PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Contact: Nathan Bupp
Phone: (716) 636-4869 x 218
E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net

Center for Inquiry Welcomes Appellate Decision Finding Faith-Based Rehabilitation Program Unconstitutional

December 04, 2007

Amherst, New York (December 4, 2007)-In a major ruling affecting faith-based service providers, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided today that the State of Iowa could not fund an inmate rehabilitation program called InnerChange Freedom Initiatives that was run by Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries. The court concluded that the program was permeated with religion and that inmates enrolled in the program received more benefits than other inmates. The court noted that the InnerChange program was "dominated by Bible study, Christian classes, religious revivals, and church services." Taken together, these factors indicated that the public funding of this program had the effect of advancing religion.

The case was brought by Americans United for Separation of Church and State on its own behalf and on behalf of some inmates and Iowa taxpayers. The Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism submitted an amicus brief authored by Legal Director Ronald A. Lindsay that supported Americans United.

David Koepsell, Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism, praised the court's ruling stating, "This decision reaffirms that public money cannot be used to support religious indoctrination, even if it supposedly serves some secular purpose. The Establishment Clause does not say that the government cannot promote religion except where it might do some good." Koepsell added that, in any event, there was no empirical evidence to support the claim that the InnerChange program was more successful at rehabilitation than traditional secular programs.

Both the Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism support secular counseling and treatment programs for individuals with substance abuse problems, such as the Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS). These programs have achieved success without any use of religious doctrines or a requirement that participants rely on a "Higher Power."

The decision of the Eighth Circuit was unanimous, and was joined by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was serving on the panel that decided the case by special designation. Legal Director Ronald A. Lindsay emphasized that the strongly worded, unanimous ruling of the court will prove helpful in preventing similar programs from being implemented in other parts of the country. "Prison Fellowship and similar organizations have been aggressively pushing their faith-based programs as the answer to inmate rehabilitation," Lindsay observed. "This decision should stop this misguided effort to turn rehabilitation programs into publicly funded religious conversion programs."

The Center for Inquiry is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, comprising the Council for Secular Humanism, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), and the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER). Headquartered in Amherst, New York, the Center for Inquiry strives to promote rational thinking in all aspects of life. The organization's Web site can be found at www.centerforinquiry.net .

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