Posted on 02/18/2003 10:44:24 AM PST by Mr. Silverback
Statement by Mark Earley on suits brought in Iowa by Barry Lynn and Americans United for Separation of Church and State against IFI and Prison Fellowship
WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 12, 2003—"I am saddened to learn of the suits brought today in Iowa against InnerChange Freedom Initiative, the nation's most successful program for reducing prisoner recidivism, and Prison Fellowship, an organization that has served inmates and their families for more than a quarter century.
InnerChange Freedom Initiative is a faith-based prisoner rehabilitation program that has proven to dramatically reduce re-incarceration rates among inmates. Just this past week, the Criminal Justice Policy Council in Texas released an evaluation which found that of the inmates who completed the Texas InnerChange Freedom Initiative program, only 8 % returned to prison within two years, compared a 22% return rate for inmates who were eligible for the program but did not participate.
Furthermore, the University of Pennsylvania is conducting an extensive evaluation of the Texas InnerChange Freedom Initiative program that will be released this spring. This research, conducted over the past six years, will provide significant evidence that faith-based prison rehabilitation programs are not only effective, but also have significant advantages over comparable secular programs in helping inmates to successfully return to society.
While the legal allegations put forth by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State are most appropriately answered in legal proceedings, I believe it is important to ensure that several egregious misrepresentations of InnerChange Freedom Initiative are not left unchallenged.
Contrary to the representation by the suits' plaintiffs, the InnerChange Freedom Initiative in operation in Iowa in no way violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. In fact, Federal law allows a state to include religious organizations as social service providers. Congress itself enacted a Charitable Choice provision to encourage States to include religious providers among organizations helping welfare recipients.
In Iowa, InnerChange Freedom Initiative uses state monies solely for non-sectarian expenses while private funds are used for all religious programming.
Furthermore, all inmates who take part in the Iowa InnerChange program and indeed in all InnerChange programs voluntarily choose to participate. While the program is open to inmates of all faiths or no faith, participants are fully apprised of the faith-centered nature of the program in advance of their participation.
It is my hope that these suits will be dismissed quickly. InnerChange Freedom Initiative is committed to the transformation of the lives of prisoners to the benefit of themselves, their families, and, ultimately, society."
Mark Earley, former Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia, currently serves as President of Prison Fellowship, an organization founded by Charles Colson in 1976 to help prisoners and their families turn their lives around.
only 8 % returned to prison within two years, compared a 22% return rate for inmates who were eligible for the program but did not participate.
Here are the eligibility requirements, from my paper: "The inmates are all volunteers who (with a few exceptions) are 18-24 months from their parole or release date. They can’t have any enemies incarcerated at the facility their state’s InnerChange program is in. They must be healthy and functionally literate, but need not be Christians, as long as they are 'willing to productively participate in a program that is explicitly Christian in both content and delivery.'"
Keep in mind that recidivism in the general population is 50-60%. This program is outstanding.
In Iowa, InnerChange Freedom Initiative uses state monies solely for non-sectarian expenses while private funds are used for all religious programming.
Basically, the facility has a state-employed warden and a few other state personnel that perform no curricular or religious functions. In other words, if IFI is a violation of the 1st Amendment, then any religious activity at any facility where any state employees work is a violation.
Prison Fellowship has reprint permission for the NY Times story about the suits. Link HERE.
Now that's what I call taking the name of the Lord in vain!!!
Religious Liberty: The View from the Founding
Reply To Judge Richard A. Posner On The Inseparability Of Law And Morality
Federalism And Religious Liberty: Were Church And State Meant To Be Separate?
Darn straight. This program is th difference between crimes committed and not committed and is completely voluntary. Of course, voluntary participation means nothing to the separaterrorists; if you ever get a chance to read the prayer policy of the school system that Madalyn Murray O'Hair sued in the '60s, do so. It was all student participation and had more exit clauses than you could shake a stick at.
"Section 104 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193), the so-called "Charitable Choice" provision, specifically addresses the use of contracts, vouchers and other funding to arrange for "charitable, religious or private organizations" to provide services under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income and Food Stamps (and has been interpreted as applying to certain other programs as well).
