Religious freedom is at the center of a dispute between the state and a Baptist children's home that requires state foster children to attend Sunday morning church services.
At the Tennessee Baptist Children's Home, spiritual growth and Baptist church attendance are at the core of its mission, said Bryant Millsaps, president of the children's home and a former Tennessee secretary of state.
But a new state contract says that if the Baptist home wants to continue to care for children in state custody, it cannot infringe on their right to religious freedom.
''We cannot agree not to have our children, when they're able, to be in church. That's what families do,'' Millsaps said.
The home has a campus in Brentwood and nine others across Tennessee.
''We believe a critical part of our success in transforming and bringing healing into the lives of children who have been abused, abandoned and neglected has been from introducing them to a Christian model of what home is, and part of that is to worship together,'' Millsaps said.
The state Department of Children's Services says the home has to give children a choice.
''To us, it's a basic constitutional right for our children to have a voice if they want to attend and where they want to attend,'' said Carla Aaron, a DCS spokeswoman.
State Rep. Diane Black, R-Gallatin, asked Millsaps to explain his plight to a House committee earlier this week because she wants DCS to continue sending children to the Baptist home.
''If we have a safe, wholesome environment that doesn't cost the state any money, we certainly need to find a way to use them,'' Black said. ''This home has done a wonderful job. They have spaces and we don't have places for our children to go.''
Black does not believe the home should have to abandon its mission to keep foster children for the state.
''Of course, if you have a 14-year-old Buddhist, we're not going to send them to the Baptist home,'' she said. ''But if that child and family is agreeable to a faith-based atmosphere, we need to use them.''
Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, said placing state children in a place where Baptist church attendance is mandatory violates separation of church and state.
''I think it's wonderful they have quality programs and spaces available, because there's no question the state needs those kinds of placements, but the key is there can't be strings attached.''
The home has never taken taxpayer money in its 113-year history, instead being funded by Baptist churches, Millsaps said. Because the home took no state funds, it operated without a state contract.
That has changed under a federal court order, called the Brian A. settlement, which requires contracts with the Baptist home and all other agencies DCS uses. Even foster parents are required to sign contracts saying they will not infringe on a child's religious freedoms, Aaron said.
Two years ago, the Baptist homes' 10 campuses had a total of about 40 foster children from the state, Millsaps said. That number is down to 12 today as the state has moved away from institutionalizing children, preferring to place them in more family-like settings in foster homes, as a condition of the Brian A. settlement, Aaron said.
DCS hopes to work out a plan with the Baptist homes to send children there who need more intensive treatment, which could be permitted under the court order, Aaron said.
It's not clear, however, if DCS can reach agreement with Millsaps over the church attendance requirement.
The Baptist homes provide care to children in state custody, as well as referrals from pastors, judges and others, Millsaps said.
Tabitha Dyer, 18, a senior at Brentwood High School, has lived at the Baptist Home campus on Franklin Road for eight years and defended its family setting and church requirement. She is not in state custody.
''I really love it here,'' said Dyer, who lives with five other teenagers in one of the campus cottages with her house parents, the Dyers, who are not related to her.
Without the home, Dyer said, she doubted she would be on track to graduate from high school and attend MTSU, where she has been accepted in its music industry program next year.
With her family from the cottage, she attends Judson Baptist Church. She even went on a weeklong church mission trip last summer to Toluca, Mexico, that she says was a ''life-changing experience.''
''I think it's a great thing,'' she said about going to church. ''When you go to school, some kids get ridiculed for living at the (Baptist) home. It's good to have church friends who support you and are behind you.''