JUDGE BARS TAX-FUNDED RELIGIOUS JAIL PROJECT

A federal judge ruled yesterday that Charles Colson's Prison
Fellowship Ministries and the state of Iowa violated the Constitution
by setting up a government-funded program to rehabilitate prison
inmates by immersing them in Christianity.

The case, brought by the Washington-based advocacy group Americans
United for Separation of Church and State, has been widely viewed as
a major challenge to President Bush's faith-based initiative, the
White House's effort to deliver more government funding to religious
groups that provide social services, particularly in prisons.

In a 140-page decision, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Pratt ruled
that the InnerChange Freedom Initiative program at Iowa's Newton
Correctional Facility violated the constitutional ban on government
establishment of religion because it was state-funded, pervasively
sectarian and aimed at religious conversion.

"The overtly religious atmosphere of the InnerChange program is not
simply an overlay or secondary effect of the program -- it is the
program," Pratt wrote. Based on testimony at a two-week trial last
fall, he concluded that inmates who voluntarily entered the program
received significant benefits, including better living conditions,
and that the prison did not offer any alternative secular or
non-Christian program.

"Though an inmate could, theoretically, graduate from InnerChange
without converting to Christianity, the coercive nature of the
program demands obedience to its dogmas and doctrine," the decision said.

The judge ordered Iowa's Department of Corrections to disband the
religious program within 60 days, and he directed Prison Fellowship
Ministries to pay back at least $1.5 million that it has received
from the state since the program began in 1999. But he also stayed
both rulings pending the outcome of an expected appeal.

Although the ruling does not set a precedent for courts in other
jurisdictions, lawyers on both sides agreed that the judge's logic,
if applied nationwide, would invalidate many similar prison programs
and deal a sharp blow to elements of the president's faith-based initiative.

"If the reasoning of this decision is held to apply in future cases,
there is no way you can use government funds for so-called
'transformational' programs that are really saying, 'To deal with
your sins you have to embrace Jesus,' " said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn,
executive director of Americans United. "In the distance, one can
hear the bells tolling deep trouble for the faith-based initiative."

White House officials did not immediately return calls seeking
comment last night.

Former Virginia attorney general Mark Earley, who is now president of
Prison Fellowship Ministries, said he was still evaluating the
ruling, issued at 5:45 p.m.

"Not only is it a disappointing decision, but at first blush it's an
extreme and bizarre decision," he said. "He seems to be saying that
our program could not occur within prison walls even if it were
entirely privately funded, and if that's the case, it calls into
question a lot of the religious programs in prisons today."