The statute also requires that religious organizations be permitted to receive such funding "on the same basis as any other non-governmental provider." In addition, the interim regulations for the new Welfare-to-Work Program explicitly permit faith-based organizations to apply for and receive competitive grants. Private Industry Councils and other entities administering the formula Welfare-to-Work grants are required to coordinate those activities with faith-based organizations."
And it IS constitutional under the guidelines:
Section 104 (the Charitable Choice provisions) of P.L. 104-193 includes various protections for both religious organizations and welfare recipients in an attempt to find a balance between the rights and religious liberties of both parties. Any state or local welfare agency considering a financial arrangement with a religious organization for welfare or certain related programs must follow the requirements of Section 104, which include arranging for alternative providers if welfare recipients request them and not discriminating against religious organizations in contracting procedures.
The Center for Public Justice and the Christian Legal Society have published a brief guide of the statutory provisions. It holds that Section 104 is constitutional and offers guidance to both government agencies and congregations on complying with the law.
The guideline can be found at:
Charitable Choice rests on the constitutional concept that government must not discriminate against religion when it carries out its programs and interacts with nongovernmental groups.
Some people apparently need to be reminded that the Constitution protects Freedom OF Religion...not Freedom FROM Religion.
The defendant was indicted ... in December, 1810, for that he did, on the 2nd day of September, 1810 ... wickedly, maliciously, and blasphemously, utter, and with a loud voice publish, in the presence and hearing of divers good and Christian people, of and concerning the Christian religion, and of and concerning Jesus Christ, the false, scandalous, malicious, wicked and blasphemous words following: "Jesus Christ was a bastard, and his mother must be a whore," in contempt of the Christian religion. .. . The defendant was tried and found guilty, and was sentenced by the court to be imprisoned for three months, and to pay a fine of $500.
The Prosecuting Attorney argued:
While the constitution of the State has saved the rights of conscience, and allowed a free and fair discussion of all points of controversy among religious sects, it has left the principal engrafted on the body of our common law, that Christianity is part of the laws of the State, untouched and unimpaired.
The Chief Justice delivered the opinion of the Court:
Such words uttered with such a disposition were an offense at common law. In Taylor's case the defendant was convicted upon information of speaking similar words, and the Court . . . said that Christianity was parcel of the law, and to cast contumelious reproaches upon it, tended to weaken the foundation of moral obligation, and the efficacy of oaths. And in the case of Rex v. Woolston, on a like conviction, the Court said . . . that whatever strikes at the root of Christianity tends manifestly to the dissolution of civil government. . . . The authorities show that blasphemy against God and . . . profane ridicule of Christ or the Holy Scriptures (which are equally treated as blasphemy), are offenses punishable at common law, whether uttered by words or writings . . . because it tends to corrupt the morals of the people, and to destroy good order. Such offenses have always been considered independent of any religious establishment or the rights of the Church. They are treated as affecting the essential interests of civil society. . . .
We stand equally in need, now as formerly, of all the moral discipline, and of those principles of virtue, which help to bind society together. The people of this State, in common with the people of this country, profess the general doctrines of Christianity, as the rule of their faith and practice; and to scandalize the author of these doctrines is not only ... impious, but . . . is a gross violation of decency and good order. Nothing could be more offensive to the virtuous part of the community, or more injurious to the tender morals of the young, than to declare such profanity lawful.. ..
The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious' opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any religious subject, is granted and secured; but to revile ... the religion professed by almost the whole community, is an abuse of that right. . . . We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of those impostors [other religions].. .. [We are] people whose manners ... and whose morals have been elevated and inspired . . . by means of the Christian religion.
Though the constitution has discarded religious establishments, it does not forbid judicial cognizance of those offenses against religion and morality which have no reference to any such establishment. . . . This [constitutional] declaration (noble and magnanimous as it is, when duly understood) never meant to withdraw religion in general, and with it the best sanctions of moral and social obligation from all consideration and notice of the law. . . . To construe it as breaking down the common law barriers against licentious, wanton, and impious attacks upon Christianity itself, would be an enormous perversion of its meaning. . . . Christianity, in its enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught in the Bible, is not unknown to our law. . . . The Court are accordingly of opinion that the judgment below must be affirmed: [that blasphemy against God, and contumelious reproaches, and profane ridicule of Christ or the Holy Scriptures, are offenses punishable at the common law, whether uttered by words or writings].
