wfn.org | Georgia children's home settles lawsuit; questions remain

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Nov. 17,  2003 News media contact: Linda Green7(615) 742-54707Nashville,
Tenn. 7 E-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org7  ALL{562}

By Alice M. Smith*

ATLANTA (UMNS) - The United Methodist Children's Home has settled a lawsuit
in which it had been charged with discrimination and violating the state
constitution by denying non-Christians the right to work at the home.

The home, operated by the denomination's North Georgia Annual (regional)
Conference, settled its lawsuit out of court Oct. 30, about three weeks after
the Georgia Department of Human Resources settled its lawsuit with the same
plaintiffs Oct. 9. 

The home's directors have not decided whether to continue accepting children
from the state. However, if it continues its relationship with the state, the
home will no longer base hiring decisions on an applicant's religious
background except in limited cases that are spelled out in the settlement.

The settlement with Aimee Bellmore, a former employee at the home who claims
she was fired because she is a lesbian, and Alan Yorker, a therapist who says
he was denied employment at the home because he is Jewish, includes an
undisclosed amount of money.  

However, the Rev. Richard Puckett, director of development for the Atlanta
children's home, says the amount of the settlement is much less than the
legal fees would have cost if the lawsuit had continued, and the money paid
to the plaintiffs is not coming out of the home's funds.

"If we choose to continue to take state children, we cannot discriminate in
hiring on the basis of religion, except with respect to the hiring or
appointment of any positions serving a primarily spiritual, ministerial or
religious purpose," wrote Beverly O. Cochran Jr., administrator, and Puckett
in a letter to North Georgia pastors.

The final decision on whether the home will continue taking state children
will be made by the home's board of directors after the state has issued its
new regulations and contracts, which could take up to 12 months, Puckett
said.

Nevertheless, Cochran said no matter what the state regulations and the
home's response, the agency will continue to care for children who have been
neglected or abused.

"We've been serving kids and families since 1871, helping to ease their pains
that basically have resulted from inadequate family relationships and abuse,"
he said.  "We simply are going to continue to do this into the long-term
future.  We are going to continue to maintain a strong spiritual presence on
campus, and we're going to do this by employing the best people we can."

Although the home's current policy excludes the hiring of non-Christians, a
board decision in the spring of 2002 - before the lawsuit was filed in July
2002 - allows the hiring of gays and lesbians.	However, they must be
celibate and must sign the same agreement that all employees must sign on the
matter of sexuality. The policy quotes from Paragraph 161 of the United
Methodist Book of Discipline and states that individuals should not engage in
a sexual relationship outside of marriage. The home's policy also prohibits
sexual harassment and sexual contact between staff and the children, and it
concludes, "Violations of the above mentioned shall be grounds for immediate
termination from employment."

The state did not consult with the children's home in its settlement of the
lawsuit, and was willing to settle largely because of the Blaine amendment to
Georgia's constitution, according to Puckett and Cochran's letter.

"The Blaine amendment was enacted in Georgia and 36 other states in the 19th
century as an anti-Catholic law designed to keep state funds from going to
Catholic parochial schools," Cochran and Puckett wrote. "Arguably, the
amendment also applies more broadly to any church-related agency or
program--children's homes, schools, hospitals, urban programs and more.

"For many years, the state has construed the Blaine amendment narrowly and
has continued to contract with faith-based programs such as the United
Methodist Children's Home. However, this lawsuit brought the issue to
prominence and resulted in a settlement that preserves the state's right to
contract with faith-based service providers."

In addition to not being able to restrict hiring to Christians, the home must
also consider a state restriction that would prohibit the administration from
requiring children in its care to attend services on Sunday morning.
Currently, the home takes children who are Christian, or who do not claim any
religion, to United Methodist churches on Sunday.  Children of other
religions are allowed to worship with their own faith communities.

If the homes remain under the control of the state, children would still be
taken to church if they choose, but they would not be required to attend.
Yet, the home is confident it can design a religious program that would be so
attractive the youth at the home would want to participate, officials said.
Furthermore, the spiritual life on campus would continue to be specifically
Christian and would be overseen by an ordained minister.

Currently, about 160 youth are in the home's residential programs, with more
than 90 percent placed there by the state. State contracts account for 57
percent of the home's operating budget. The state pays a per-diem amount for
every child in its custody who is placed at the home.

If the home should decide not to continue accepting children from the state,
it would lose state revenue, but the more important issue is what would
happen to the children - those who have been abused or neglected to such an
extent the state has taken over their care.

"The problem is not the money," Puckett said. "Even if the churches were able
to pick up the difference in money, it's the children we wouldn't get from
the state. The great majority of children in crisis come through the state
system. That's what we would lose if we did not do business with the state."

In such a situation, some children might remain in dangerous home situations,
or they could be forced out on the streets, or placed with secular agencies
with no religious life at all.

The decision whether to abide by the state's new policy is one that all
religious agencies that receive state funding will have to make. 

Cochran said about 1,300 to 1,500 children live in religious-affiliated
residential programs across Georgia.

In the meantime, settlement of the lawsuit will "let us get back to focusing
on ministry to children and their families in a way that we had previously,"
Puckett said. "The lawsuit has detracted from our ability to move forward in
several ways."

The home's staff and others will watch closely efforts by Georgia Gov. Sonny
Perdue to add a clause to the Blaine amendment that would bring Georgia into
line with federal government policies that do permit religious agencies to
hire only people of their own faith.

The proposed amendment, however, faces some big hurdles, including passage by
two-thirds of both houses of the Georgia General Assembly and approval by
voters in a statewide referendum.

# # #

*Smith is editor of the Wesleyan Christian Advocate, the newspaper of the
North and South Georgia annual conferences.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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