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The New York Times
North Dakota Is Sued
in Church-State Case
By NEELA BANERJEE,
nytimes.com on the Web, June 21, 2007
A group that advocates strict
separation of church and state has sued North Dakota to bar public financing of
an association that provides therapeutic and rehabilitative services for
troubled youth by steeping them in Christian teachings, Bible readings,
religious services and rituals.
The complaint was brought Tuesday in a federal court in North Dakota by the
Freedom From Religion Foundation, acting on behalf of three of the state’s
taxpayers. It is the most recent in a spate of legal challenges to public
financing of religion-based programs.
The foundation, a group of atheists and agnostics, argues that the state’s
Division of Juvenile Services and the Ward County Social Services Department
should stop committing children with behavioral and emotional problems to the
Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, which, according to the ranch’s Web site, helps
“children and families succeed in the name of Christ.” The ranch —
actually an association that provides a variety of residential and day programs
around the state — and directors of the two government agencies are named as
defendants.
The complaint says that “children are disciplined for refusing to participate in
the spiritual aspects” of their therapy and that objectionable behavior is
deemed a “corruption in the eyes of Jesus Christ.”
“This is much more troubling than other cases,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor,
co-president of the foundation, “because it is a captive audience and a
vulnerable population that is unabashedly being indoctrinated in Christianity.
They are being committed by the county or the state without their consent.”
The ranch is affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the country’s two main Lutheran
denominations. Its president, Gene D. Kaseman, declined to comment.
Lisa Bjergaard, director of the Division of Juvenile Services, said that she had
not seen the complaint but that the ranch did not coerce children into
practicing Christianity.
“It’s kind of mysterious to me why they would file the lawsuit,” Ms. Bjergaard
said. “Kids can attend church service if they want, but they aren’t forced
to.”
The ranch has provided social services since 1952 and currently serves 124
children in its residential programs and 90 in its day programs, its Web site
says. Non-Christian youth may practice their faith off campus, according
to the Web site, but the environment on campus is entirely Christian.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision this month in another case
brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The question in that case
is whether private citizens may challenge in court the activities of the White
House office in charge of the Bush administration’s religion-based initiatives.
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