The Supreme Court in the case of Lidenmuller V The People, 33 Barbour, 561 Stated:
Christianity...is in fact, and ever has been, the religion of the people. The fact is everwhere prominent in all our civil and political history, and has been, from the first, recognized and acted upon by the people, and well as by constitutional conventions, by legislatures and by courts of justice.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 1817, in the Case of The Commonwealth V Wolf stated the courts opinion as follows:
Laws cannot be administered in any civilized government unless the people are taught to revere the sanctity of an oath, and look to a future state of rewards and punishments for the deeds of this life, It is of the utmost moment, therefore, that they should be reminded of their religious duties at stated periods.... A wise policy would naturally lead to the formation of laws calculated to subserve those salutary purposes. The invaluable privilege of the rights of conscience secured to us by the constitution of the commonwealth, was never intended to shelter those persons, who, out of mere caprice, would directly oppose those laws for the pleasure of showing their contempt and abhorrence of the religious opinions of the great mass of the citizens.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania 1824, in the Case of Updegraph V The Commonwealth 11 Serg. & R. 393-394, 398-399, 402, 507 (1824) recorded the Courts Declaration that:
Abner Updegraph . . . on the 12th day of December [1821] . . .not having the fear of God before his eyes . . . contriving and intending to scandalize, and bring into disrepute, and vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures of truth, in the Presence and hearing of several persons ... did unlawfully, wickedly and premeditatively, despitefully and blasphemously say . . . : "That the Holy Scriptures were a mere fable: that they were a contradiction, and that although they contained a number of good things, yet they contained a great many lies." To the great dishonor of Almighty God, to the great scandal of the profession of the Christian religion.
The jury . . . finds a malicious intention in the speaker to vilify the Christian religion and the scriptures, and this court cannot look beyond the record, nor take any notice of the allegation, that the words were uttered by the defendant, a member of a debating association, which convened weekly for discussion and mutual information... . That there is an association in which so serious a subject is treated with so much levity, indecency and scurrility ... I am sorry to hear, for it would prove a nursery of vice, a school of preparation to qualify young men for the gallows, and young women for the brothel, and there is not a skeptic of decent manners and good morals, who would not consider such debating clubs as a common nuisance and disgrace to the city. .. . It was the out-pouring of an invective, so vulgarly shocking and insulting, that the lowest grade of civil authority ought not to be subject to it, but when spoken in a Christian land, and to a Christian audience, the highest offence conna bones mores; and even if Christianity was not part of the law of the land, it is the popular religion of the country, an insult on which would be indictable.
The assertion is once more made, that Christianity never was received as part of the common law of this Christian land; and it is added, that if it was, it was virtually repealed by the constitution of the United States, and of this state. . . . If the argument be worth anything, all the laws which have Christianity for their object--all would be carried away at one fell swoop-the act against cursing and swearing, and breach of the Lord's day; the act forbidding incestuous marriages, perjury by taking a false oath upon the book, fornication and adultery ...for all these are founded on Christianity--- for all these are restraints upon civil liberty. ...
We will first dispose of what is considered the grand objection--the constitutionality of Christianity--for, in effect, that is the question. Christianity, general Christianity, is and always has been a part of the common law . . . not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; not Christianity with an established church ... but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men.
Thus this wise legislature framed this great body of laws, for a Christian country and Christian people. This is the Christianity of the common law . . . and thus, it is irrefragably proved, that the laws and institutions of this state are built on the foundation of reverence for Christianity. . . . In this the constitution of the United States has made no alteration, nor in the great body of the laws which was an incorporation of the common-law doctrine of Christianity . . . without which no free government can long exist.
