Judge gives offenders option of church
LONDON, Ky. — A Kentucky judge has been offering some drug and alcohol offenders the option of attending worship services instead of going to jail or rehab — a practice some say violates the separation of church and state.
District Judge Michael Caperton, 50, a devout Christian, said his goal is to “help people and their families.”
“I don’t think there’s a church-state issue, because it’s not mandatory and I say worship services instead of church,” he said.
David Friedman, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said the option raises “serious constitutional problems.”
“The judge is saying that those willing to go to worship services can avoid jail in the same way that those who decline to go cannot,” Friedman said. “That strays from government neutrality towards religion.”
Yeah, ya think? As an atheist, it’s obvious that this isn’t even a subtle government coercion of religion. If I were in his court, my choice would be to lie about my beliefs, violate my conscience, and hypocritically attend a “worship service”, or go to jail for not believing in God.
I wonder what this “devout Christian” judge would consider a “worship service”? Does participation in a Wiccan equinox rite count? How about a satanic goat sacrifice ritual? I’m hoping that Rastafarian or Coptic Christian services count; it would be supreme irony to avoid jail for marijuana by worshipping with those who find “ganja” to be a holy sacrament. Failing that, maybe some Native American worship using peyote as a bridge to the other world would be in order.
Of course, there is some precedent for the judge’s actions. Drug and alcohol addicts are often sentenced to twelve step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, which require deference to a “Higher Power of your understanding”, which is nothing more than old fashioned religion repackaged with more syllables. In scientifically-sound, control-group-modeled statistical studies, twelve step programs have shown no better effectiveness at treating addiction than any other treatment or no treatment at all, yet judges continue to send offenders to these quasi-religious groups because it satisfies a public need to “save a sinner”.
