2006-2007 term in the government over how it disburses funds June. — ABP and staff reports Appeals court probes Iowa prison program’s legality On Feb. 13, in a case with potentially far-reaching impli- sial and seemingly unprecedented decision — ordered PFM cations for a growing number of religious prison programs, to repay $1.5 million it had received and spent on the pro- a federal appeals court panel in St. Louis that included for- gram to the state of Iowa. The repayment order may be the mer U.S. Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O’Connor heard first of its kind, according to legal experts, and it figured arguments over whether a religiously based Iowa prison prominently in the hearing, especially in questions asked by program violated the First Amendment and should repay O’Connor. the government money it received under While such restitution orders are fairly contract. common in government contract law, Attorneys representing the prison pro- those orders are highly unusual in cases gram contended the program is constitu- involving the First Amendment’s tional. And even if the court disagrees, Establishment Clause, according to Ira they argued, operators should be able to Lupu, a law professor at George revise the program to make it legally Washington University School of Law and palatable rather than repay the money co-director of legal research for the spent to aid prisoners. Roundtable on Religion & Social Welfare “Unlike virtually any case of 25 years Policy. where the courts found illegality, the courts have suggested Anthony Picarello, an attorney for the Becket Fund for states come up with a plan,” Gordon Allen, an attorney rep- Religious Liberty who represented PFM, said after the hear- resenting Iowa in the case, told the three-judge panel of the ing, “The repayment remedy would have a chilling effect on 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “This remedy denies other faith-based organizations in partnering with the gov- prison administrators some way to make this constitution- ernment in any social service programs.” al.” O’Connor also asked questions about the workings of the The opposing side contended the program — partly program, such as whether the prisoners had other choices of funded with government money — is so infused with programs and whether InnerChange provided day-only Christianity, provides no non-Christian option, and punish- programs rather than full-time residential help. es participants who do not complete it, that it should be dis- Allen said there was no way to make the program a com- continued and operators should repay the state. pletely pure voucher system, where prisoners receive The hearing centered on a lawsuit Americans United for coupons representing government money and choose the Separation of Church and State (AU) filed in 2003 among services. against a religiously based prison program called the “There are ways to make this close to a voucher system, InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI), its operating company however, because the program is a totally voluntary pro- Prison Fellowship Ministries (PFM), and the Iowa officials gram,” Allen said. “They get a benefit. There are alterna- responsible for the program’s implementation. The suit tives. This is an indirect funding program within the context charged that the pre-release program — paid for in part of a prison.” with taxpayer funds — stepped over the constitutional — Anne Farris, Washington correspondent for the boundary separating church and state.
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