AID TO DRUG PROGRAM FOUGHT

Suit Says State Violates First Amendment By Funding Religious Group's
Anti-addiction Project.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation claimed in a federal lawsuit Thursday
that the state is violating the First Amendment in funding a religious
organization that helps drug-addicted fathers.

The Madison-based foundation said the state is wrongly giving about
$675,000 to Faith Works Milwaukee, which uses a religious approach to help
fathers kick their drug and alcohol habits, get jobs and become part of
their children's lives.

The organization, which started in December 1999, operates a residential
treatment facility for a maximum of 35 men in the Queen of Apostles Convent
in Milwaukee.

The group's promotional brochure says it uses religion to achieve "a
transformation of the heart and soul as part of the healing process."

"I'm a Christian. I take my lead from Jesus," the group's director, Bobby
Polito said in a July newspaper story about Faith Works.

Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush visited Faith Works in
July and described the project as "exactly the kind of program that I
envision."

According to the lawsuit, Bush's supporter, GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson,
decided to spend state money on the project after meeting last spring with
the Rev. Susan Vergeront, a Faith Works organizer and a former Republican
state legislator.

Thompson decided to allocate $600,000 from the state's Welfare to Work
program to Faith Works through next year. The governor has the discretion
to direct 15 percent of the welfare program's budget to projects he prefers.

In addition, the state Department of Corrections has agreed to give Faith
Works at least another $75,000 to work with people the department supervises.

The organization relies on government money for about two-thirds of its
$700,000 annual budget.

The lawsuit says the state funding violates the state and federal
constitutions "because funds are given directly to a pervasively sectarian
organization and the funds are used directly to pay for explicitly
Christian programs designed to indoctrinate clients in the Christian faith."

But Thompson's spokesman, Tony Jewell, said Faith Works is needed and
constitutional.

"The governor's confident that this program meets federal and state
constitutional requirements," Jewell said. "This program is working. It's
helping save men's lives. We need more programs like this. We need to spend
more time helping men and less time in court."

The lawsuit, which was assigned to U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, asks
for an order barring the state from funding Faith Works and other
religion-based social service providers.