WASHINGTON (ABP) — A church-state watchdog group says the Kentucky Supreme Court should strike down a $10 million state appropriation to build a pharmacy school at Baptist-owned University of the Cumberlands, claiming it uses taxpayer funds to advance a particular religion.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a friend-of-the-court brief March 31 urging the commonwealth's high court to uphold a March 2008 ruling by a special judge that the funding constitutes "a direct payment to a non-public religious school for educational purposes." Such payments, the judge concluded, are not permitted by the Kentucky Constitution.
The AU brief traces the development of the doctrine of church-state separation in the United States in general and Kentucky in particular. It says the Kentucky Constitution is "clear and unambiguous" that government cannot show preference to religious institutions or appropriate public funds for educational purposes at private religious schools.
"The Kentucky Constitution is clear on this matter," said AU Executive Director Barry Lynn. "Tax money may not be used to subsidize religious schools. We expect the court to uphold that important principle."
Formerly called Cumberland College, the University of the Cumberlands is affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Founded by Baptist ministers in 1889, the school has historically served students primarily from the collective mountain regions of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio and Alabama traditionally known as Appalachia.
In 2006 Kentucky's General Assembly appropriated funds to begin a school of pharmacy there, so students from the area wouldn't have to travel as far to get a pharmacological education. Legislators reasoned the action would also make it more likely they would remain close to home to pursue their careers.
The idea quickly lost popularity with some lawmakers, however, after the school kicked out a student for moral misconduct after he posted on a social-networking site that he was gay and dating a student at another school.
Sen. Ernesto Scorsone, D.-Lexington, an openly homosexual member of the General Assembly, said unless funding for the pharmacy school is stopped, "We will have a state benefit that is only available to heterosexuals."
Cumberlands President Jim Taylor responded with a statement saying students know before they come to the university they are expected to maintain different standards than in society in general.
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"University of the Cumberlands isn't for everyone," Taylor said. "We are different by design and are non-apologetic about our Christian beliefs."
Proponents of the funding argue it is constitutional to grant tax dollars to religious organizations as long as they are intended for the health and welfare of all citizens.
The AU brief, however, contends that the proposed funding would constitute an "educational" benefit going directly to the university and its students, which the commonwealth's charter forbids, as opposed to a "public health" benefit like a hospital, which is open to anyone.
The University of the Cumberlands describes its mission as producing "men and women with Christian values."
One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging funding for the pharmacy school is Paul Simmons, a Baptist minister and president of the Americans United board of trustees
Simmons, former longtime professor of Christian ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Associated Baptist Press that some of the people pushing for the pharmacy school also support recent "conscience" laws enacted in some states that allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth-control pills to women on moral grounds.
Simmons said such measures particularly affect reproductive choices of poor women, who are less likely to be able to go somewhere else if their pharmacist refuses to fill their prescription.
Currently clinical professor of ethics and professionalism at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, Simmons pointed out in an article for the Oates Journal that such protections apply to all oral contraceptives and not just those designed to abort an embryo after fertilization.
Simmons said that means if a woman believes there is nothing morally wrong with contraception but goes to a pharmacist who disagrees on theological grounds, the pharmacist has power to trump her individual conscience.
"It is unjust to force any woman to live by another person's religious beliefs and moral judgments regarding procreative decisions," Simmons said in his paper.
Recent guests at University of the Cumberlands include the so-called "Ten Commandments Judge," former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who spoke at a "moral leadership" program in 2006, and former Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.), the only person ever to give keynote speeches at both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, for a "patriotic leadership" event in 2007.
The university's non-discrimination policy includes "race, color, nationality, ethnic origin, sex, age or handicap." That could become another issue if a future pharmacy school were to seek accreditation. The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education amended its standards in 2007 to add sexual orientation to discrimination guidelines.
–Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Related ABP stories:
Despite lawsuit, Ky. governor holds funds in gay student case (4/25/2006)
Gay student’s expulsion spawns uproar at Kentucky Baptist school (4/11/2006)
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