Drug Rehab Programs
Is religious drug rehab constitutional? The American Jewish Congress filed a brief in support of a petition for writ of certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to consider the case of a man forced to participate in a religious drug rehabilitation program in order to avoid incarceration and a criminal record. In Hanas v. Michigan, Joseph Hanas was required to attend a Pentacostalist religious drug rehabilitation program under the direct authority of the court that handled the criminal allegations against him. The program mandated Hanas to stay away from his own Catholic church and its clergy.
Marc D. Stern, counsel for the AJC, wrote in the brief: "The ban on coerced participation in a religious activity lies at the very core of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution." The brief points out that Hanas "is a textbook case of governmental power being deployed, as Supreme Court Justice [Anthony] Kennedy has phrased it, to 'further the interest of religion through the coercive power of government.'
"Congress, too, understands that as a matter of constitutional first principles it may not coerce unwilling citizens to participate in social service programs in which religion is an essential element," and therefore has insisted that, in "faith-based" social services, "no person be coerced to participate in religious activities or programs."
"One of the most basic precepts of church-state relations in the United States is that religious choices are voluntary--not coerced by government," states Paul S. Miller, president of the AJC, who also was a member of the New York State Commission on Drugs and the Courts. "The Michigan courts have turned a blind eye to that principal. It is absolutely imperative that the U.S. Supreme Court vindicate it in this case."
Because drug courts (presently numbering at least 1,100 and growing) are a nationwide phenomenon of increasing importance, the petition stresses the urgency of having the Supreme Court decide whether the discretionary authority invested in such courts "may be exercised in what would appear to be a violation of the Constitution."
Neil Goldstein, the American Jewish Congress' executive director, adds: "We must resist the temptation to see this case as one of limited interest or of applying to only a small number of drug users. The issues involved are of the greatest urgency in protecting the religious liberty of all Americans."
COPYRIGHT 2005 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
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