To prohibit the open, public and explicit denial of the popular religion of a country is a necessary measure to preserve the tranquillity of a government. Of this, no person in a Christian country can complain. . . . In the Supreme Court of New York it was solemnly determined, that Christianity was part of the law of the land, and that to revile the Holy Scriptures was an indictable offence. The case assumes, says Chief Justice Kent, that we are a Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted on Christianity. The People v. Ruggles.
No society can tolerate a willful and despiteful attempt to subvert its religion, no more than it would to break down its laws--a general, malicious and deliberate intent to overthrow Christianity, general Christianity. Without these restraints no free government could long exist. It is liberty run mad to declaim against the punishment of these offences, or to assert that the punishment is hostile to the spirit and genius of our government. They are far from being true friends to liberty who support this doctrine, and the promulgation of such opinions, and general receipt of them among the people, would be the sure forerunners of anarchy, and finally, of despotism. No free government now exists in the world unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country.... Its foundations are broad and strong, and deep. .. it is the purest system of morality, the firmest auxiliary, and only stable support of all human laws. . . .
Christianity is part of the common law; the act against blasphemy is neither obsolete nor virtually repealed; nor is Christianity inconsistent with our free governments or the genius of the people.
While our own free constitution secures liberty of conscience and freedom of religious worship to all, it is not necessary to maintain that any man should have the right publicly to vilify the religion of his neighbors and of the country; these two privileges are directly opposed.
The Supreme Court of the State of South Carolina in 1846 in the case of City of Charleston V S.A. Benjamin cites an individual who broke the Ordinance that stated: "No Person or persons whatsoever shall publicly expose to sale, or sell... any goods, wares or merchandise whatsoever upon the Lord's day." The court convicted the man and came to the conclusion: "I agree fully to what is beautifully and appropriately said in Updengraph V The Commonwealth.... Christianity, general Christianity, is an always has been, a part of the common law; "not Christianity with an established church... but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men."
"The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests."President Andrew Jackson
"Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. And it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers." First Chief Justice of Supreme Court John Jay
"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court
"Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating [removing] Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools."Benjamin Rush
"It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God."President John Quincy Adams
"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were.... the general principles of Christianity."President John Quincy Adams
"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."Patrick Henry
"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and His Apostles.... This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government."Noah Webster
"Whether this [new government] will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation [Proverbs 14:34]. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this, and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself and encourage it in others."Patrick Henry
"I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth -- God Governs in the Affairs of Men, And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, Is it possible that an empire can rise without His aid?"Benjamin Franklin
"Except the Lord build the house, They labor in vain who build it." "I firmly believe this."Benjamin Franklin, 1787, Constitutional Convention
"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being, who rules over the universe, who presides in the council of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States.." "...Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency" From President George Washington's Inaugural Address, April 30th, 1789, addressed to both Houses of Congress.
President Washingtons Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1789
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible"President George Washington, September 17th, 1796
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports . . . And let us indulge with caution the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail to the exclusion of religious principle." President George Washington
"...The Smiles of Heaven can never be expected On a Nation that disregards the eternal rules of Order and Right, which Heaven Itself Ordained."President George Washington
It is hoped that by God's assistance, some of the continents in the Ocean will be discovered....for the Glory of God. Christopher Columbus
The Mayflower Compact, November 11th, 1620
"All persons living in this province, who confess and acknowledge the One Almighty and Eternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and that hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall in no wise be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion or practice, in matters of faith and worship; nor shall they be compelled at any time to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever." April 25, 1662- William Penn signed this to establish religious liberty in the new provence of (Pennsylvania).
Excerpts from the Declaration to take up arms, July 6th, 1775
Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.","Give me liberty or give me death."Patrick Henry of the Constitutional Convention
"A general dissolution of Principles and Manners will more surely overthrow the Liberties of America than the whole Force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader . . . If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security."Samuel Adams, 1779
"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next." Abraham Lincoln.
"The only assurance of our nation's safety is to lay our foundation in morality and religion."Abraham Lincoln.
"Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty" Abraham Lincoln.
"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state.President Harry S. Truman.
Lynn and friends practice the separation of church and mind.
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