A judge in Iowa ruled that a program for inmates in the Newton Correctional Facility was a Bible-based prison program that violated the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause by using state funds to promote Christianity to inmates.
Prison Fellowship Ministries was sued in 2003 by Americans United for Separation of Church and State led by Rev. Barry Lynn.
The judge ruled that the Iowa program advanced evangelical Christianity at the expense of other religions and the non-religious with special perks for inmate participants and it used state tax money to do it.