CINCINNATI (ABP) — Two civil-liberties groups are asking a federal appeals court to stop state funding for a Kentucky Baptist agency, saying the agency uses the money to promote its religious beliefs to the detriment of employees and children.
On July 17, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union asked the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take another look at Pedreira v. Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children, Inc.
In the suit, which a lower federal court dismissed in March, a group of Kentucky taxpayers asked that state funding for the agency (which has since changed its name to Sunrise Children's Services) be halted. Like many of the dozens of child-care agencies affiliated with state Baptist conventions, Sunrise has long contracted with Kentucky officials to house and care for children who have been taken into state custody.
The agency "uses its public funding to indoctrinate youths — who are wards of the state — in its religious views, coerce them to take part in religious activity, and convert them to its version of Christianity, and does so in part by requiring its employees to reflect its religious beliefs in their behavior," the plaintiffs' brief to the 6th Circuit states.
The lead plaintiff is Alicia Pedreira, who was fired from her job with the agency in 1998 after her employers discovered that she was a lesbian. She had gotten positive performance reviews prior to her termination.
"This case illustrates the all-too-real dangers of the government funding religious organizations without adequate safeguards," said Ken Chloe, an ACLU attorney, in a statement. "The Constitution's promise of religious freedom guarantees that the government won't preference one form of religion over another. Yet that's exactly what happened to Alicia Pedreira, who was fired because she didn't conform to the religious beliefs of her government-funded employer."
The plaintiffs' brief also notes a report from an independent Kentucky government contractor charged with monitoring child-care agencies. It said children under the agency's care reported being coerced to attend church services and being barred from attending other faiths' services.
Attorneys for Sunrise have countered that they do not use government funds to coerce or indoctrinate the children in its care.
A spokesperson for the agency said July 22 that it did not have any response to the latest development in the case other than the same arguments asserted to the lower court.
"They have followed their judicial right to appeal, and we continue to stand our ground in terms of our policies and our service to at-risk youth and children in Kentucky," said Karen Taylor, director of communications for Sunrise. "We are unapologetically faith-based [but] we do not coerce our children to believe any one certain way. They certainly are invited to go to church but don't have to go, they are invited to Bible studies but don't have to go — but they're also invited to go do fun things that every kid wants to …. While we've been accused of coercion, it's just not there."
The lower federal court dismissed the suit in March, citing a 2007 Supreme Court decision that limited taxpayers' ability to file suits based on the First Amendment's guarantee against government establishment of religion. While many experts at the time said the decision was very narrow, some federal judges have interpreted it as instituting a broad bar on taxpayer lawsuits against government funding for religion.
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