Plaintiffs and the commonwealth of Kentucky have submitted their final settlement agreement in a long-running federal lawsuit involving a Kentucky Baptist children’s agency.
But the agency, Sunrise Children’s Services, has filed lengthy documents calling instead for U.S. District Judge Charles Simpson to toss out the case entirely, calling the settlement discriminatory against the agency and Southern Baptists in general.
The commonwealth and the plaintiffs — three Protestant ministers and a former Baptist homes employee who was fired for being a lesbian — earlier this year agreed to settle their lawsuit, which centered on their contention that the Baptist agency was using state dollars to proselytize and impose their religion on children in their care. The lawsuit has been pending since 2000.
Sunrise — formerly Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children — operates group homes for at-risk youths and provides foster-home placements.
The agreement would require the state to inform parents of the religious affiliation of any children’s agency working under contract with the state that their children might be referred to — and to seek alternative placements where possible if the parents object. It also calls for monitoring such as exit interviews with children to determine if any religious coercion takes place.
The agreement singles out Sunrise for extra scrutiny and documentation for the next seven years.
And that, Sunrise attorney John Sheller said in the agency’s legal response to the settlement, unfairly stigmatizes it. It also puts it at a competitive disadvantage with other agencies and gives it a lack of finality in the case, making it in effect a “consent decree” without Sunrise’s consent, Sheller wrote.
The plaintiffs in the case brought documentary evidence of non-Baptist children in Sunrise homes who said they faced religious coercion, but Sunrise’s brief so no such claims have been proven at trial. But despite the “glaring absence of any proof,” Sheller wrote, the agreement would make it seem to “a reasonable observer that Sunrise infringed upon the religious freedoms of the children entrusted to its care.”
The agreement doesn’t require the state to document other faith-based providers as thoroughly as Sunrise, so the state would be “officially preferring all other religions
and (and non-religions) over the Southern Baptist denomination, in violation of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment,” Sheller wrote.
Sheller added: “The only plausible justification for this unequal treatment is that the Commonwealth Defendants agree with Plaintiffs that Sunrise’s affiliation with the Kentucky Baptist Convention, and with Southern Baptists more generally, renders it inherently suspect and deserving of special monitoring.”
Sunrise has longstanding ties with the Kentucky Baptist Convention, the state affiliate of the national Southern Baptist Convention.
But the plaintiffs cited an earlier ruling by the court on the preliminary settlement, saying the settlement itself wouldn’t impose any burdens on Sunrise. Rather, it requires the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services to set up new regulations for providers — and Sunrise could then decide whether to apply or not.
But Sunrise said it faces a “Hobson’s choice” of either to accept the conditions or to lose more than 60 percent of its total funding, lay off workers, close facilities and slash services.
Alex Luchenitser, associate legal director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs, said he was optimistic the judge would accept the settlement:
“We think this agreement will protect the rights of children and taxpayers in Kentucky and will ensure that children’s religious rights are respected and taxpayers’ funds aren’t used to support religious indoctrination of vulnerable youth,” he said.
The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for Western Kentucky. The plaintiffs include former Baptist homes employee Alicia Pedreira and the Revs. Johanna W.H. Van Wijk-Bos (Presbyterian), Paul Simmons (Baptist) and Elwood Sturtevant (Unitarian Universalist). The plaintiffs are also represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.
