Congressional Earmarks Challenged On Church-State Grounds

In a letter (full text) sent last week to the Attorney General and to the Labor, HUD and Education secretaries, Americans United identified ten Congressional funding earmarks for fiscal 2010 that it says raise church-state issues. AU contends that the recipient organizations in each case "are pervasively sectarian, engage in substantial religious activities such as teaching or proselytization, engage in religious discrimination in service provision, and/or coerce service recipients to take part in religious activities." The letter asks each department to review the grants, impose adequate church-state restrictions or, if that is impossible, refrain from funding the earmarks. In a release announcing the letter, AU executive director Rev. Barry Lynn said: "Religious pork is bad for America’s constitutional health." Nine of the challenged grants are to Christian organizations; one is to a Jewish school.