The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The foundation filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Western Wisconsin in May challenging the constitutionality of single-faith and multi-faith programs in the prisons. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation, said today that the bureau had backed down on its "most egregious constitutional violation" - denominational programs for inmates.

However, although the solicitation for proposals for the single-faith program was canceled in its entirety on Oct. 26, it will be revised and re-announced, according to Billingsley. "I don't know when it will be re-announced," she said. "It is undergoing major revisions."

A statement on the bureau's Web site said: "Due to potential significant changes in the requirements of the bureau, and the programs, it is determined to be in the best interest of the government to cancel" solicitation for the plan.

Supporters of such programs say they give prisoners a solid moral foundation when they return to society. Previous solicitations for the single-faith pilot program say that its purpose is to "reduce recidivism through promoting the virtues of productive work, respect for others, self-worth, responsibility and accountability."

The lawsuit contends that the programs exist to encourage and promote faith. Such activities "violate the fundamental principle of the separation of church and state by using congressional taxpayer appropriations to intentionally support activities that endorse religion," the foundation suit stated.

Gaylor, who had been celebrating the halt to the single-faith program, said today she was surprised by the statement that the program would be redeveloped in some way.

"They are slow learners," she said. "Setting up single-faith programs is certainly not in the best interests of our secular government or of prisoners. They were taking solicitations from vendors to go into five or six federal prisons with taxpayer funding. They said one might be a Roman Catholic and one a Southern Baptist, for instance."

The foundation will have to wait and see if and when a revised program is re-announced, she said, though "whatever they do will be encompassed within the lawsuit."

"We apparently averted the denominational kind of thing, but we know what is going on will be Christian to the hilt," she said. "Secular, practical education is the answer in our prisons, not proselytizing a captive audience of prisoners."

The Bureau of Prisoners' Life Connections Program, instigated by the Department of Justice Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, has been operating since at least 2003, Gaylor said. The multi-faith program operates in at least five federal prisons, she added.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Office of Management and Budget created an atmosphere intended to cause federal agencies to increase contracting with faith-based organizations merely because they are faith-based. The foundation contends that OMB gives a "report card" to each major federal agency based on the extent to which they have disbursed or increased appropriations to faith-based organizations.

The lawsuit seeks an order stopping appropriations for the Life Connections Program, and an order requiring the bureau to establish regulations and oversight to ensure future funded activities do not include religion as a substantive component.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national association of freethinkers, atheists and agnostics that has worked since 1978 to keep church and state separate.
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/index.php?ntid=105288&ntpid=0