Settles Lawsuit with ACLU and Americans United Regarding Proselytizing at State-Funded Baptist Children's Home

March 20, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

FRANKFORT, Ky. – The Kentucky state government has agreed to make broad changes in its child-care system to protect children against religious coercion, indoctrination and discrimination in order to settle a decade-long federal lawsuit filed by state taxpayers.

The lawsuit charged that state funds were being used to proselytize children and advance religion at Sunrise Children's Services, a state contractor affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. The lawsuit stated that employees coercively imposed Christianity upon children in its care. Kentucky taxpayers challenging the state were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kentucky, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and Arnold & Porter LLP.

"This strong agreement promotes the basic constitutional principle that taxpayer funds should never be used to underwrite religious indoctrination," said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief.

Under the settlement, child-care agencies that contract with the state will be forbidden to discriminate in any manner against any child based on the child's views about religion or to pressure children to participate in religious worship or instruction. Publicly funded child-care agencies and foster homes across the state also will be barred from placing religious items in children's rooms without their consent, and religious materials will be given only to children who request them.

In addition, prior to placing a child with a religiously affiliated child-care agency or foster home, the state will inform children and parents of the provider's religious affiliation, and if the child or parent objects, the state will endeavor to provide an alternative placement.

"We are pleased with this settlement," said Alex J. Luchenitser, legal director of Americans United. "It will ensure that vulnerable youths in Kentucky's child-care system are free to follow and practice their own faiths, or no faith at all, and that no religion is forced upon them."

As part of the settlement, the state will be required to extensively monitor state-funded child-care agencies to make sure that they are complying with the terms mandated by the settlement and are not imposing religion on the children in their care.

"Young people in need shouldn't have to feel pressured to accept a certain set of beliefs in exchange for help, especially when state funds are involved," said Bill Sharp, staff attorney with the ACLU of Kentucky.

Documents provided to the court showed that the ministry's president has touted Sunrise's success in converting children, that the agency calls itself "Christ centered" and refers to the foster parents it recruits as "in-home missionaries." Documents obtained through the lawsuit revealed that numerous children – including Catholic, Pentecostal, Jehovah's Witness and atheist youths – felt pressured into giving up their beliefs.

Interviews with children conducted by the Children's Review Program, a private contractor hired by Kentucky officials to monitor programs for children, identified numerous instances where young people complained about being forced to attend Baptist services or said they were not permitted to attend services of other faiths. The state cancelled the interview program in 2008, citing budget concerns, but interviews will resume as a result of the settlement agreement.

Since the case began in 2000, the Baptist-affiliated ministry has received more than $100 million in government funds. In its 2011 fiscal year, the state paid $14.8 million of the ministry's expenses of $24.7 million.

Attorneys on the Pedreira legal team include Luchenitser, Americans United Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan; ACLU attorneys Mach, Sharp, and James Esseks; and attorneys David Bergman, Ian Hoffman, and R. Stanton Jones of the law firm Arnold & Porter LLP.

The settlement can be found at: www.aclu.org/hiv-aids-lgbt-rights/pedreira-v-kentucky-baptist-homes-children-settlement-agreement