A national atheist group aimed at maintaining separation of church and state filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Indiana's social services agency, saying a $60,000 per year chaplain position violates the U.S. and state constitutions.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is asking the federal courts to prohibit the Family and Social Services Administration from continuing to fund the position.
The Rev. Michael Latham, a Baptist minister from Fort Wayne, was hired in March 2006 to counsel FSSA employees and create a statewide network of chaplains to help employees and encourage faith-based community involvement.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Wisconsin, is the nation's largest association of atheists and agnostics committed to state-church separation, with more than 10,000 members, said co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.
The group's suit was filed on behalf of four Hoosier members: Craig Gosling, Sean O'Brien, Diana O'Brien and John Kiel, all of Indianapolis.
The establishment of a Christian chaplain position favors one religion over another and is an affront, Kiel said. "I find it to be a violation of the principle of the separation of the state and the church.''
Kiel said he has been a longtime member of the foundation because as a secular humanist and an atheist, he supports the group's mission of taking legal action to ensure state-church separation.
The lawsuit cites the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and sections of the Indiana Constitution that say "no preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship'' and that "no religious test shall be required, as a qualification for any office of trust or profit.''
The Indiana Constitution also says "no money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.''
FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob said there is a long tradition of tax-paid chaplains at the local, state and federal levels of government, and that no FSSA employees are required to turn to Latham. Secular counseling is available through the agency's Employee Assistance Program, he said.
"God is part of an enormous number of Americans' beliefs in a higher being,'' Roob said, and Latham is available to employees who share that belief.
Gaylor said it is irrelevant that seeking Latham's services is optional. Violation of the church-state separation doesn't require proof of coercion, she said.
The implication to employees is a "preferential message,'' she said, suggesting FSSA prefers they seek help from a Christian minister.
Kenneth Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, declined to comment on the lawsuit because he had not seen it.
When he was asked about Latham's hiring about a year ago, Falk said the position probably would not create any constitutional issues. He said Wednesday he had not read the job description and didn't want to comment until he had done so.
Jane Jankowski, spokeswoman for Gov. Mitch Daniels, said she is not aware of other state agencies with chaplains on the payroll for a job comparable to Latham's. The Indiana State Police and the Department of Correction employ chaplains to work with inmates and victims, but they also are available to employees.
The job description is the key difference, Gaylor said. Latham's job is focused on being available to employees.
The job "advances religion as its principal effect, and it fosters an excessive entanglement between church and state,'' the lawsuit alleges.