FFRF v. Faith Works (2002)
Court Decisions on Religious Liberty
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Background Information
Faith Works was a "faith based" program providing long-term residential treatment to male drug and alcohol addicts in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It started operating on December 6, 1999, and eventually came to receive about two-thirds of its funding from the Wisconsin state government.
Because it was "faith based," religious dedication was an important aspect for both employees and clients. Staff, for example, were expected to attend church every week and "develop a personal relationship with God." The Faith Works Standards of Practice included staff guidelines such as:
We are a Christian faith-based treatment center. This means all staff is to serve as Jesus served; with compassion, concern and love for all persons, regardless of race, creed, background or whatever sins a person is struggling to overcome through this program.
We are serving the Lord in evangelistic outreach and will respect the Holy Spirit's ability to work in each person's life whether staff or resident. We need to be mature in our faith and work habits in order to be truly able to be witnesses to the Lord and His Grace.
Those being treated also could not escape the "faith" aspects of this program - indeed, when asking for government money, the program stressed the "faith" component as being critical to its success. Thus, according to their own literature, the program worked when and because patients worked on their sprituality and relationship with God. Their version of the Alcoholic's Anonymous (AA) twelve-step program, for example, was mandatory for program involvement and made much more explicit reference to God.
Robert Polito, a former executive director, admitted that while most people have no religious faith on entering the program, most did have an active religious faith once they leave. According to the program's statement of faith:
The essence of this ministry is to develop a community of believers that would foster rigorous honesty; first with God, second with oneself and third with the Body of Christ. We believe that if a person can approach his relationship with the Lord with brutal honesty, he can begin to be honest with himself. When a person is honest with God and oneself he can develop relationships with other believers, which is a tremendous source of God's grace and healing. It is our experience that the two most common hindrances to an effective ministry are denial and fear. "Perfect love casts out all fear." 1 John 4:18.
The addict learns that he had a deep "soul sickness," and it is only by connecting to God through profession, confession, prayer and involvement in a worshipping community that he has any hope of sustaining a life in recovery. AA teaches this but stops short of recommending Christ to all. However, at Faith Works we do.
Court Decision
The public funding of this program was challenged in U.S. District Court by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). The plaintiffs argued that the state government had no business in providing public money for such religious evangelization.
The judge in this case, Barbara B. Crabb, used the following criteria to determine whether or not government involvement was constitutional: (1) it has a secular purpose; (2) it does not result in governmental indoctrination; (3) it does not define its participants by reference to religion; and (4) it does not create excessive entanglement.
There was no violation under the first test, because the purpose of providing drug treatment and counseling is obviously secular in nature and a valid governmental interest. There was also no violation under the third test because participants of any religious faith, or even of no religious faith, were permitted to attend. Finally, there was no violation under the test of "excessive entanglement" because it was not demonstrated that there needed to be an unusual amount of governmental monitoring of the program.
This only left the question of governmental indoctrination, and here the judge found the public funding of the program to be a problem. First, the presence of indoctrination was found to be overwhelming and unquestionable, as demonstrated in the various quotes above. Second, the Faith Works argument that their religious and secular components could be separated was flatly rejected. The program was found to be "pervasively sectarian":
Defendants neglect to point out that they used the integration of religion into Faith Works' recovery model as a strong selling point for obtaining funding. The governor chose to fund Faith Works from his discretionary funds because of its unique holistic recovery model and the extended length of the program. Faith Works won the Department of Corrections grant in part because of its unique long-term, faith-based approach to drug treatment. Faith Works cannot now try to excise religion from its offerings, saying that it contracted with the state to provide the wholly secular services of room and board without any reference to religion. This assertion rings hollow in light of the literature Faith Works provided the state. Taking into consideration Faith Works' daily activities as well as its faith-based approach to drug treatment, I conclude that the Faith Works program indoctrinates its participants in religion, primarily through its counselors.
However, just because the program is an attempt at religious indoctrination does not automatically that this should be attributed to the government. For this, it must be shown that the activities are supported by direct and unrestricted government funding - and this is exactly what the court found. One problem, for example, is the fact that participants are not at liberty to choose the counseling program on their own - this decision is made by the government.
Significance
Once again, direct government funding of religious indoctrination and religious programs was found to be unconstitutional. Left open, however, was the possibility that indirect government funding of the exact same programs would be permitted - an example of this would be school vouchers. How this argument eventually turns out will be interesting to see.
Just as important was the rejection of the argument, often heard by those who support government funding of "faith based" programs that the failure to support them right along with secular programs is a form of unconstitutional discrimination. According to this view, government funding of any program through private organizations constitutes the creation of a "public forum." Thus, the government cannot regulate who can and cannot participate based upon content.
The traditional context for such a "public forum" is the town square. If the government allows some people to gather there and exercise their rights to free speech, the government cannot then restrict other people or groups simply because the content of their speech is unpopular. Once some are allowed in, all must be allowed in - content regulations are prohibited. But is government funding of social programs an analogous act? Judge Crabb found that they are not, arguing that government funding for government programs is not the same as government funding designed to foster public discourse and a variety of viewpoints.
The government's appropriation of funds to advance, communicate and deliver its own policy amounts to governmental speech and "it is entitled to say what it wishes." ...Furthermore, when the government "appropriates public funds to establish a program, it is entitled to define the limits of that program."
This decision also rejected the common argument that a lack of governmental subsidies constitutes a violation of people's right to Free Exercise of their religion. Participants in secular drug treatment programs are not required to stop being religious, are not required to give up their faith, and are not prevented from seeking spiritual counseling elsewhere.
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